Ciao from Roma

Well we survived Florence and one day of Rome so far. I was pleasently surprised by Florence, I had some mix reviews before we left. I liked the fact that everything seemed around 10 min. away walking distance. We didn't have to worry about public transportation and did not feel very exhausted by the end of the day. We arrived in Florence around 11 and went and checked in at our hotel. We loved the place we stayed. It was a quaint and cherry place that kind of reminded me of a grandma's house. The room was huge and we got a discount for using Rick Steves.

Once we got settled, we did a Renassiance walk through Florence. We started out at the accademia- i couldn't believe how HUGE David was-- I was expecting that. We then went to the Duomo church and hiked up the 400 step bell tower for an impressive view of the dome. The weather was nice and warm, with a cool breeze at the top. We are definitely getting used to climbing stairs after cinque terre. After the Duomo we walked down a pedestrian only street lined with gelato shops and expensive stores. We saw the Orsanmichle church, palazzo vecchio and piazza republico. After our long tour, we headed back to our hotel for some r & r and then went to dinner at a local pizza restaurant. On Friday we started out by going to the medici chapels (unforuntately there was a lot of construction going on inside, but it was still nice) We then went to the bargello museum which is a sculpture museum. We saw Donatello's David and a cool statue of St. George. We grabbed lunch and then went to the Uffizi gallery where we saw birth of venus and some other neat paintings. We had the best dinner ever last night- we went to this dim, candlelit restaurant on a back alley by a big market and Ben had his florentine steak and I had some yummy tomato soup. After dinner we strolled around the duomo and admired it at night.

We left bright and early this morning. Sadly enough, I now have Ben's cold, so i'm feeling a little tired and sick today. We still had a pretty busy day though. After checking in to our fun little hotel called the beehive, (free internet!!) we took a crazy bus to the Vatican. We toured St. Peters basillica. Some of the stuff we learned was so interesting. It gave us an idea of really how massive the church is. There was a seemingly small stained glass window at the end of the church, but the dove inside the window was actually 15 feet wide. There was some gold letters written across the ceiling that looked like maybe 1 ft. tall, but they were actually 7. After the church, we went to the vatican museum and zoomed past a lot of art. We mainly focused on Rafael's fresco rooms and the sistene chapel. I did not know what to picture for the chapel, and I was so taken back by the beauty of it. We sat there for probably close to an hour and just soaked up all the detail.

It is pretty warm here.. i cant imagine coming any earlier in the summer. We are headed out tonight for a night walk across Rome and a nice dinner and death by chocolate ice cream.

Oh and in case your wondering, here is a list of all the flavors of gelato we have sampled:
pistacchio
cookies
dark chocolate
stracchetelia
mousse nutella
hazlenut
tiramasu
cinnamon
after 8 (mint chocolate)

My favorite was the cinnamon and Ben's was stracchetelia.

Tomorrow we will do the forum, colleseum, pantheon, capital hill area. The following day we head for Venice. We can't believe that we only have 1 week left. It's not time to go back to reality yet!!!

Love you all.