June 27, 2012

Travels never blogged: Part 3: Rome, Italy

I did most of Rome by myself. I was with my friends for one afternoon and evening then the following day and morning by myself. It was wonderful. Except for the part where my camera died in the Vatican. Alas. Did I buy a disposable camera? Yes I did.

We will start with the token shot of the Coliseum.
Here's the some of the view from the ruins nearby:



The building with the sculpture on top is an museum I didn't have time for
And the actual ruins:
Mosaic floor.
This may have been part of the Forum. Darn ambiguous signage.

Trajan's Column:

And here's some from the Vatican before camera battery death
Peacocks:


Top of St. Peter's from the courtyard with neat sculpture thing:

Sometimes even the Pope just wants the kids to stay off his lawn:



June 25, 2012

Travels never blogged: Part 2: Venice, Italy

Oh my goodness, Venice. Be still my heart. The water, the buildings, San Marco's (and square), and, of course, all the lions.

This was the view from our hostel.

Taking photos of other people's balconies is normal behavior, especially leaning out your hostel window. Totally normal.


 Here's San Marco's cathedral:

A few from San Marco's square:
Part of a clock tower. Lions everywhere


I'm a little obsessed with this boat.
 View from one of the many bridges
Rialto Bridge at night. You can't tell from this photo, but there is pretty much no room to walk up those steps because there's so many people on it.
And this view is why:

June 19, 2012

Travels never blogged: Part 1: Florence & Siena, Italy

Things I haven't done: Blogged about Europe.
I took a course in Denmark last summer. Conveniently, a dear friend and her cousin and another person we know were planning to go to Italy. Even better, it was planned for right before class started! We traipsed around Florence, Siena (an unfortunately short day trip), Venice, and Rome.
Il Duomo:

 Snack time

 Views from the Uffizi art museum:


We went to the Galileo museum. They have a few of his fingers in there. The guards were right there, too close for picture-taking/rule-breaking.
Inside the Galileo museum:

Microscopes!
Telescopes!
Chemistry glassware
Periodic table

It's hard to see in this photo, but there's stairs on the outside of the tower. Upper left side. If I was all right with getting arrested, I would have tried to get up there.



And here's some from Siena:





Florence is a beautiful city at night, but no good photos to share. The bus ride out to Siena went through lovely Tuscan countryside (bus pictures just don't turn out well).

To console you, here's the sign for Dante's family church (well, his church before the city exiled him). 



There was lots of food, primarily gelato and espresso--as we all know, the two major food groups. The major victory was using my rather mediocre Spanish to get one of my fellow travelers antihistamine cream. There was wandering somewhat aimlessly---the best way to go.

More chronicling of a vacation that happened over a year ago to come.