The Randalls

Our final day.  We didn’t have a lot planned today, but we ended up walking a ton anyway.  We decided to make an early arrival at Trevi Fountain because it’s so popular, which was a good thing.  Only a handful of people were there and we got some great video and pictures.  I have to say it’s my all-time favorite fountain.  It’s beautiful.  Mark threw in coins for good luck and legend says that if you toss in a coin you are guaranteed a return trip to Rome.  Mark tossed in some coins for the girls as well.  Maybe our return trip will be the whole family. 

Then we were off to the Pantheon.  The Pantheon is the best preserved ancient Roman building.  The floors we walked on are the original marble that the Romans walked on.  Like everything else in Rome, this was converted to a Catholic church and now is the resting place of the great artist Raphael and the first two Kings of Italy.  The ceiling was amazing with a dome shape and a hole in the middle.  It was, of course, raining off and on all day and you could stand in the building and watch it rain inside. 

This is Raphael’s tomb. 

Next stop…Piazza Navona.  This is considered another popular fountain/piazza but we both felt it was a little overrated.  This fountain is also in the movie Angels and Demons.  Just so you know, there’s no way Robert Langdon could dive into this fountain.  It’s only maybe 3 feet deep and we couldn’t see any air tubes to breath from. 

After going back to our hotel room and having sandwiches and a nap, we headed back out to St. John’s Basilica.  Constantine built this church and was the biggest church until St. Peter’s came along.  The neighboring chapel contains the Sacred  Steps.  These are believed to be the steps Christ walked up on his way to Pontius Pilot before he was crucified.  Constantine brought them here from Jerusalem.  It is also believed that he walked the whole way up on his knees so now you must climb the steps on your knees.  Nope, we aren’t joking.  Since we enjoy our knees and we were already tired, we passed. 

St. Paul’s church was not on our original list of things to see but ended up being really cool.  There were huge statues of each apostle during Christ’s ministry.  Pretty cool.  This guy is Matthew. 

That concluded the sight seeing for the day.  On the way back to the hotel we  had to make one last stop for our last gelato.  I’m really going to miss having a gelateria on every corner.  Tomorrow we head back to the good ol’ US of A and to my girls that I miss so much.  Ciao!

Subtitle: “The day of rain.”

I guess it was time for us to have a day where the weather didn’t cooperate.  We started out early and made sure we got to the Colosseum right when it opened at 8:30.  It started raining about an hour later.  But the rain was off and on and was a light drizzle.  What to say about the Colosseum?  Awesome, comes to mind.  The place is huge.  Here we are together on the middle level.  Unfortunately, we did not know you had to book tickets in advance to go underneath in the newly opened section.  Quite disappointing.  Oh well. 

The Colosseum was everything we thought it would be.  Just as big as the Energy Solutions Center, if not bigger.  It’s a shame the Popes stole all the marble from the Colosseum to build St. Peter’s.  Lazy! 

Here’s a better shot of the inside.

We saw the really cool Arch of Constantine.

At this point after finishing the Colosseum, the sky opened up and proceeded to dumb on us for the next couple of hours.  This was not good since our entire morning consisted of visiting all outdoor/open sites of the Forum and Palentine Hill.  At this time, Mark took over with the picture taking while I tried to be enthusiastic while walking in inches of water with completely soaked feet. 

This is my “I’m-not-having-fun face”.

We then proceeded to set the record for fastest Forum visit with over 200 photos.  Mark was picture happy, which is probably a good thing since I wanted to go back to the hotel and dry off and drink hot chocolate in my warm, Presidential Suite.  So I missed/didn’t care much about the Forum and Palentine Hill.  All I know is that there were lots of fallen marble columns and bricks laying around.  When we get home, I will have Mark explain all the pictures to me. 

Notice on the left the river forming on the walking path.  Imagine walking through a lake, in shoes, for 2 hours. 

After that, Mark mercifully gave in and we headed back to the hotel so we could dry off.  I took a power nap while Mark used the hair dryer on our shoes.  Then we were off again.  Next up was the Circus Maximus which we found out is used for events; today being no exception.  Military equipment littered the entire field so we moved on to the Baths of Caracalla which closes early on Mondays so we struck out on that as well. 

