Saturday in Florence

Today we jumped aboard a bus for a tour of Florence. We hopped off at Piazzale Michelangelo first of all. There were marvellous views of the city and river.

Our next stop was Palazzo Pitti. (a very grand palace) with very beautiful gardens. It is now a museum. There are wonderful paintings on the walls and even the ceilings. I really liked the room full of jewellery. Some of the jewellery was modern but most of it was very old. We were not allowed to take photographs inside the rooms. 

We had lunch - pasta with gelato for dessert (again!). Then it was off to another museum. This one was all about famous scientists. John LOVED it. He is a science teacher, after all. 

This is the view from Piazzale Michelangelo. It was a bit cooler and wet today. Once we got inside though we had to take off our coats because it was too hot!

Here we are in the gardens of the palace. Very grand and very enormous. I am glad I don't have to do the mowing or trim the hedges.

These globes are in the Galileo Museum. (the one about the famous scientists) Some of them are very old. They are so old they don't have Australia on them because Australia had not been discovered by white man yet. 



This is a statue of Galileo. He is famous for discovering the moons of Jupiter, discovering dark patches on the sun (sunspots) and developing a way to measure time. He is one of John's favourite scientists. He lived from (about) 1550 to 1630. (a very long time ago)

 

In Firenze (Florence)

John has been at his Teachers' Conference for the last two days so Amy and I have been wandering the streets of Firenze - that's Italian for Florence. It is a beautiful city. There are many things to see and do. One of my favourites is eating gelato (yummy ice-cream).
We went shopping yesterday. Amy loves shopping!!!! Today we visited Ponte Vecchio - which is the most famous bridge over the Arno River. There were lots of tourists and lots of jewellery shops. All the jewellery was a bit expensive but we did buy some cool things from the Pinocchio Store.
Have you noticed we are getting very good at taking "selfies"?

                                                             This is our "selfie" for today.

                                                      This is Amy on the way to the bridge.

                                             This is the Ponte Vecchio across the Arno River.

There are lots of very interesting buildings in Florence. Look at the bikes on the outside of this modern apartment block. The second photo is of some of the older buildings along the river.

Day Three in Italy

We did some more sight-seeing today. We got our walking shoes on and walked to the Pantheon. It is a very old church and very spectacular. It was much more beautiful than I thought it would be.
We are now in Florence. We caught the fast train again. More snow-capped mountains in the distance
 and lots of beautiful countryside. When we got settled into our hotel room John decided he had to find where his conference is tomorrow. We got lost BIG TIME and ended up doing so much walking. Florence is not as big or as busy as Rome and Amy and I plan on wandering around the shops and markets tomorrow.

Our day in Pompeii

We caught the train to Naples and then Pompeii today. The train went really fast - up to 280 km an hour. There were snow-capped mountains in the distance as we went by. That was pretty cool!
While we were at Pompeii we walked around the ruins. Mt Vesuvius (a volcano) erupted and covered the city with ash and lava. It was not discovered for nearly one thousand years. It was interesting seeing all the sights. I could not believe how beautiful everything must have looked way back then. You can still see some of the paintings on the walls.
We are leaving Rome tomorrow and going by train up to Florence. John has to go to his conference for two days so Amy and I will go exploring by ourselves. That could prove interesting cos we are both very good at getting lost.

Our first day in Italy

 Hello everyone. It took a very long time to get to Italy (over 24 hours). We flew to Singapore, then Dubai and then finally Italy. We have spent our first day in Rome, the capital of Italy. We have seen lots of the important sites. The Colosseum, the Trevi Fountain, Saint Peter's Square and the Roman Forum.We have not had any pizza yet but we all had yummy pasta for dinner. We are going to Pompeii tomorrow so I will post some pictures from there.

Two days to go

Getting excited for our adventure to Italy. I will use this blog to keep you informed about our travels.