Gelato. Oh, and some cities in Italy.

Italy was spectacular. We spent most of our time in Florence, but within the span of five days, we also hit up Rome, Pisa, and Venice. These pictures are all of Florence, since I apparently neglected to take digital pictures of the other cities. The weekend was packed full of walking many miles a day, staring at old buildings, and eating mostly gelato. Mmmm, gelato. The weather was in the 60s in most of th places we went, which was fantastic. The in-your-face demeanor of the people are such a contrast to the straight-laced Bavarians I'm used to. They were so personal and loud, often aggressively trying to sell us "Rolex" watches and weirdly dyed roses. Overall a great trip, and quite possibly my favorite experience thus far. Here's the dirt:

Rome - I guess I hadn't realized that the Colosseum is real. Like, it actually exists over here, and it is old and big. It took me a while to believe that I was standing in front of it, and it wasn't just a figment of history textbooks. Tours to go inside were really expensive, so we walked around the outside for a while before heading to the next stop. We bought day passes for this really cheesy "hop on, hop off" double-decker tour bus that took us around to the main stops - really handy for our attempt to see all of Rome in one day. Other highlights included going inside the Vatican/St. Peter's Cathedral, the Pantheon, gelato by the Trevi Fountain, and seeing ruins all over the place.

Florence - Gelato. We ate gelato every day we were in Italy, and sometimes I'd order two servings in a row to prove to my fellow travelers that I do not in fact have self control. The Duoma Piazza was the most impressive sight with one of the largest, most ornate cathedrals in Europe. We also went to the Academia museum that holds Michaelangelo's famous marble statue of David. One evening we hiked up into the hills between some vineyards and found some great churches and views of Tuscany. (By the way, contrary to the Maestro's declaration to Jerry about there being no places to stay in Tuscany, there are indeed rooms for rent. Don't be fooled.)

Pisa - The tower leans! It leans way more than I thought it did, and honestly made me feel a little uneasy, just looking at it. The city doesn't have much to offer besides the main piazza with the tower and church, but we made good use of our time wandering the run-down yet picturesque streets, and, again eating gelato. Later that day we took a bus about 15 minutes out to the coast to check out a little of the Mediterranean.

Venice - By far my favorite of the four cities. Stepping out of the train station, I was instantly amazed by the Grande Canal. That day I took an entire roll of black and white pictures with the Rebel camera, and I'm pretty excited to see how they'll turn out. I was a little apprehensive of Venice before I got there, because I had heard such mixed opinions from people, ranging from "it's awesome" to "it smells" and "it's too crowded." Luckily for us, we didn't experience either of the latter, and spent six hours roaming the winding cobblestone streets, dodging canals when necessary. San Marcos square is the famous one with all the pigeons that's in a ton of movies, and that was pretty cool to see in real life.