We realized we were close to the Bocca di Verita (the mouth of truth).  Legend says you stick your hand in its mouth and if you are a liar it will bite off your hand.  Luckily we passed with flying colors. 

Our next stop was the Vittorio Emanuele (the first king of Italy)monument.  Here, we paid some money to ride the elevator to the top to see the amazing view.  Here’s what the monument looks like from the ground level. 

Lastly, we did some shopping and ate a nice dinner.  Now we will sleep.  Ciao!

We made today our rest day.  And boy did our legs need it.  We slept in until 9 am then hopped on the bus to find the church (our church).  Sacrament meeting started at 11:20 and we made it just in time.  It was so refreshing to be around the church members and there were enough Americans there that they translated the meeting through little headsets.  And I have to say that it’s so great that anywhere in the world you go, the church is the same and it feels like home. 

I think the reason we were supposed to go to church today was for Mark to find out some amazing news.  He was chatting with a pair of missionaries who are currently serving in Sicily and told him that the first person he baptized on his mission is still very active and her daughter has since served a mission as well.  It made his day.  We met the mission President’s wife and she was kind enough to walk us to the bus stop to get back into town.  We also met some women who were visiting and one was from Riverton, UT.  It was a really good fast and testimony meeting and a perfect mid vacation spiritual lift (especially after the Vatican the day before). 

One thing I haven’t mentioned before are our sandwiches we have been making for meals when we are too tired to go out.  Here’s the recipe:  fresh bread (hoagie style), salami or prosciutto, fresh mozzarella and fresh basil.  Seriously, so yummy.  They hit the spot and it’s a cheap meal that we can eat in our room while relaxing. 

We had our homemade sandwiches for lunch then headed out for our Sunday afternoon passegiatta (walk) along with the rest of Rome.  We walked through the Villa Borghese park to the Piazza del Popolo.  We were pleasantly surprised to find a gathering in the Piazza with many military personnel.  It seems that the country is celebrating national unity this week for it’s armed forces.  A concert was to be held in the Piazza.  We were lucky enough to see the fighter jets fly over with colored smoke. 

Here we are in the Piazza with a bunch of military dudes behind us.  Note the blue sky in the picture.  20 minutes later it started pouring rain and half the square scattered. 

Before dinner we squeezed in the Spanish Steps which are famous for reasons we have yet to determine.  Supposedly you are supposed to sit on them and act cool but since it was raining we thought standing and taking a picture would suffice. 

Dinner was at a very authentic Italian restaurant and I disgraced myself and was shamed out of the restaurant when I couldn’t finish my bowl of pasta carbonara. 

Mark was telling me that you don’t take leftovers home because you  normally don’t have any left to take.  I did notice that even the petite Italian girls in the restaurant finished their carbonara.  I suck. 

I skipped blogging yesterday.  Too tired after our long day.  The day started with our guided tour of the Vatican.  It was refreshing to have a guide with personality.  She was young and fun and we are so glad we booked a tour so that we could learn the history behind the Vatican and the artwork.  (Free tip:  if you want to see the Vatican…book a tour or you will wait in line forever). 

*Please excuse the lack of pictures of the Vatican and artwork as we do have three young children and need to use discretion when selecting appropriate photos.  (I’ve seen enough naked people to last the rest of my life.  And we can’t even get away from them in our hotel room since we have two paintings of naked Cherubs.)

We first went through all the museums, including Mark’s favorite: the Gallery of Maps.  Figures, the one souvenir table in this long hallway had to be in front of the only map we wanted a picture of.  Since Mark served his mission in Catania we wanted a picture of the Sicily map.  This was the best we could do. 

We saw tapestries, lots of frescoes, marble statues and paintings.  I think we’ve hit our quota of museums for our lifetime.  And we only walked through an eight of all the collections.  We did like the Raphael rooms where we learned cool stuff like which fresco included Raphael’s self portrait.  And we learned that this guy in the painting is actually Michelangelo and apparently he was not a very hygienic person and the boots he is wearing actually fused to his skin.  Gross, huh? 

