Italy

One word would be Amazing.  Absolutely loved Italy. 

We were so blessed to tag along a business trip of Jimmy's to go see Italy.  Jimmy had to work in a town in the Tuscany region of Italy, called Scarlino.  We flew into Rome and took the two hour drive up to Scarlino on Monday the 16th.  We enjoyed the drive, it reminded us a bit of Southern Spain, lots of olive groves, corn, and vineyards everywhere.  Italy did have a lot more natural landscape and rolling hills.  Beautiful. 

We finally made it to our town that we were staying, we pulled over for dinner at a little dive of a pizzeria and had the best pizza of the trip!  Yum. 

Three happy kids, after a long day of traveling.

Seriously the best Pizza ever!!!  Half way through I made myself take this picture!

We then drove to our hotel, it was out in the country on a working agricultural vineyard.  It was a wonderful place to stay.  There were only 30 rooms to stay so it was small and quaint, it had a nice spa, pool, and a restaurant.  It also had horseback riding, a kids club house, and walking trails.  Landon and Emma's favorite part was the 4 dogs on site, catching countless butterflies, and attempting to catch lizards (one caught), and these teeny tiny humming birds (I thought they were a bug at first).  We had two full days there while Jimmy worked, then we took Thursday as a day to travel and see more of Tuscany before heading back to Rome. We had no Internet like we had hoped for so we weren't able to really plan of where to go or what to do.  We talked with some people at the resort and they all said to head to Florence. 

Waking up to a beautiful day in Italy.

Some pictures of the beautiful grounds. (Hey mom that's a Crape Myrtle Tree!!)

 

Beautiful landscape and little girl.

Playing in the hammock right outside our room.

Emma's favorite butterfly she caught.

Sitting poolside.  Older two in the pool, Clara dreaming of the pool.

A drive through Tuscany, a couple of pictures of the vineyards and groves.

We took the two hour drive up to Florence, the drive was absolutely gorgeous!  We went over the mountains through Sienna, drove right past Volterra (that's right Twilight fans, Volterra.  Jimmy was willing to stop, but I just couldn't make him do that for me, it was a good 30 minutes out of the way, and I just felt stupid for actually somewhat wanting to go.  What a good husband I have.)  We made it to Florence (a much larger city than we thought it would be) kids were doing well, and we started looking for places to stop, get out, and find lunch and something to do.  I look back as we are getting into the center of the city and Clara was out cold.  So instead of waking her and having a cranky baby, not knowing where to go and what to do, we just ended up driving out of Florence and heading back to Rome.  It was kind of disappointing to leave without stopping, but the drive made it worth it.  We made it to Rome, our apartment wasn't our first choice and was further out of downtown than we had hoped for, but it turned out to be a better area than our first impression of the street we were on.  We went out found a park up the street more pizza, and then on our way home found the best gelato place! (Well I don't know about the best it was the only place we ate at (everyday!)).  

Friday we had a bit of a rough start Landon got sick through the night and we had a tour at the Vatican that we already paid for.  Jimmy knew how excited I was to see the Vatican that he stayed back with Landon and Clara, allowing Emma and I to take our tour of the Vatican!    It is an amazing country to visit. Their joke there is "It's the smallest country with the biggest church".  Our guide told us that if you stopped at every piece of art work in the Vatican Museums for just one second, it would still take you just over a month to see it all.  Crazy!!  We only saw a small portion in our 3 hour tour. I loved the tour of the museums and hearing little things about the art work, but my favorite part was learning more about the Sistine Chapel.  Our guide sat us down to talk about the chapel before we went in, because you're not suppose to talk in there. If you want to know details I'll share them, but it would be too long of a blog for me to tell everything.  The chapel is incredible to see in person, just thinking of one man alone painting the entire ceiling and back wall.  One very interesting tid bit is that on the back wall The Final Judgement wall Michelangelo painted Christ, and three of his disciples.  One of them was Bartholomew who was skinned alive, and he's holding his own skin in the painting, but the face on it is a caricature drawing of Michelangelo, and he was later to have said that it would have been better to have been skinned alive than to have waisted 13 years of his life painting the Sistine Chapel.  Poor guy.    After the Sistine Chapel we saw Saint Peters Basilica, this church is enormous!  It is the largest Catholic Church, here in Seville we have the 3rd largest and I think two of those could fit inside this one.  I learned they bury the popes there on the grounds, but first they mummify them.  Also they have what they believe to be pieces of the Original Cross and Veil that were used at Christs crucifixion. 

Museum entrance to the Vatican.

Emma ready for our tour, St. Peter's Basilica in the background.

Pine cones were a symbol of Fertility.

Peacocks for Immortality.

