Viva Italia!

After this post I'll probably be losing a few followers.

Anyone with short attention spans here?

I don't know WHAT I was thinking when I said I wouldn't post more

than 10 pictures for each country. We came home with about 600!

So I had the bright idea to try putting 3 or 4 pictures in one...

Well... I learned that I have something called A.D.D. folks!

Artistic Deficit Disorder. I can't create beautiful things!

So here is my Italy post. Some pictures are small, some big.

Some framed. Some not.

Be nice to me.

Venice, Italy

We did Venice in about 10 hours and that was plenty of time.

We walked around St. Mark's Square, admired the ceilings of gold at the Basilica,

crossed the famous Rialto bridge, sat down at an outdoor cafe for some

delish pizza and toured the Doge's Palace and Correr Museum.

But we heard-above all else- the best thing to do here is get lost.

And we did... almost unintentionally.

No... we didn't take a romantic gondola ride down the canal and

I don't regret it one bit. We couldn't justify spending 100 euro for 30 minutes of

cruising down the Grand Canal with Alfredo the gondolier hocking loogies into

the water and yelling at his fellow coworkers as they passed by.

Our feet were kiiiiilling us... so we pulled up a bench in a lovely park.

Venice has an annual party just like Mardi Gras, called Carnival.

It was so fun to see the Italian (aka: classier) version of my

favorite Cajun past-time.

The Bridge of Sighs. Amazing.

There are a couple theories as to how the bridge got its name.

The first one involves the prisoners that would walk across it

on their way to the executioner. They would look out the sides of the bridge

and sigh at their last view of beautiful life in Venice.

The other story says that if a couple kisses on or under the bridge

they are granted eternal love and the sighs come from

the romantic promise and setting.

After hearing the story we just had to kiss on this bridge, right?

So we took a tour of the Doge's Palace since that's the only way

you can walk through the Bridge of Sighs.

St. Mark's Square.

St. Mark's Basilica.

Picture perfect Venice. Nearly every canal looked like this.

Genoa, Italy

This was a fun city where we got our first taste of gelato in Italy. Yummm!

We had a guided tour of the city that took us down several

immaculately designed streets.

1st picture: Just outside the welcome quarters of an Italian mansion in Genoa.

2nd picture: the crypt where they claim John the Baptist's remains are.

3rd picture: gelato. delicous, creamy, sweet gelato.

Sorrento, Italy

Sorrento was fabulous! Despite stopping in such phenomenal,

history-rich cities... This city was our favvvvorite!

It was a tiny cliff-side town that had a few tourist packed streets

but just one block away in any direction and you're in real Italian living!

On the outskirts of Sorrento was a beautiful little farm that grew lemons

and produced homemade tomatoes and mozzarella.

We sampled. We loved. We were left wanting more.

Pompeii, Italy

Surreal.

From looking at pictures in high school textbooks to actually seeing

this city in real life was incredible... indescribable.

Mike and I took in so much information on this tour and were captivated

by the history. I thought I knew the story of Pompeii so well but I

learned so many new things.

a. They had at least one fast food restaurant. (in 200 B.C., people!)

b. They loved their sex and prostitutes! They had penises that pointed

the way to the brothels from the main roads and others that were

placed above the brothel doorway.

(That's funny.... Tell me you laughed just now!)

c. They had slaves. Like the man in the picture below. He was chained

to the wall of the house so that he couldn't escape the eruption.

Mikey in the marketplace of Pompeii.

Can you spot the penis above?

I never thought I write 'penis' on my blog. Ever.

While we're on the subject of human anatomy in Europe,

I have to tell you that Mike kept taking pictures of all the

different types of doorbells on the streets.

I finally said, "Mike, you have a unhealthy fascination with knockers!"

I was right.

Rome, Italy

Rome was just as expected. It was jam-packed day of history.

We saw the Vatican and Vatican City. We mailed postcards to family there.

We saw Trevi Fountain, the Colosseum,

We took a break to have heavenly Italian lasagna and tiramisu.

Best stuff ever.

My pictures are wanting to do their own thing here.

Let it be, I guess.

last stop... (did I just hear a sigh of relief?)

Taormina, Sicily, Italy

Taormina was laid back, clean and breathtaking.

We didn't do much here other than walk around the city, see places

where The Godfather was filmed,

take pictures, eat gelato and people watch. It was fantastic!

The end. If you made it this far... well, I'm shocked.