Next stop…the Sistine Chapel.  There were so many people and the guards desperately tried to keep everyone quiet since it still is a very sacred chapel.  It still amazes me how big all of these sites are that we’ve been seeing.  You never realize the grandeur until you’ve seen it with your own eyes.  This was no exception.  Cameras were not allowed but I may or may not have something to show when we get back. 

Our guide said good bye and ended our tour outside the doors to St. Peter’s Basilica.  My first thought when we stepped in was “wow”.  Photos just don’t do it justice.  It really is ginormous.  So big, in fact, that the Statue of Liberty could fit in it, standing up under the dome.  There were hundreds of statues, frescoes, paintings, altars, and mosaics but our favorite was hands down, the Pietá.  It was carved by Michelangelo and probably the only thing in the entire Vatican that produced any sort of spirituality.  Obviously, we came to see Vatican City for it’s history and art instead of its religious experience. 

It was really cool to see the place where the Camerlengo burned himself alive above Peter’s tomb in Angels and Demons.  It’s fun to go around the city and actually see the places Robert Langdon went to.   

To give you some sort of perspective, this bronze statue is as tall as a 4 story building. 

We finally asked someone to take a picture of us so that we could get a picture of more than just our heads.  We are standing in St. Peter’s square and the Basilica is behind us. 

Our last site of the day was Castel Sant’ Angelo which was the church’s strong hold and where all the treasure was kept.  Leading away from the castle is the bridge of angels.  In Angels and Demons, this is where the bad guy hung out with the four captured Cardinals. 

Here’s the view from the top of the castle.  The dome to the left is the Pantheon, which we will visit on Tuesday.

Oh, I forgot to mention that we saw the marble bust of Lord Voldemort.  Apparently the Papacy is big into Harry Potter as well. 

Subtitle: “Suite!”

One thing I forgot to mention yesterday: a young Asian girl stopped us on the street just as we came out of seeing The Last Supper.  She asked us for directions to a street.  What took me completely by surprised was realizing she asked us in Italian.  An Asian woman asking two people who are clearly American tourists (we totally stood out in Milan) directions in Italian.  Weird, huh?  But the coolest thing is that Mark answers back in Italian.  I’ve been pestering Mark the past few days to speak in Italian more often to people.  So when he does talk with the locals, I love it.  OK, moving on…

Ah, a travel day.  We said ciao to Milano and headed out at 8 a.m., along with everyone else.  Traffic was not fun, but with Groovy Nuvi we made it with no problems.  Nothing very exciting happened on the 7 hour drive from Milano to Roma.  Mark let me snooze for 40 minutes.  I figured it was ok to take a cat nap since we were driving through Piacenza, which is the city I drove through two days earlier. 

Unfortunately, this is the only picture I will have of Florence.  We have so much packed in to this trip and we had to prioritize what we wanted to see, so Florence will have to be on another Italy trip, along with Venice. 

We dropped off the rental car at the airport then headed into the heart of Rome by taxi, which was the greatest hour of the day.  Mark started chatting with the taxi driver in Italian and once the driver realized Mark spoke Italian, the two men spent the rest of the drive talking.  They covered everything from Mark’s mission, to politics (including Obama), to gypsies who hang out in the park.  Then he became our tour guide, too.  He was an awesome guy and circled the Colosseum just to give us a glimpse of it and he gave us some pointers where to eat and places to avoid. 

After checking in, we headed to the sixth floor to our room.  Upon entering, my breath was taken away.  At first Mark thought my reaction to the room was disappointment, but boy was he wrong.  We were upgraded to the Presidential Suite!  We are still in disbelief.  And Mark is paranoid that we are going to get charged for it, but we have checked and double checked our confirmation email from months ago and the hotel clerk said we are using points for our stay…but Mark’s still paranoid.  We have a 300 sq. foot living room, two bathrooms, a walk-in closet, a gigantic bedroom and a terrace with an amazing view of St. Peter’s cathedral.  I have to say that this completely makes up for our Milano hotel. 

Our living room.

One of the bathrooms.

Bedroom.  

And our view at dusk. 

Tomorrow we hit the Vatican for our guided tour.  Ciao! 

