We loved Italy. A country with rich history, beautiful food and architecture and friendly people. What’s not to love? It was our first visit to this wonderful country. We saw the sights but the best part was catching up with my brother Geoff and his family who flew in from Australia. Ahhhh family.
Getting to Italy
We left Laura our French canal boat in the port of Roanne. Roanne is where we’ve been since the canals and locks closed at the end of October and where we’ll stay until April next year. From Roanne it was a quick train ride to Lyon and then 4 hours on a bus to Turin, which is just across the border into Italy. We crossed the French-Italian alps where there was plenty of snow in the distance. And 10 days later, on our way back to France, there was even more. Looks like it might be a good snow season this year in Europe and many of the ski resorts have opened early.
Bologna
We only stayed one night in Turin but could have stayed longer as it was a very beautiful city. Instead, we headed off to Bologna, the food capital of Italy. We can see why Bologna has this title – the food was magnificent! Even the raw meat that I accidently ordered was delicious.
We had another food fail in Bologna. We arrived on Saturday night starving, dropped our bags in our room and headed off for dinner. Everywhere was booked out but we managed to sweet-talk our way into a very popular place. Luckily, our Australian charm didn’t fail us. We were so looking forward to eating traditional Italian food in Bologna. Maybe a tagliatelle al ragu with a nice Tuscan chianti followed by tiramasu for dessert. Unfortunately, we had sweet-talked our way into a Greek restaurant! Possibly the only one in Bologna. So instead we had souvlaki with baklava for dessert. Oh well! It was delicious too.
When we got ourselves sorted the next day in a proper Italian restaurant the food was magnificent. But there’s more to Bologna than food. The city is very beautiful as well.
Bologna is known as the red city, and you can see why. Many of the older buildings are made from red clay and terracotta. The architecture is amazing.
We stayed in a lovely apartment in Bologna which also added to the charm of the place for us. There’s nothing like coming home after a hard day of eating, drinking and sight seeing to this…
So if you go to Italy, make sure Bologna is on your “must see” list. We absolutely loved it.
Off to Rome
After Bologna it was a 3 hour train ride through Italy to Rome to see the sights and meet up with the family. Now, we loved Rome, don’t get me wrong. But everything about it felt touristy and a bit shady. On the one hand we were awed to experience a city whose history dates back 2,775 years. But on the other hand, everywhere we went we felt we had to be careful of being ripped off, especially in restaurants where there always seemed to be a few mysterious things on our bill. Even the guy in the video below playing the violin. Is he really playing? You be the judge.
Regardless, the whole scene below still moved me to tears – to be in Rome, looking at the history of Roman civilisation on a beautiful day listening to Adele with some of my loved ones. Bliss!
We saw the Pope!
I’m not a catholic, but it was still pretty cool to see the Pope. How it happened was we booked a full-day tour where we saw most of the major historic sights of Rome including the Colosseum, The Trevi Fountain, Palatine Hill, the Vatican and many more.
After this tour and seeing up close the history of the Roman empire I firmly believe that everyone should have the opportunity to visit Rome at least once in their lifetime. The history is truly extraordinary. Visiting structures like the almost 2,000 year old Pantheon and the Colosseum shows human ingenuity, beauty as well as greed and tragedy. Just about everywhere you go in Rome there are monuments, buildings and artefacts that trace human history. Rome is a very special place.
But what about the Pope?
But back to the Pope. Whilst we were on our tour of the Vatican (which was brilliant, by the way), our tour guide informed us that the Pope wouldn’t be making his customary Wednesday appearance in St. Peter’s Square, as he was sick. None of us knew that he did this on a Wednesday, so we weren’t disappointed. But we were very surprised when he drove straight past us! Check out the video below. Everyone gets pretty excited when they work out who is in the car.
The Vatican was pretty spectacular. Our guide told us that if you spent one minute looking at all the art in the Vatican it would take you three years non-stop to see it all. I can believe it. We couldn’t take photos within the Sistine Chapel but just about everywhere else we could. Here’s some just to give you an idea of what you can see.
St Peter’s Basilica is the largest church in the world. The size of it is simply extraordinary. The photo below on the left might give you some idea of the size. Lachlan (nephew) is 6 foot tall. The writing you can see up the top of the picture is 9 feet tall.
Here’s some more pictures of our tour of Rome. We were in awe of the place and so grateful to see the major sites, but we were also happy to head to our next stop. Florence.
We loved Florence
From the minute we hopped off the train in Florence we were in love with the place. It’s a huge modern city, but the ancient centre village is truly spectacular. The city has always been and still is a centre for art, culture, music, fashion and philosophy. The buildings are stunning and even the dogs are snappy dressers in Florence!
Buskers
We saw plenty of buskers in Florence and it added to the ambiance. It was wonderful to be wandering the streets of this ancient city and hear this…
Kicking up our heels
After a delicious meal, and maybe a few too many wines, the buskers got the better of Erinn (niece) and I. Our toes started tapping and all of a sudden we were kicking up our heels. We didn’t let a pesky car interrupt us for long.
The dancing mood was infectious and it wasn’t long before Ivan was showing off some of his fanciest moves. Ahhh Florence. What have you done to us!
Statues everywhere in Italy
If you are not comfortable seeing statues of naked men, then Italy is not for you. They are so many of them.
The Vatican had a room filled with busts of former Popes. We think the guy below may have upset the sculptor in some way.
Statue of David
The most famous statue in the world is of course Michelangelo’s statue of David. It is housed in the Galleria dell’Accademia in Florence and is utterly breath taking.
David is 14 feet tall. Here’s a photo of Ivan (who is 6 foot four) next to it to give you some idea of the sheer size. I’ve also included a photo of the back because I don’t think I’ve ever seen a picture of David from behind. You can understand why this statue is considered a masterpiece and Michelangelo a genius. It is magnificent.
Now how is that car going to get out?
I’m not going to say anything, but the pictures below of car parking were by no means a rare occurrence in Italy. Especially Florence. There would have been no more than 2cm between the scooter at the front and the white car at the back. How?
We spent 4 nights in Florence but could have stayed for a month. It’s definitely on our list of places that we’ll return to one day. After Florence we left Italy and headed back to France.
Lots of snow
We couldn’t believe how much snow had fallen in the French/Italian Alps in the 10 days that we were away. Enough for a snowball. Thanks Ivan!
Back home again
We loved Italy and we’ll definitely visit again one day. We missed out on visiting many places such as Venice and Naples so we’ll have to return.
Whilst we love travelling it was wonderful to get back to Laura the boat in the port of Roanne. Italy was incredible, but France feels like home to me. And you can’t get a cosier home than Laura the boat, especially when we get to mind our friend’s dogs for a day.
Blooper reel – where’s the Pope?
One final thing before I go. The photos of the Pope that were added earlier were not taken by me. They were taken by Erinn my niece. I’m so glad she was there, otherwise no one would believe that we saw the Pope. Here’s my photos. Oops. If there was an award for not taking photos of the Pope, then I think I would win it.
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