Pizza, Pasta, and Paninis!

You will soon discover that this is a very extensive entry. Please don't let the length discourage you from reading every single word of it. There are lots of fascinating things and funny stories to share with you. Hopefully you will find it to be interesting!

We started our enchanting Italian experience in the city of Venice. We took a motorboat ride to reach the city that is built on 117 islands with 150 canals and 400 bridges. Regular flooding and sky-high property prices make it a difficult place to live. Public transport is via the canals on water buses. The other mode of transportation is your feet. While in Venice we shopped, checked out the city, kissed on the famous bridge said to make your love eternal (since we really needed to secure that), and went on a romantic gondola ride. It was just as you would imagine with the black and white striped sailor shirt dude whistling away and steering you through the canals of the beautiful city. We ended the night with a group dinner Venetian fashion. That basically means there was A LOT of food! What a blast!

Next we headed to the ancient city of Rome. This city has more than 2500 years of history and is packed with some of the most amazing buildings and architecture ever! Some of these structures include the Colosseum, the Sistine Chapel, St. Peter's Basilica, Trevi Fountain, the Pantheon, the Roman Forum, and Piazza Navona. I chose the most important places to tell you a few things about to give you an idea of their significance.

The Colosseum is Rome's best-known monument and was begun by Emperor Vespasian in AD 72. The massive structure could seat 80,000 and featured gory and deadly gladiatorial combat and wild beast shows. During the Middle Ages, it became a fortress, then later a quarry for travertine and marble to build Palazzo Venezia and other buildings. Restoration works have been under way since 1992.

The Sistine Chapel... okay, don't even get me started. First of all let me say there are so many freakin awesome, talented artists from Italy during the Renessaince and Baroque periods that I can hardly handle it. Ever heard of Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and Raphael? And no I am not talking about the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Yeah, they rock. Anyways, the Sistine Chapel was a private chapel built in 1473 for Pope Sixtus IV. Michelangelo spent 4 years of his life painting an incredible fresco on the ceiling. The artwork depicts the book of the Bible, Genesis, including the Creation and the Fall. 24 years later after he finished this massive project he painted the back wall of the chapel known as The Last Judgement. You "technically" weren't allowed to take any pictures in the chapel because the flash of the camera slowly ruins the paintings, but I snuck a couple non-flash pictures for you to enjoy. Oh yes, one other quick story. It is not true that Michelangelo painted the ceiling lying on his back. For four years the dude leaned his neck back and painted over his head. The project permanently screwed up his vision and his posture. He could no longer bring his head down to a straight-forward, normal position. Talk about a sacrifice for the job!

St. Peter's Basilica is the most famous church in Christendom and stands on the site where St. Peter was buried... hence the name. In 1547 Michelangelo, at age 72, took on the project of designing the grand dome. Yeah, he was the man. The church has a strict dress code for visitors which I can testify IS enforced as I attempted to test the rules. Your shoulders have to be covered and no shorts or skirts above the knee are allowed. I miraculously got past the first and second set of security guards and actually made it in the church for 45 whole minutes before I got caught and kicked out with my scandalous above the knee shorts. When the guy just asked me to leave I just regretfully put on the pants I brought and reentered with the proper coverage. It was like a BILLION degrees outside so I was avoiding the pants and cardigan route at all costs. As you can see, I was all about breaking the rules while in Rome. :)

The Pantheon is the best-preserved building of Rome. The original building was built in 27 BC by Marcus Agrippa and the extraordinary dome is considered the most important achievement of all Roman architecture.

Personally, I am so blown away by the accomplishments of these artists and architects from 2 thousand years ago! These structures are so old but yet still remain to be some of the most impressive architecture in the world. Just goes to show you how brilliant these people were!