After posting our last blog entry, Mark and I went to eat dinner.  It was so good that I had to mention it.  My first margherita pizza was amazing.  I ate an entire medium pizza, with the exception of a few bites that went to Mark.  Pizza here in Italy is so different than the US.  It’s so much lighter and not greasy that you can eat a ton of it, which I did.  Mark’s gnocchi was delicious as well.  This meal was exactly what I was expecting/hoping to have here.  It did not disappoint.  Too bad we loaded up on carbs the night before we sit in a car most of the day.  Ciao! 

Today’s subtitle: “The Last Supper”, which is the reason we came to Milano. 

The morning came way too soon since Mark and I stayed up until 11:30 pm so we could video chat with the girls after Téa got home from school.  But it was worth being able to see my girls and all their silly faces they like to make on video.  The best way to stay awake is to go go go.  And go we did. 

First thing on the agenda today was our booked tour to see the Teatro alla Scala (the awesomeness that is the opera house).  We got to stand in the box seats, see the stage where Verdi and Toscanini both wrote operas, and tour the small museum.  The acoustics were great and Mark attempted to belt out an aria from Aida. 

And here are the beautiful chandeliers in the intermission area I want for my dining room.

Here we are with our cool Secret Service ear pieces.  Our tour guide spoke to us through these cool amplifiers.  Notice the serious faces.

Next stop, the Duomo.  This main cathedral is the third largest in Europe after the cathedrals of St. Peters and Seville.  Today  happened to be a special day where they were honoring one of their Saints so we caught a few minutes of Mass, including cool organ music. 

Here’s the outside of the Duomo, which is obviously done in the Gothic style. 

Third stop was the Castello Sforzesco (Sforza Castle).  By this point we were getting tired.  But we managed a quick walkthrough with our tour guide and saw some cool things.  Mark and I could never imagine growing up living in a castle.  It would have been weird.  And I love modern things way too much. 

And our tour saved the best for last.  We both have been dreaming of seeing The Last Supper for years.  Our time at the Santa Maria Della Grazie church was short but so worth it.  We spent the first 15 minutes going through airlock chambers to dehumidify.  Unfortunately, we could not take pictures so we have nothing to show but a souvenir.  We will never forget that first feeling we got of walking in that room and seeing the painting for the first time.  It was amazing.  We wish we could have stayed an hour but 15 minutes was all that was allowed.  There’s actually another painting on the opposite wall from Da Vinci’s artwork, but we didn’t even notice it.  All our attention was on The Last Supper and all the details. 

Here is the church where The Last Supper is housed.  One of the coolest things about Italy is while you are walking through more modern areas you can turn a corner and find an old building or church.

Our guided tour of Milan ended here, so we headed back to the hotel for a quick siesta and then back out for lunch and a roof-top self-guided tour of the Duomo.  Before I move on to the cool roof-top experience I have a journal entry moment I need to share.  I rode a subway…for the first time.  It only took 30 years, but now I’m a pro.  Moving on…

Just so you all know, we took the cheap route and walked the stairs to the roof instead of the elevator.  A total of 246 steps one way, by the way.  The view was amazing and probably the best part of the Duomo. 

Here are just a few of the 163 spires.

Some of the gargoyles protecting the church.

Mark on the roof.  Too bad there’s scaffolding on it.  The Madonna at the top is one of the highest points in the city. 

And here I am posing as a statue.

Tomorrow is a travel day including seven hours in the car.  It will be a nice break for our legs as we head back to Rome.  Eternal City, here we come.  Ciao!

The subtitle of this post should be “The day of travel”.  Nothing grandiose. 

After a great night’s sleep in the Hotel Bologna in Pisa, Mark and I awoke to lots of rain.  Thankfully at this point we were half a day ahead of schedule and didn’t have to see the leaning tower in the rain.  We had a yummy continental breakfast and then started our 4 hour drive to Milano.  I am happy to announce that I drove 2 of those hours and only got honked at once.  And  I’m happy to announce that I won’t be driving again.  It actually wasn’t that bad, but I was so tense because if you are passing in the left hand lane you better floor it because some Maserati going 200 kpm will mow you down.  Some old lady even flashed her lights at me to move over and Miss Groovy Nuvi (our GPS announcer) kept telling me I was going too fast.  Go figure.  I was able to drive through the mountains of Northern Tuscany and pass through at least a dozen tunnels.  Mark made the comment that parts of the mountains looked like his native New England. 

