Rome

 Any body that knows italy knows gelato is awesome. One if the flavors that was delicious and rare was the elusive watermelon. Brian found a place in Venice that had it. But then we spent two days looking for it only to find that it may have never existed. We asked people, and got blank stares. It was as if a witch had created it solely to torture us with its absence.  After three days searching, and cursing every gelato stand, we finally found our white whale in the Piazza Navona. They had Watermelon. They also had Viagra flavor. I got mango. 

Fountain in Piazza Navona. 

We had an expensive, late, tasty, and very fun lunch. Outside. In the piazza. 

We went to pantheon next. This is over 2000 years old. Raphael got to cut in to the curling to figure out how they built it. Concrete without rebar suspended in a dome 143 meters in air!

We hiked to piazza del popolo. These churches were built in 1620-30. They make a mirror. Pretty neat

My panorama. This was a fun place to rest and people watch. 

Bridge of Angels by castle angels. A roman structure converted to prison and safe house for Vatican. 

Bridge of angels. 

I can't begin to describe how awesome this is. So I won't. 

Piazza Navona at night. 

Pantheon at night! So much fun. 

Venice

We headed to Venice! Last car before getting on to Venice.   

Bridget had never seen Venice.  We walked all over the islands abd bridges and ate as much pizza as we could find. 

 

This is the street. 

Beautiful. And a canal. 

This is San Marco Square. This was our most expensive place to stay. But it was really pretty. And really fun. 

Unfortunately it was under reconstruction. 

Rialto bridge. A famous place to get your wallet stolen. 

Back of San Marco. 

When I came here with golden 11 years ago we ate so much pizza the guy wh ought we were crazy. This was our pizza stand! Can't believe I found it all these years later. 

Pizza and Gelato in Italy are awesome. But in Venice they are even better. 

Last bridge out... Kinda sad. 

San Marino

We left Venice around noon for our next adventure. We got in car and headed for San Moreno. It is the fifth smallest country in the world. It has 30,000 people and also the oldest republic in the world. It is an Italian city state that never joined the rest and dates back to 300 ad. It's basically that mountain. The top is the city. The rest is the country. It has been taken over 3 times for like a month at a time. Napoleon left it alone calling it a model republic. 

Here's looking out our hotel. Inside the walls of the city on top of a mountain. 

We are now inside castle number 1. 

That's tower 2. 

That dot half way up is Brian. 

It is strait down!

We ate dinner on the top of the hill. We ate a traditional San Moreno sandwich : tortilla/flatbread with cheese and pruscetta. It was good. I also got gnocchi.  It was not as good. 

 

Florence and Venice

UWe stayed a mile from the city center. We got up Sunday morning with the plan to go to Mass. We ate a breakfast that was the best pastries ever! It was awesome  the y melted in your mouth. 

We walked down to the Academia and saw Michelangelo's great works. Really just amazing. 

 This  is all marble. 

Unfinished. The waking slave. Look at him pull himself out of the marble. 

Unfinished St Matthew. 

The David.