Italy Trip Report

June 10^th – 17^th 2006

Saturday

On the long drive from Germany to Florence I played games and read books in the car.  It was a very long way.  9 hours!  But it's a very beautiful drive to Italy.  I always love driving through all of the Alps in Austria and Italy.  They are so amazing!

When we arrived in Florence we went up to a lookout overlooking the whole city of Florence.   We had a chicken picnic dinner looking at the view.  It really was wonderful!  The Duomo cathedral was so much bigger than anything else.  It really dominates the Florence skyline!

In Italy the people speak Italian, but they still use Euro money like we do in Germany.

Sunday

Today we caught the bus into the city from the hotel.  We walked all around the city and saw so many things.  I went inside the Duomo, it was very beautiful.  The dome of the Duomo is very famous and was the largest in the world at one time.  Dad told me that a cathedral is run by a Bishop, and a church is looked after by a Priest. 

There is a very famous statue in Florence, it is of a naked David who killed the giant Goliath.  The statue was done by Michaelangelo many many years ago. 

Florence has a lot of art, there were paintings and statues everywhere.  Some of the statues were very violent, there were men with clubs and even one with a sword who had chopped someone else's head off!  And in most of the statues the people were naked!  To cross the river we walked over a very, very old bridge that  actually has people's houses on it!  It is called the Ponte Vecchio.  Ponte means bridge in Italian.

At the end of the day we saw the men who were about to play in this very violent game in the square of Florence.  It seemed to be a mix of soccer, rugby and boxing.  Florence is the only place in the world where it is played!

Monday

First off today we drove from Florence for one hour to Pisa.  Pisa is famous for a tower that looks like it is about to fall over.  I was really disappointed that I wasn’t allowed to go up to the top of it, you had to be at least 8 years old.  So I'll have to go back in two years time!  There were lots of tourists there all taking a photo trying to make it look like they were holding it up.  They all looked a bit silly.  But I did it too!

Our next stop was the city of Siena.  This is an amazing city, it has a big wall around the centre and is built on top of a hill.  No cars can go into the centre because the streets are so narrow.  In the olden days the streets only needed to be wide enough for the horses to travel through and it has been impossible to make them any wider for cars today.  We didn’t get much time there, hopefully we can see more of Siena on the way home.

Then we drove onto Rome. Along the way there were all of these amazing little villages built up on the top of the hill tops and cliffs, I couldn’t believe that people lived there!

Dad wasn’t very happy because his GPS stopped working and he had to buy a map to work out where our hotel was.  It still took us awhile to find it.  Driving in Rome is crazy!  There are no road rules really, everyone just barges through very aggressively with their cars.  I was glad when we got to the hotel!

Tuesday

Today we had to catch the bus and then the train to get into Rome.  Our first stop was St.Peter’s church and the Vatican.  What an amazing place to be!  The square is so big and I could not believe all of the Popes who are buried inside the church.  I even saw where Pope John Paul II is buried underneath the church.  St.Peter’s church is the biggest in the world and on the floor are markings to show how much bigger St. Peter's church is than other famous churches around the world. We found out that the Pope will be speaking in the square tomorrow, so we will come back to see him.  Hopefully we will be able to get close enough!

Then we went for a big walk all the way through Rome.  Wow!  Rome has so many amazing things to see and so much history!  I LOVED it!  First we stopped on the bridge over the Tiber river and looked at the Castel St.Angelo, an amazing round fortress beside the river.  Then we stopped and had coffee in the Piazza Navona, there were lots of artists in the square and a huge fountain in the middle.  It was then just a short walk to the Pantheon, a huge round building that is a church now.  It was built over 1900 years ago.  It has no windows, just a hole in the roof to let in light.  The Pantheon was definitely one of my most favourite stops!  I thought it was so amazing that there were drainage holes in the floor so as when it rains the water coming through the hole in the roof can drain out.

Next we walked past all of the old Roman ruins on the way to the Coliseum.  The ruins are just so old and ancient, it is hard to believe that they still exist and that we can learn from them how the Romans really lived all of those years ago.

The Coliseum was the best part of the day for me!  I have read so much about it and I couldn't believe that I was really there!  I got to go inside and see where the gladiators fought on all kinds of animals.  Some of the Coliseum has fallen down but a lot of it is still standing.  I even saw that the Coliseum is on the back of the 5 euro cent coin made in Italy!  What an amazing day!