So you can see what we did with our time while in Rome. There was much to see and we were very busy. Now, moving onto Florence... We didn't have a whole lot of time here and to be honest, I can't even remember what we did besides dinner, haha. Uhh, let's see. We saw a leather demonstration and were able to explore the city. Other than that, I don't think there's much to say. For dinner, we got all dressed up and went to "Le Certosa" a charming 16th century restaurant set in the scenic Tuscan hills. There was a pianist to set a romantic mood, a dance floor, as well as an opera singer to serenade all of us. The dinner was like a 30 course meal. It just kept coming. I thought that I had already eaten (and finished might I add) the main course when out the real main course... It was a delight, but boy was I full. During the course of the evening the lights dimmed and a slow song came on. This is when Brandon took my hand and led me out to the dance floor. We were the only ones out there and everyone from our group was cheering, clapping, whistling, and taking pictures... it was a night to remember! So fun, so romantic. Okay, back to reality.

This is the end of our wonderful time in Italy. I highly recommend everyone going there at least once in your lifetime. It truly is an amazing place. The amount of history, art, style, and culture is overwhelming! Well, I hope you've enjoyed your tour... I'm working for tips only, so feel free to send them my way. ;) Til next time, peace out.

On our way... :)

Venice, you are so good to me.

People and pigeons everywhere.

The hoppin city square.

Now you see why I love this city so much.

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Ready for a gondola ride?

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Goodbye wonderful city.

Here we are in Rome starting with the grand Colosseum.

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Rome and it's columns...

The view of a street corner as we are eating pizza for dinner at an outdoor restaurant.

Some important Italian building.

People, it's the Pantheon!

Look at how HUGE the columns are!!! Brandon can't even wrap his arms half way around one. Sure puts it into scale, huh?

The inside of the Pantheon.

Canals all over the place.

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THEE Sistine Chapel!!! That's right you lucky ducks! I took this illegal picture (which explains the crookedness of the shot) just so you all could share the experience of this famous and incredible piece of art!

The last judgement. This was painted on the entire back wall of the chapel.

Florence.

Beautiful Italian apartments.

Cool bridge reflection.

Dressed up and ready for a delicious 4 course meal Tuscan style.

The Hills are alive...

Hello dear friends! So we just finished in Munich and then headed for Austria! The first thing we did in this grand country was white water rafting! Oh my gosh, what a thrill. It was sooo much fun! Slightly scary at some moments for me, but very fun. We had to wear wet suits (the water was FREEZING), water shoes, this weird thin jacket, and then a life jacket over that. There were 10 of us in our raft including our guide. I was positioned in the very back right next to the guide and Brandon was in the very front leading the pack with our rowing time. I was trying my very hardest to not fall in the water and only went in twice... the 2 manditory times. While Brandon couldn't jump in enough! So typical of our ways. During the more low key parts of the river we played some fun games where we all had to stand up and balance on the edge of the raft using our neighbors to keep our balance. At one point and time our guide asked for 2 volunteers, Brandon being one of them of course. They had to stand on the edge of either end of the raft while the rest of us made the raft spin in circles faster and faster and faster. Brandon fell into the water, but it's okay, he loved it. To say the least, the white water rafting experience was one of our favorite activities! Will I do it again... uhh, probably. Especially if Brandon has anything to say about it. :)

The other main excursion in Austria was a trip to the Swarovski Crystal Museum. I know all you Moms out there, it was exciting, but just calm down. ;) There were displays and interesting creations using light, color, crystals, and sound. The pictures will help give you an idea of what we saw.

Austria is famous for apple strudel, Wiener schnitzel, and being Arnold Schwarzenegger's home. Not to mention it was in Salzburg where the Sound of Music took place.

At the end of our time in Austria, we traveled to Italy. However, due to the fact that we went to 3 cities in Italy and because there are massive amounts of pictures, I am going to skip over that section of our trip for now and move on to Switzerland. In the next blog, I will go back and do the 3 Italian cities (Venice, Rome, and Florence) all together. I wanted to do all of Italy in one blog so as to give you the full impression of the country. I couldn't handle breaking it up like that. Yeah I know, I'm a perfectionist. I can't help it. Anyways, back on track here people... Switzerland, Switzerland.

