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.

Mask Shop

In Florence we found an really cool mask shop. Every mask is hand painted. So every one is different and they are gorgeous. You can see a few in the pictures above.
He makes them by putting plaster in a mold then he layers a kind of paper-mache on the plaster then pops that out. That's the mask. Then he paints them.

The Hills of Tuscany

We've been at the villa for a while and I haven't written for a while so I'm going to clump some of the time together so I can catch up.
So, Italy is amazing! The villa is in Tuscany. Tuscany is one of the provences. It has tons of hills.
I'm very glad that we came in fall. I would die with the heat in summer. Even so we eat gelato every day even if it's not hot but it's usually warm.
On top of almost every hill is a town. On the smaller hills is usually a house.
A city we went to a couple of times was Florence. A few centuries ago Florence was the capital of Italy. It also used to have a wall. A church we visited was the Basilica Di Santa Crocea. Painted on the walls there are saints and parts of the Bible. Under the church are 227 people buried. Along the walls there are tombs of some very famous people such as Michel Angelo, Gallileo, Dante the poet, and Machavilli the poletitian.
Behind the church there is a leater hop that started after World War 2. The monks of the church started it for the orphans of the war. The monks did it so the orphans would have a trade.
A lot of the buildings in Florence were damaged in the huge flood in 1966. The church included.
Another time we went to Florence we went shopping for leather. Florence has very famous leather.