Saint Peters Basilica

Saint Peters is the biggest Catholic church in the world. Next to it is the apartments of the Pope. The church is inside the Popes city wich is called the Vatican.

The church has lots of stones in it. Marble, granite, and many more. Inside the Basilica is the Pieta a sculpter done by Micheal Angelo. It's of Mary holding up the dead Jesus. It's very beautiful.

On top of the Basilica is a very large dome. We went to the top. We took an elevator then we went up 300 stairs. Rome looks lovely from up there. Well once I caught my breath from all the stairs it looked lovely.

The Forum

The Forum was the old city. It was in the middle of the main hills. When they wanted to start it it was a swamp so they had to drain it. (The drain still works by the way) So the sheperds would travel down from the hills and gather here. Kind of like a downtown.

The Forum has lots of collums. Did you know that the Romans were really bad sculpters? Most of the collums were done in sections. So most of the good sculpters were done in other places. The old buildings were amazing! Well what's still there anyway. There are 3 main arches. They built them when they had huge victories. There's a path underneth called The Path of Victory or something like that.

Over time the Forum was buried. In 1945 Mussallini, the leader of Italy of that time, dug it back up. When he reached the path he thought that there was more under it so he kept digging. Saddly he was mistaken. When he found out that there wasn't more he put them back down. It used to be flat and smooth but thanks to Mussulini it was spaced out and bumpy. Sigh!

Light's, Camera, Fight!

On the day that my Uncle and cousin left we took a train from Venice to Rome.

Rome is cool! On the first day we went to the Colosseum. The Colosseum used to be a big arena used for gladiator fights. Gladiators fought with another glatiator in groups or 1 on 1 or an animal. There were spaces underneath the stage where the animals were kept before a fight. Gladiators were usually prisoners or criminals. There was also the ocasional nobleman who would be inspired by a victory. If a prisoner won 5 fights then he was granted freedom. That didn't happen as much as you might think seeing about 2 people a day died. In all of the 450 years that the Colosseum was used 300 000 men died.

The seats went by rank. The emporer had the best seat. The Vestel Virgins sat below him. The Vestel Virgins were a group of priestesses.
The rest of the men went from lowest rank at the top going down to higher ranks at the bottom. The bottom had the best view of the fights. The only place for the women was standing at the top.

The stone of the Colosseum has lots of holes in it. That's because when they stopped using it for fights they used it for making weapons. There used to be metal inside the stone so it wouldn't fall down in a earthquake. Thankfully there hasn't been an earthquake in 800 years.

Glass Blowing

Venice is famous for it's glass. There's an island that all the glass gets blown and shaped. They aren't in the city because the ovens caused to many fires.
We saw a demonstration. The man doing it used a long hollow tube with melted glass on the end. When the glass was on he would roll it in different powders to give it different colours. Then he would blow through the tube and use a variety of tools to shape it. The first thing he made was a plate. The next thing he made was a horse. He did it in under a minute! He had to keep the glass soft by puting it in the 1000 degree oven every couple minutes.

After that we saw the finished glass. It were gorgeous! One of my favourite ones was a band of glass clowns.

Venice on Stilts

As most of you should know Venice is on water. What you may not know is that it's not floating. How they built it is they hammered wooden post's into the mud below the lagoon that Venice is on. Surprisingly the wood didn't rot but the mud hardened it onto something ike stone. What I don't get is that the water above the mud would rot the wood wouldn't it?

One of the mornings I went with my Mom and Uncle (my Uncle and cousin visited us for a week) went to the market. There was a lot of seafood.(of course!)The shrimp were still jiggling and I saw a crab almost escape.

Train to Venice

So because I really want to catch up I am gong to fast forward a bit.
Many hill towns, tons of gelato, millions of hills, and sooo much walking. That would pretty much sum up most of Italy. Oh! And amazing food.
Now that you know the basic stuff I can catch up to a little closer to now.
We took a train to Venice from Florence. Once we got onto the stone street we took a water bus to a station near our apartment. The guy who owns it brought us to it.
Venice is actually a really small city. We got lost a couple of times and we found our way straight back. It's really easy to get around because there are no cars and you can cross the canals by all of the bridges.
Did you know that Venice is in the shape of a fish? It's quite cool really.
I also don't get annoyed by the tourist shops because most of them are masks.
I adore Venice

Sound of Music

The hills are alive with the sond of music! Ahhhhh.... I think of that song when I see the hills of Tucany. Oh! It's so beautiful! Everywhere I go I think that it's gorgeous. I can't find a place that's not pretty. So was our villa. And our villa's dog. His name was Nabuko. He's the black dog in the picture.