Italy and France

After touring around eastern Germany and a few places in Austria, we went to Venice, Italy. On the drive there, we saw many mountains. It is so different there because there are no cars. Instead, there are canals and everyone has a boat parked beside their house. For tourists there are gondola services (gondolas are kind of like a fancy canoe that someone rows with an oar and were originally used for daily transportation), but we didn't go because they are now an overpriced, tourist trap.

Venice is a small island that is fun to walk about. It would take you no more than an hour to walk all the way across it. To get there, we took a water bus. One of the coolest places there is San Marco Square. At San Marco Square, there is a beautiful palace, a fantastic old basilica (big church), fancy parliament buildings and a pretty brick clock tower. Also, there was a 24 hour clock with Roman numerals.

After Venice, we went to Rome. Rome was amazing! You can see ancient Roman ruins that have been standing for millennia! Being inside the Coliseum was one of the best parts of Rome for me and for Matthew. It boggled my mind that it could still be standing after almost 2000 years! Some of it was rebuilt recently for stability, but it is mostly original. We also went to the Forum, the center of the old city, which is across the road from the Coliseum. Inside the Forum were most of the important buildings of the ancient city of Rome, including the temples of Castor and Pollux, Romulus, and the ruins of the temples of Julius Caesar, Jupiter, and Vesta, among others. There are also many government buildings, including the Senate and the ruins of some courts. Beside the Forum is the Palatine, the hill that Romulus founded Rome on. It is also where some of the houses of the Emperors were located. We saw the ruins of the houses of Nero and Augustus Caesar. They were very big and probably fancy.

We also went to the smallest country in the world, Vatican City! It was beautiful! We saw Saint Peter's Basilica and the Vatican Museum. Inside the museum was one of the most beautiful things I've seen in the world. Can you guess what it was? The Sistine Chapel. All over the ceiling and one of the walls were Michelangelo's frescos. The rest of the walls were covered by frescos of other artists that predated Michelangelo. The floor was covered in patterns of coloured marble. Vatican City was seriously amazing.

Next we went to Tuscany and stayed at a winery with a wonderful view. After the hustle and bustle of the other parts of the trip, Tuscany seemed extremely relaxing. For the time that we weren't relaxing, we visited towns and cities in the area. My favourite city was Florence. There was a lot to see, but a highlight was seeing the "David" statue by Michelangelo.

Here are two pictures of meat that we saw at the market in Florence. Can you guess what they are?

Another fun thing was wine tasting during the tour of the winery that we were staying at. Most of the wines were very bitter and not tasty. They wrinkled up the inside of my mouth. But the last drink we tried, a vin santo from 1999, tasted like syrup. In addition to wine tasting, there was a freezing pool without a heater, scorpions and "ginormous" spiders.

After staying at the winery, we travelled to the south of France. And on the way, we visited the city of Pisa. In Pisa we went to the Leaning Tower. It surprised me that the tower was white. In all of the pictures that I had seen, the tower looked yellow. We wanted to go in the tower, but Matthew was too young and we would have had to wait for three hours to get in. However, we looked inside the adjacent cathedral and baptistery. The cathedral was especially beautiful, with fancy stained glass windows, well done paintings, elaborate ceilings and floors, and a spectacularly carved pulpit of stone. After about two hours of looking around, we went back to the car and continued on the long journey to Marseillan in the south of France.

Now we are in Marseillan, staying in a medieval townhouse. There is finally English TV! We are going to be staying here for a month. Marseillan is a little town near the Mediterranean Sea and only a few hours from Cannes where Mr. Bean went to the beach (Mr. Bean's Holiday). I'm off to the beach in Marseillan, so good bye for now.