Alright. So S-land is known for their chocolate, cheese, Swiss Army knives, clocks, and their strait-laced bankers. I know, that last one's a little odd. French, German, and Italian are all spoken in S-land. Somehow they manage to blend all 3 cultures in one country. According to the Lonely Planet book "There's more to the story than Heidi and the Matterhorn, goat herders, cowbells, and yodelling." One thing this country definitely has is beauty. If you refer to two blogs ago you will see that S-land was one of my favorite places. It has some of the most exquisite natural beauty on the continent. So there you have it.

While in S-land we traveled to the top of Mt. Stanserhorn and checked out that scene. I definitely heard cowbells while up there. Later that evening we took a cruise on the stunning Lake Lucerne and enjoyed the spectacular alpine scenery. Well, that about wraps it up for these two fine countries. Up next... ITALY!

Alright, I'm outta here. Buhbye.

All decked out in our fancy gear!

Floating down the river... this is the beginning, calm part. Unfortunately, we don't have any pictures of the wild rapids.

The famous golden roof in the town of Innsbruck! We climbed to the top of a tower to get this view.

Look at all the colorful buildings!

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City and mountains.

The front entrance of the Swarovski Crystal museum.

No, that's not the diamond in my wedding ring... That's the world's largest crystal located in the museum.

Ooooh, pretty.

Crazy jellyfish!

We are now entering a new country. It's called Switzerland. FYI: That's telephone country code 41.

Beautiful beautiful Switzerland! Ahh, I love this place.

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Who wants to move here?

Going up 6,300 feet to the top of Mt. Stanserhorn on a cable car.

Woo! A view of the Swiss Alps.

Heehee.

The pretty city of Lucerne.

Our evening cruise on Lake Lucerne.

Amsterdam and Munich.

To recap from the last blog... We just finished 3 days in Berlin and then flew back to London. We spent the night in a hotel and our Contiki tour (the company we booked with) was to begin the next morning. We woke up bright and early and met up with all the other Contiki-ers. The ages in our group ranged from 18-30. After all the logistics were figured out, we boarded the bus and headed out for our first destination, Amsterdam. We drove to the English Channel, took a ferry across, went through France and Belgium, and arrived in the Netherlands. We went through 4 countries in one day! We ate dinner at the hotel and spent the evening relaxing on a canal cruise through the city. The next day we had til 1:00 to do with our time as we pleased. Brandon and I went to the house that Anne Frank and her family hid out at during WW II. We were able to take a tour of the secret home that doubled as Mr. Frank's office. Anne Frank's diary was on display as well as the original papers that were sent to the family stating that Anne's sister and father were to be "taken away."

Some interesting things about Amsterdam:
- Population of the Netherlands: 16.3 million
- Population of the capital, Amsterdam: 731,000
- 9/10 of the people from Amsterdam are Dutch. 40% of the people claim no religious affiliation. Of the remainder 31% are Catholic, 21% are Protestant, 5% are Muslim, and the remaining 3% are split among other denominations.
- It's famous for extraordinary paintings, volatile footballers, cheese, and liberal attitudes.

After our morning in Amsterdam we drove to Munich. We didn't do a whole lot here that the pictures can't speak for themselves. So I will just let the photos tell the story of our time in Munich.

Facts about Munich:
- Population of Germany: 82.5 million
- Population of Munich: 1.3 million
- Munich is the number one destination for foreign visitors in all of Germany.
- It's famous for sausages, beer, cars, and history.

Our first night on the Contiki tour. We are enjoying a canal cruise in Amsterdam!

The middle building in this picture is where Anne Frank and her family stayed in hiding during World War II.

Just my size! :)

The not so lovely streets of Amsterdam... they're pretty dirty.

The Rhine River.

A night of wine tasting. We were given tastes of 3 different types of white wine along with their history, location, year, all that information. It was an education experience, but the wine was too sweet for us... it was like really sugary grapejuice.