Rome--my very first impression? Hot and humid! What an abrupt change from Paris!! We went from the Termini to Enjoy Rome. They are a free, cultural company that is fantastic. They booked us a hotel room a couple of blocks away, which we immediately went to. I am beginning to despise my backpack. I packed way too much junk!! (I`ll be much better at this next time.) We settled into our room when two of our roommates, Tilda and Pirget, arrived. Shortly after, the last two people in our room showed up. Sam and Justin are two guys from England, and their friend, Mark, is from California. We sat around and chatted for a while, said good-bye to Mark (who was headed to Interlaken) and hit the streets of Rome. One of the streets directly behind our hotel, The Stargate, was full of vendors on the street selling fruit, clothes, purses, flowers, junk, and underware. It had a very exciting atmosphere to it. We made our way to the metro station, caught a metro to the Colosseum, and walked around the inside for a while. We were going to go to the Sistine Chapel next, but it would have closed right as we arrived. We headed back to the hotel to do a load of laundry. (Our clean clothes supply was dwindling quickly!!) After the laundro-mat we met Sam and Justin back at the room, and they took us to a wonderful pizzeria close to the Stargate. The pizza was wonderful (and huge). We ate at a little table on the sidewalk, it was so cute!! I also rediscovered how much I LOVE Italian food!!

The next morning we decided to go to Vatican City. I stopped in a Pasticceria and grabbed a wonderfully messy cream-filled pastry. We went down to catch a metro, but they weren't running. All of the gates were closed, so we went to the autobus area and waited in line there. A bus arrived and a mob of frustrated Italians (and tourists) packed into the bus. The doors couldn't even close!! We opted to catch the next bus, and did. It was just as packed. (It was very hot and stinky.) We sat in the bus for a long time with a lot of angry, yelling Italians, and finally we unloaded the bus with it never having moved!! We were told that the bus was broken. When the next bus arrived, we made a mad dash for it, and the same thing happened. Turns out that the public transportation workers were on strike!! What terrible luck for our last day in Rome. So far we have only seen the Colosseum. We decided to go to the Enjoy Rome office to maybe book a tour for later that day. There was a Vatican tour at 1 and an Ancient Rome tour at 6. We paid for both, and had to hurry back to our room to get our stuff so we could make it to Vatican City in time to change and meet at the designated spot. Don't forget our only mode of transportation is our feet. It took us an hour to walk to the Vatican. We changed into our appropriate attire. (Knees and shoulders have to be covered to get into St. Peters Basilica.) our tour guide was Suzi, and she was wonderful. Through the next 3 1/2 hours, she gave us so much detailed information on everything that we saw. We went into the Vatican museums and saw hundreds of beautiful sculptures. We saw the original tapestries from the Sistime Chapel. We went several rooms that were painted by Raphael and Michaelangelo. Everything was so amazing. I couldn't believe that I was seeing the works that these masters painted hundreds of years ago!! We went into the Sistine Chapel and Sainte Pietro's Basilica, both of which were totally incredible, and that concluded our tour.

Now it is time to walk to the Colosseum to meet for our Ancient Rome tour. After all of this walking, I will definitely sleep well!! We met with our tour guide, Peter, and our tour began. He old us all about the hilstory of the Colosseum, and the other areas of Ancient Rome. It was an excellent tour, and Peter was a wonderful guide. He was very energetic, and that guy can walk fast!! At the end of the tour, he told us of a wonderful pasta place, and his favorite gelati place. I love the food here!! (I just hope it isn't obvious when I get back to the States!!!) By now we were tired so we began our walk home. It was so nice to crawl in bed and be off of my weary feet. In the morning it would be time to say good-bye to Rome and hello to Florence.

We woke up in the morning and took a Eurostar (one of the very nice high-speed trains) which cut our travel time in half. I sat next to a guy from Ireland that lives in Florence. He was very nice and interesting, and we chatted through most of the journey. (This is when he informed us that a lot of the Europeans don't use the EUrostar because they wreck a lot. I did not find this to be very conforting news!) When we arrived in Florence, we booked a pensione for the first night, and walked there to get settled. It was similar to a bed and breakfast, only it was in an apartment. It was a very nice place. We were located in the fashion district!! Across the street was Cartier, next door was Gucci, and we passed Versaci and Armani on our way to the pensione! We wondered around Florence to familiarize ourselves the the city. I love it!! It is a medieval city with narrow cobblestone streets that are winding and are lined with very tall old buildings. For the most part, we spent our time in Florence walking around and enjozing the city. We did not go into many of the churches. I think we did a little overkill in Rome, and we were ready to relax for a while. We did take a tour on our last day, and it was great. We got a nice history lesson about this lovely city. On our second day, we moved to the hostel Archi Rossi ( a move that our wallets appreciated), and we spent some time there also. Two of our roommates were from the states, and we sat in our room and talked to them for quite a while. One evening we sat out in the courtyard for a while, where we met two girls for New York. They were really neat, and I loved their accents!!

From Florence we headed to Venice. Venice is wonderful because there are no cars. It was terrible because it is very confusing to navigate at first (especially when you are very hot, have a 35 pould pack on yzour back, and are using a terrible map that the tourist office gave you on which you canal tell which is a canal, and which is a street!!) At that moment, Katina and I both hated Venice. We finally found the dorm we were going to stay in, and we got settled. It was very cute. Everything was old, but that's what I liked about it. We had a curfew of 11:30, but the first night we were there, they were having a fireworks show--The Redeemers Fireworks, so curfew was extended to 1:00 am. We decided to head out and see the city. We forgave Venice for being so confusing and frustrating, and I began to fall in love with Italy all over again.

When we were headed to the fireworks show, we were walking through a plaza, when someone called out my name. It was Justin, the guy from Rome. It was neat to see him again, and he joined us for the fireworks. The fireworks were spectacular. (The Italians know how to put on a fireworks show!!) There was a Dutch guy who made funny oohs and aahs throughout the show, which made it even more entertaining for the three of us!! Justin walked us back to our hostel, which was very beneficial to us because we didn't know the way. Walking at top speed, we got to the hostel just as the doors were closing. (We almost had to sleep under the stars!!)

Sunday morning we awoke to noisy bells ringing. These bells are the craziest things!! They ring at the most random times, and very often. We did what one is suppose to do on Sunday, we rested. We slept in (until 9) and sat around and read some. Later that day we walked around some, and took a nap. We had just worn ourselves out, but Venice is the perfect place to kick back relax, and enjoy the city. We wandered around the maze of neighborhood streets and got totally lost (nothing unusual for us!!), but we found our way back, and go to see many areas of Venice along the way. Our last day, we were going to do the Enjoy Venice tour that we paid for in Rome. We showed up at the Thomas Cook office in the San Marco Plaza and waited. We were at the wrong Thomas Cook, so we missed our tour. We wandered around Venice some more, and I ran into the two girls that were in our room in Florence, so we talked for a while. We roamed the streets for several hours because we had already checked out of our hostel. It was a very hot day, and by the end of the day we were dirty, stinky and tired so we decided to cheer ourselves up with some gelati. Yum Yum!! When we finished, we passed a little boy in the street that had a football (soccerball), and he kicked it to Katina. This started a litlle game, and we played with him for about thirty minutes. He had to eat dinner, so we went and read some before we headed for the train station. Arrivederci Italy, Switzerland here we come!! Little did we know that we were about to embark on an unforgettable train ride!!

Tune in next time for tales of the Swiss Alps and the train ride from hell!!

July 27, 1998