Italy was wonderful! We left just as we were beginning to long for home, but still wishing we could have stayed a little longer. I think this is good timing for tourists (and guests). And, After 12 days of constant companionship, Becky and I are still talking to one another (and, the talk is primarily courteous, I might add).
I took 2,039 photos. Hey, no one ever says, "darn, I took some extra photos, I wish I hadn't." I took the regular tourist photos and I also took an inordinate number (as Becky mentioned) of photos of Italian doors, windows, bicycles and textures (multimedia artist: have camera, will shoot).
We flew out of Detroit o Monday afternoon and arrive in Rome on Tuesday morning. After briefly losing our luggage at the Rome airport (the most helpful person didn't speak English, but with my attempts at Italian and a lot of hand gestures, we exchanged a lot of information), we went to our hotel, which was on the Via Venito (I really have to get hold of a copy of "La Dulce Vida"). We took a hop-on-hop-off bus tour of the city and then went back to the hotel for a nap, from which we woke the next day. On Wednesday, we had a tour of the Vatican Museum, the Sistine Chapel (no photos allowed) and St Peter's. It was very hot and the Pope was out of town at the lake house). In the afternoon, we walked around our hotel's neighborhood, found an excellent outdoor Ristorante for lunch and then did some shopping (we read the tourist rulebook, we knew what our obligations were). We had a late two hour dinner at a Ristorante on the Via Venito and felt very Continental watching the people walk by.
On Thursday, we had a bus tour of Pompei (yes, I took photos of the obscene frescos; no, I won't post them) and the Amalfi Coast. It was a long and delightful day, although pretty darn hot.
Of Friday, we had an unstructured day. We walked to the Trevi Fountain (yes, we threw in coins) and then walked to (and up and down) the Spanish Steps. We sat along the fountain at the base of the Spanish Steps and dunked our feet like all the other hot tourists (this was the only fountain where they seemed to allow this; although, at the other fountains you would see people dipping in hats, shirts and scarfs to cool off). We walked back to the hotel (walking a lot helps offset all pasta and gelato we consumed).
On Saturday, we took the train to Florence. After checking into our hotel, we walked to the Duomo Square, where we found the paper store in which I spent many Euros. We also walked around and found a nice place to eat.
On Sunday, we had our tour of wine country. The tour we originally booked got cancelled, and we ended up with a private tour. It was wonderful. We stopped at the Benadictine Monostary where we saw some absolutely beautiful frescoes (I think from the 1300s) and had a taste of the monks' wine (pretty good stuff). Then we went to Montalcino, Pienza and Montepulciano. We tasted wine, we shopped, we ate and we saw beautiful countryside.
