Ahhh ITALY

Tyson and I spent 9 days in Europe the second week of May!!! We had the very best time! We flew over to Barcelona Spain and spent two days touring the city. I loved it and it turned out to be one of my favorite stops that we had. There is a street called the La Rambla which has street performers, outside cafes, and yummy gelato shops along it, it was so pretty. We also loved the Guell park, it was designed by a man named Gaudi, he was an architect in Spain that had a strong influence on the city. My other favorite building was the La Famaglia which is a church that Gaudi started back in the 1800's and is still not finished they are guessing that it will be finished around 2028~crazy!

We then boarded our cruise boat and headed to Malta. This country was awesome, it was more mid-evilish. Lots of history, beautiful churches, and we had the yummiest food I have every tasted in my life at one of the sidewalk cafes. The gardens were gorgeous and the views were breathtaking.

Our Next stop was Napels, Italy. We were surprised to find that on our walk to the train station Naples was very dirty. We took the 45min train ride to a city called Pompeii. Back in 79AD this city was covered in ash from the eruption of the volcano that they had built their city next too. In the 1700's archeologists found the city still covered in ash. They were able to uncover so many buildings, it was really cool.
This is Tyson and Lou reinacting the duels that would have been seen in the amphatheatre of Pompeii.

After Pompeii we got back on the train and went down to Sorrento, this was a charming Italian city, so quaint and fun. We had lunch here at a yummy pizza place. We then took a ferry boat ride to the island of Capri. We only had around a half an hour here but it was really fun. We found some really fun necklaces for the girls and I found the best gelato of the our whole trip~it was watermelon~yum! We then got back on the ferry and took it back to Napels where we got back on the cruise ship and were so tired from our fun day of sightseeing.

The next day was Rome. This was my favorite of all our stops. We started with St. Peter's square, and Peter's Basillica. The Basillica was amazing, the architecture and the carvings were incredible. We then headed to the Vatican, it was not what I expected it was more of an art maze than a church to me. We walked through more halls than I can count, we saw amazing art, sculptures, tapestries, furniture and learned so more about Michaelangelo than I would have ever imagined. We finally wandered our way through the maze and made it to the Sistine Chapel, which was really cool. After the vatican we jumped on the subway and made our way to the Spanish steps, we walked through the streets and found the Trevi Fountain, jumped back on the subway and came out to the breathtaking Colessum. This by far was mine and Tyson favorite thing that we saw. It was enormously huge and just awesome (in the literall sense), it only took eight years to build, from 72-80AD. Which is really incredible because its enormous. Tyson listened to the walking tour that they offer and there were some interesting facts, there were more than 100,000 animals killed in the colessum in 5 years. They brought in a whale and filled the Colessum with water. From the colessum we could see the Forum which was amazing. We then got back on the subway and took it to the train station where we boarded a train and took our 1hr and 20min ride in the hot, stinky trains of Italy. (the best expression I heard was from Kristen Seare when she said, I will be glad when we won't be surrounded by the smell of smoke and B-O!)

The next day was Florence, awwwe Florence. This started out being such a nice day, the weather was great we got sprinkled on a little and it was overcast and not hot, which always makes everything prettier I think. We saw the David which was sculpted by Michaelangelo, it was incredible, the detail was phenominal!!! We then went to the Duomo which is a famous church and it was huge and beautiful. After a VERY long lunch (2and1/2 hrs), we shopped for awhile then headed back to the train station, we stopped at Pissa on our way back to the cruise ship. Pissa was my second favorite city even though we only had 35min there. We rushed to the leaning tower of Pissa and took lots of pictures and marveled at the structure, then met up with the rest of our group who had gotten lost and had taken the scenic route to the tower and then we ran back to the train. We had a lot of tender mercies that took place that helped us make our train, such as the train was late and so forth (a good but long story, so maybe another time). But, we all safely made it back to the train and continued our journey back to the cruise ship.

After our big adventure in Pissa where we almost missed our train (which would have meant that we would have missed our boat) and created stress and exhaustian Tyson decided that he had had enough of that kind of excitement and needed a low key day. So we hung back from our big group and explored Nice, France with the Daniels. We took the bus into Nice and then rented scooters and toured old town Nice, we shopped in the fun market places and ate a yummy lunch. This was a short day so we then headed back to our boat and enjoyed a leasuirely afternoon on baord the ship.

We flew home the next morning and arrived home 16hrs later completely exhausted. I have never had jet lag before and let me tell you it is brutal!!!! But, this trip was soooo worth it!!!!