We even passed our favorite pasta maker…

We arrived in Milan at our Marriott Hotel at 2:15 and sat around in the lobby for 45 minutes waiting for our room to be ready.  We we were told it would be 15 minutes.  I should mention that check-in time is any time after 2:00 pm.  Mark read reviews people wrote about those who used hotel points to stay places and lots of people had nothing but negative things to say like they had bad service, yada yada yada.  But we were optimistic.  After our experience I am now one of those who believe you get treated like crap when you use your rewards points.  To make a long story short we wasted 1.5 hours waiting around and trying to get what we made reservations for 5 months ago.  But I guess we will have to be content to stay in our first floor, two twin bedroom.  Yup, Mark and I don’t get to share a bed tonight.  Lame, huh?  I know you are all thinking “Oh, poor Marcia gets to stay in Italy in a nice hotel for free.  Waa waa”, but we all need something to complain about. 

After things were ‘settled’ we dropped off luggage and headed out to the city.  We walked everywhere to see the sites at night, eat dinner and pastries and gelato.  I had my first panzerotto (a kind of fried calzone), a Nutella-filled croissant, and the obligatory gelato (this time chocolate and hazelnut).  My goal is to have gelato at least once every day.  We were able to see the Galleria, the Duomo, a castle and other cool stuff.  Mostly we did lots of window shopping.  Here are a few things we saw. 

This Louis Vuitton purse only cost 800 Euros (about $1200).

I’m not into high heeled shoes but I really loved these Prada’s.  They only cost 410 Euros ($600).

And these purses are 1,650 Euros ($2,300).  For some reason Mark didn’t buy me any of these things. 

And here is a picture for Jared and Leslie.  This is the latest Vespa model.  We think this orange hue is perfect for Jared.  We may have room in our luggage to bring one home if he wants…

We headed back to the hotel after an exhausting day of walking.  Tomorrow we are splurging and riding the Metro.  We used our GPS to add up our total mileage walked; total miles – about 6.  So tired.  But we are planning on staying up late so we can talk to the girls when they get home from school.  Ciao!

Siamo arrivati!  After 4 airports, 3 planes and 21 hours later we jumped in our Mazda 3 rental car and sped off to Pisa.  We chanced upon the correct highway to go along the Western Coast of Italy.  We made it 10 minutes from the airport before Mark had to stop and buy Blood Red Orange Aranciata (an Italian soft drink). 

Our first real stop was in a quaint town called Piombino where we wanted to catch a glimpse of the island of Elba; Napolean’s exile island.

Next up was strolling the rolling hills of the Tuscany vineyards.  Here is a picture of our future retirement home.

Four hours later we arrived in Pisa.  We checked into our hotel, showered, then headed to the first of many shops to buy Gilato.  We ate the yummy goodness on our way to the Piazza dei Miracoli to see the Leaning Tower, the Duomo and the Baptistry. 

I have seen the Leaning Tower in so many pictures but seeing this piece of architecture in person was amazing.  You get to see the small details and of course pay to walk to the top.  In case you’re wondering…I climbed 293 stairs to get to the top.  Then 293 back down.  Here I am ‘holding’ up the tower.  Pretty sweet, huh?

Next up was the Baptistry. 

This is where baptisms were performed (by immersion, by the way) way back during the middle ages.  Hence the giant font behind Mark in the picture.  The baptistry also had awesome stained glass windows. 

Last but not least was the Duomo which is the main cathedral of the city.  It’s huge but small compared to St. Peter’s which we will see this weekend. 

This picture doesn’t do the inside justice, but you can kind of get a hint of the enormity of the place.

To finish off the day we ate panino with salami and fresh mozzarella and fresh basil and olive oil.  It was goooooood.  I could have eaten two I was so hungry from all the walking we did.  After 34 hours of being up and going non stop we are ready to crash for the evening.  Ciao!