Roma + Venezia

I spent eight days enjoying a first time trip out to Italy and it was nothing short of spectacular! I just got back a few days ago and I’m still trying to absorb it all. My only regret is that I couldn’t stay longer and venture to a few more cities within the country. But please don’t misunderstand me, there is plenty still left to see in Rome & Venice. The richness of history in both these places is mind boggling — I was looking at 1,500 year old paintings and 2,000+ year old monuments!!!!

The Eternal City
In total I stayed five days in the capital city of Roma and it still wasn’t enough time to see & do everything I wanted. Statues seemed everywhere I went, always reminding you of the height of Rome’s greatness. The city is gigantic, much bigger than I had imagined and never a dull moment. I swear Romans drive more insane than folks in Los Angeles. Hospitality provided by some friends & acquaintances was much appreciated during my stay. But Giulia deserves a gold star for being willing to show me around during the day and enduring the ungodly heatwave + those long admission queues.

My birthday was celebrated over some Roman Pizza and then a cigar overlooking St. Peters in the distance. I came across a kool illustration of John Belushi while eating out one night and a stroll through the Jewish Ghetto provided a funny twist brushing past a harikrishna event. Vatican City was just overwhemling and the view from the top of the cupola was worth the 300+ narrow steps. I could have easily spent another week here and still not see everything!

Highlights include:

01. Walking on the old Imperial road
02. Being inside the Coliseum
03. Going inside and on top of St. Peters
04. Smoking a cigar on my 1st birthday outside the U.S.
05. Dropping coins in Trevi fountain
06. Having some great gelatos
07. Cute baby near the Jewish Ghetto
08. Being mesmorized by the Pantheon
09. Drinking water from public springs
10. The photo-man at Trevi fountain (classic!)

more pictures from Roma:
Roma 1-4 • Roma 5-8 • Roma 9-12 • Roma 13-16 • Roma 17-20 • Roma 21-24 • Roma 25-28 • Roma 29-32

Venetian Flair
Venezia is everything it’s said to be and much more. Without a doubt it is a beautiful & romantic city but just as equally impressive is it’s infleunce on culture worldwide — that fact become more & more apparent with each of the museums I went to. No penny was spared when the Venetians set out to build something and a prime example of this was how small you felt inside one of the large state rooms in the Doge’s Palace. San Marco Pizzetta is easily the most popular spot with people feeding the friendly pigeons all day. Some of the best views of the city comes from the top of the Campanile.

I stayed in a hostel in San Campo for the three days I was here and it worked out great! Plenty of tourists around during the summer so language wasn’t much of a problem but I was flattered when a woman, seemingly looking for directions, had asked me in Italian if I was from Venice. It was super hot here too and often my lips consulted one of the nearby fountain springs.

Highlights include:

01. Visting Doge’s Palace
02. Gondola watching
03. Walking along the Grand Canal
04. Unusual Neck Ties
05. Medieval chasity belts
06. Getting lost at night
07. Hunting for weird postcards
08. Watching free street performances
09. Snapping pics inside the Basilica San Marco
10. Crossing the Rialto Bridge

more pictures from Venezia:
Venezia 1-4 • Venezia 5-8 • Venezia 9-12 • Venezia 13-16 • Venezia 17-20 • Venezia 21-24 • Venezia 25-28

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I had a great time in Italy. It really did go by too quickly. But of course, no JJP trip would be complete without a little bit of drama: I almost didn’t make my flight out of Venice!

Basically as the rain storm was rolling in the night I was heading to the airport my bus manged to no-show three times, the third being it’s last scheduled for the night! While enduring the heavy bursts of rain I finally managed to find an alternate service (with no help from the police, taxi or competing bus lines) but then traffic deadlocked on the only outbound bridge for an hour due to a tree getting zapped by lighting and falling on the bridge lane out of Venezia. Wonderful.

I was sure by the time I arrived at the terminal (15 minutes before takeoff) that the boarding of my plane was closed only to pleasantly discover that the flight had been delayed for another 35 minutes. YES!? Nooooo….it took another freaking 90 minutes to finally board. When I eventually landed into Gatwick airport it was well over 2:30am, with still yet another hour ahead of me to get home. *ugh* I was drained, but was glad it all worked out in the end, officially marking the conclusion to a phenomenal trip.

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