And Lions often represent Christ.

A great picture of the Golden Sphere and courtyard.

The center globe remains stationary while the outer globe rotates around it. It is supposed to symbolize how the church remains the immovable center of the world.

An entire hall of head and bust sculptures of past Popes.

Art by Michelangelo.

There is a large wing with animal sculptures, our guide walked us past it so fast this was the only photo I got, but I really liked it.

The Holy Door is only open during a Holy Year (Jubilee), which occur every 25 years.  On the first day of a holy year, the Pope strikes the door with a silver hammer and opens it to the pilgrims. Interestingly enough this is just for symbolism, the door is boarded up on the inside with brick.

These are markers in the floor, each containing a name of a past Pope.  These indicate the area underneath the church where the Pope is buried.

These gentlemen are Swiss Guards, got to love their outfits.

After leaving Emma and I couldn't make our way back to the other side of town because the metro was closed down.  We went and found a quiet restaurant shared a lunch and Emma shopped at the little markets that are set up everywhere. It was a fun day with my Emma Lynn.

My darn finger got in the way, but I love this photo of this little girl.

We finally made it back to the rest of the family and Clara was napping and Landon was feeling better.  So we took a rest and then went back out for a nice evening out.  Took the metro and found our way to the Spanish Steps fun to see but way too many people.  I got this great picture of Landon and Emma in front of one of the fountains and Jimmy got a shot of the same photo from the side with me in it.  It is really funny to see the difference between the two, the close up shot of the kids is a great photo, the far away shot really shows how crowded it was, the line waiting to get to the fountain, and Clara was right behind me in her stroller, but you can't even see her.  Good memories.  We also made our way to the Trevi Fountain, it was partially under construction, and extremely packed with people, but an amazing sight to see.  We ate dinner, found a couple more photo ops along the way, grabbed our night cap of gelato and called it a night.

Our only family photo of the trip!  Love this picture.

Love these kids, this photo looks awesome.

This is the Fontana della Barcaccia "The Fountain of the Old Boat"

Here's the side view, I love how it shows just how crazy this was!

Standing in line for a quick picture, or a drink out the of fountain.

There were so many people you can't even see Clara and her stroller.

This is the Trevi Fountain

Clara enjoying being out of the stroller.

Front and center, Emma doesn't like this photo because of the statues.

Saturday we all made it to our tour of the Colosseum, you come out of the metro and it is right there!  It is HUGE!  It's actually a lot bigger than I ever imagined, and actually a more structure is still standing than I would have thought as well.  The kids did great on another 3 hour tour.  Landon absolutely loved this tour, he kept standing front and center every time the tour guide stopped to tell us something new.  One of his favorite things we learned was that when they first opened the Colosseum they had 100 Days of events!!  On one of the days when the doors to the animal cages opened out came 100 lions!  That had to be crazy to see!  The entire Colosseum use to be covered in Marble and most of it has been stolen and used for other things around this city, a large portion went to Vatican.  After the Colosseum we walked across the street where they are excavating and preserving more ruins.  They have parts of the old Roman God's Temples, Jupiter, Saturn, Mercury... It was pretty cool to see.  We ended up leaving our tour about a half hour early, the kids were done!  They would have kept going, but there wasn't much more to see, so we didn't push them.  We headed back to the apartment, got lunch on the way and got Clara her nap. 

First glimpse of the Colosseum.

 

Inside the Colosseum, bottom left you can see the step like seats, they are the only bit of Marble left inside the stadium.

Another view inside.

Parting shot.

This is the Arch of Constantine - only 300 years newer than the Colosseum.

The temple was standing before this one came along. ;) 

More ancient ruins.

These pillars belong to the temples that were built for the Roman Gods, Jupiter, Saturn, Mars and Apollo still have quite a bit of structure standing in theirs. 

Taking a rest.

She was playing around this pit and actually fell in butt first, we didn't get a picture of it, but it was pretty funny.

Jimmy caught this beautiful photo of this gorgeous girl. 

That afternoon we went out and found this theater place that had a 4D movie of how Rome came to be.  It was like a virtual roller coaster.  Clara and I didn't get to sit in the seats that moved, but everyone seemed to really enjoy it.  It was fun to see how it all came to be.  We also had a hard time finding the theater and our way back, so we stumbled along some stunning sites of Rome.  One more dinner and gelato to end our trip. 

Parting shot, from the top of a hill, the picture didn't show quite how beautiful this view was.

Over all we had an amazing time, I'm proud of my kids for traveling so well and I love how they enjoy site seeing.  They are amazing kids. I just love this little family, and especially Jimmy.   

I hope you enjoyed the pictures and the fun!