ITALY TRIP   

JUNE 10 - 17, 2006

Florence

Long 9 hour drive to our first stop at Florence.  The Duomo Cathedral dominates the whole city skyline.  Very ornate walls.

Michaelangelo's statue of David stood where this copy now stands, original is in the museum.

Ponte Vecchio bridge, people actually live on the bridge!

Pisa

Leaning Tower of Pisa is about 1 or so hours drive from Florence.  We had a short stop here, as you had to be 8 years old to go up it, so we just had a bit of a look around.

Siena

Amazing place that we really should go back to explore properly.  Big wall surrounds the old town, which is built on top of a hill, no cars can go in.  Amazing view of it.

On the drive from Siena to Rome, all the way along there were these villages built on top of hills and cliffs.  Here's one we managed to get a reasonable shot of.

Rome

St. Peters Basilica in the Vatican City.  Whilst queuing up to go in, we heard that the Pope would be speaking the next day, so we made plans to come back.  Aidan and Mark went underneath the church where most of the Popes are buried.  The blurry photo is the tomb of Pope John Paul II who recently passed away.

Some sights of Rome.  All this was done in one day walking from the Vatican City to the Coloseum!

Castel D'Angelo, also known as Hadrian's Tomb.

Piazza Navona.  We stopped here for a coffee and a rest.  It was very hot, in fact the whole week was very hot.

Pantheon, this is the oldest surviving building in Rome from about AD 70.  One of Aidan's favourites, which he drew a picture of when we got home (see his trip report at the bottom of the page).

Victor Emmanuel monument, celebrating the uniting of Italy in the 1800's.

Roman Forum ruins.  All around the Coloseum is the main area for Roman ruins.

Coliseum.  Aidan with some friends!

Back the next day to see the Pope at St. Peter's.  He spoke in 8 different languages! German, Italian, English, French, Spanish, Croat, Czech and Polish.

Vatican Museum. This contains a lot of Roman and Greek statues.  The Sistine Chapel is here of course as well, but you are not allowed to take any photos of it.

Trevi Fountain

And an Ice-Cream to finish the day off with!

Pompeii

About 2 hours south of Rome, just near Naples is Pompeii.  This is really a huge site and would take all day to walk around the whole place.  We still managed to spend 3 hours seeing only a part of it.  Sewerage and strom water ran down the street, hence the raised footpaths and rocks to cross the road.

Maranello

Overnight stop at Maranello, which is the home of Ferrari.  We stayed at the Planet Hotel, which is the hotel at the main gates of the factory and where the test drivers stay.  From our balcony we could see the test track and the Formula 1 factory, even here a race engine on the dyno.  No F1 cars, just road cars testing.

Venice

Quick stopover in Venice.

Verona

Overnight stop in Verona.  Verona is the setting for Romeo and Juliet and has an old Roman arena that is still used today.  The first two photos are taken at what is called Juliet's house and is supposedly where it was all set.

This is Aidan's school Trip Report for our trip.