Vatican City

Vatican City is the smallest sovereign nation in the world with a population of 829. It's also certainly the richest nation per capita, but the Vatican does not release it financial information, so no one knows for sure. What is sure is that the Catholic Church has amassed an obscene amount of priceless works of art, likely the most valuable art collection on Earth. For a fee they'll let you look at it. We spent a couple hours touring the Vatican Museums, which include the Sistine Chapel. There are entirely too many people in all the tourist spots of Italy, and the Sistine Chapel is no exception. We stood on the edge of the chapel while uniformed guards continually shouted at people to be quiet. The din of conversation echoed off the five hundred year old frescoes. Every inch of floor space was occupied by chattering tourists. We didn't stay long. We passed through the endless galleries with our audio guides pressed to our ears. We gained an appreciation for Raphael and Botticelli. I liked Caravaggio. I hope when I'm old I gain an appreciation for the great works of art, but for now as I trudge through art museums I feel like I'm on a mandatory class trip with a quiz at the end.

St Peters Basilica St Peter's square (which is actually round).Inside St. Peters. One big church. You don't really need to see any other churches after you've seen this one. St. Peter's Basilica has the largest interior of any Christian church in the world. The inside of the dome is 136 feet high.

St Peter's looking up.

Swiss guard. Recruits to the guards must be Catholic, single males with Swiss citizenship who have completed basic training with the Swiss military and can obtain certificates of good conduct. Recruits must have a professional degree or high school diploma and must be between 19 and 30 years of age and at least 174 cm (5 ft 9 in) tall. Must also be willing to wear a silly outfit for hours at a time.

Rome, Italy

Rome, the Eternal City. A pretty amazing place if you ask me. Too many people here, just like in Florence. But so many sights.

Our hotel was just down the street from the Forum and Colosseum. Each night when we walked back we could just sit next to the forum and look at the 2000 year old columns.



Trevi Fountain

The Pantheon is my new favorite building ever. This was built in 126 AD and is in near perfect condition. Standing inside, it seems inconceivable that the dome was constructed 1900 years ago and is still intact. It wasn't until 1300+ years later with the completion of Brunelleschi's Duomo in Florence that man was able to match the architectural skill of the ancient Romans. Amazing.

The Spanish Steps are one big old staircase. Nice place to sit and people watch. The most interesting thing we saw here was the Carabinieri's attempts to catch this Roma (gypsy) flower seller who had apparently stolen something. He jogged around the Steps for several minutes with increasing anxiety trying to outmaneuver the blue uniformed Carabinieri who were patiently walking (not running) after him. The whole crowd on the steps watched this slow motion drama unfold and some (including us) pointed out his whereabouts to the police as he kept ducking behind objects and people. They never did catch him.
The interesting thing about travelling is the things you don't expect to find. Everyone knows that Italy has the Colosseum and the Leaning Tower, but unless you've been there you wouldn't know that every single Piazza in Italy has Roma men selling flowers, and Senegalese immigrants selling knockoff Louis Vuitton purses and fake Rolex watches.

San Marino

The Most Serene Republic of San Marino is a tiny, landlocked nation within the confines of Italy near the Adriatic sea. With only 31,000 people, and just 24 square miles of land, it is a strange anomaly of history. Italy used to be many small principalities, kingdoms, and states, but by 1871 these had all been absorbed into the Republic of Italy. All except San Marino. They have been independent since the fall of the Roman Empire. They stayed neutral in both World Wars. They even convinced Napoleon NOT to invade them.

I could not pass up the chance to get another country, so we rented a car from Hertz and hit the road. My Ford Ka sported a massive 1.2 liter engine that spit out a whopping 68 horsepower. It goes 0 to 60 in just under 10 minutes. Perfect for parking, not so perfect for merging in thick highway traffic. It should be noted that Italians drive 80mph at all times. And gas costs $7.90 a gallon. And there are toll booths every ten miles. Thankfully we had our new trusty Garmin GPS. This thing rocks. I can't imagine driving in Italy without it.

I worried that San Marino would suck, and Lindso would be saying "We drove 4 hours to see this dump?", but we were not disappointed. The main town of San Marino (also called San Marino) featured a walled town with three medieval towers capping the top of the highest mountain in the country. Another fairytale town like Siena. The best part was that with few hotels, nearly everyone clears out with the last tour bus. We had the town completely to ourselves that evening.

Florence, Italy

Florence is a wonderful maze of art, architecture, and history.

A copy of David sits outside the Palazzo Vecchio. We stood in line to see the real one at the Accademia Gallery.
Nightfall with the Ponte Vecchio in the background
The Palazzo Vecchio and La Loggia was our regular evening spot to sit and eat gelato and gaze at 500 year old sculptures.
I had to put aside my preference for beer and become a wine drinker on this trip. The house wine is usually pretty cheap, sometimes as little as $7 for 750ml bottle. It's decent stuff too. Italian beer is pretty awful.

Pisa, Italy

People go to Pisa for one reason only....to get a picture of themselves pretending to hold up the Leaning Tower of Pisa. I'll not claim to be any different.

The Leaning Tower was more interesting than I expected. It is a beautiful structure, and would be worth seeing even if it was upright. The whole "Field of Miracles" is a wonderful place to lay on the grass and look at some amazing marble buildings. Other than that though, Pisa has little to set it apart from any other Italian town. We spent one night here, and that was just the right amount of time.

Siena, Italy

Siena is a wonderful, romantic, fairytale castle town. Cobblestone streets, brick buildings surrrounded by city walls, a perfect central Piazza, this is the reason people come to Italy. Sadly we had only one night here, and were wiped out with jetlag.Due to a camera problem (see Florence) this is one of the only surviving photos of lovely Siena.