Wednesday

Today I got to see the Pope!  We went to St.Peter’s square where he held some form of pilgrimage session for church groups that were visiting from around the world.  There must have been at least 30 or 40 thousand people there.  The Pope spoke in 8 different languages, I could not believe it!  I would love to be able to do that!  He spoke Italian, English, German, French, Spanish, Croat, Polish and Czech.  Amazing!  I still can't believe that I really saw the Pope.  It was very, very special!

We then queued in the longest queue I have ever seen, it was 4 blocks long, to go into the Vatican museum and to see the Sistine Chapel.  The museum had lots of Roman statues, paintings and big rug type weavings hanging on the walls.  The Sistine Chapel is very special.  The ceiling was painted by a very famous man called Michaelangelo and it took him 4 years to paint it.  It was amazing to see what he had painted, it was so high up too!  And, the Sistine Chapel is also where the Bishops meet after a Pope has died to elect who the next Pope will be.  So that was something that happened just last year when Pope John Paul II died!  Wow!

After a very late lunch we then caught the train to the Spanish Steps.  These are steps that go up to a church and are called Spanish because Spanish ambassador people used to live nearby.  If you visit during the right season you can see all sorts of beautiful flowers, but there weren't any there today unfortunately.  

We then walked to the Trevi fountain, a huge fountain that had lots of people sitting around it taking photos.  It is not all that old, however it is very famous for tourists to visit.  Some of the children were walking out onto the fountain, stepping on the rocks, but then a policeman came along and told them off.

I then had an ice-cream before we went back to the hotel.  Yummy!  After another busy day it was time to go home.

Thursday

We drove to Pompeii this morning.  In AD 79, Mt.Vesuvius erupted and covered the whole city in ash, completely destroying it.  In the 1700’s, a man digging found the city and since then they have been digging it up.  It is amazing to walk around and think that this is a city frozen in time on that day when the volcano erupted.  All of the water and sewerage flows down the street and so they have these big stones to cross the street to get to the other side, so your feet do not get wet.  I loved walking across all of those!  There were also bones that had been plastered over to show how the people had been found.  That was a little bit creepy!   I had an audioguide to take me around and tell me about each of the buildings.  I LOVED that!

After Pompeii we drove all the way back to Maranello.  This is the home of Ferrari and we stayed at the Ferrari hotel right outside the main gates.  We had a 2 storey room on the top floor, and we could even see the Ferrari test track from our room!  Daddy and I LOVE the Ferrari Formula One team and so it was very, very special to stay there in Ferrari 'land'!

Friday

After our buffet breakfast, we went to the Ferrari store today.  Sadly, they didn’t have a T-shirt in the right size for me.  At the test track we could see road cars being tested but unfortunately no Formula One cars.  I would have LOVED to see Michael Schumacher, but he wasn't there.

We then drove for 2 hours to get to Venice.  My most favourite place!  I went to Venice last year and I love being there.  It is just so special and amazing!  I got to feed the birds again in St.Mark’s square, but they did not land on my head this time, maybe they were not so hungry, as it was in the afternoon this time.  We went through St.Mark’s church and walked around the little side streets looking at the souvenir shops and watching all of the gondolas and beautiful canals.  We even had a coffee sitting beside the Grand canal.  I LOVED that, watching all of the water taxis and gondolas!  Before we knew it, it was time to leave.  We drove for 2 hours and stopped for the night in Verona.

Saturday

Verona has a Roman ruin that looks a bit like the Coliseum in Rome, but it is actually still used for events today.  The Romeo and Juliet story was based in Verona.  We went to the Juliet house and saw the balcony where the scenes took place.  Verona is quite a pretty city, it has lots of Roman ruins to look at and it has a wall that goes around the whole of the old part of the city.

We left at lunchtime for the drive home to Germany.  The traffic was very busy because it was the end of school holidays, it took us over 7 hours!

That was the end of my Italy trip.  I had such a wonderful time and didn't want the trip to end.  It was the most wonderful holiday I have ever had!  My favourite parts of the trip were seeing the Pope, seeing Pompeii and staying in the Ferrari hotel.  The Pantheon and Coliseum were very amazing too!  And I think that Venice will always be most favourite city!  I hope I get to see it all again one day!!