Well we have finally made it to Italy. After enjoying the hospitality of our friends in Edinburgh we flew to Rome to start our tour with contiki. Bryce and I had an extra day in Rome and spent it just getting lost. One of my favourite ways to learn a new city really. We started by taking the subway down to the area near where la Bocca de verite lives. It was one thing that I had regretted not seeing when we were in Rome last time. For those of you who aren’t familiar, the infamous bocca de verite before was used in ancient times to treat liars. However made more recently famous by Audrey Hepburn in the classic film Roman Holiday. The legend goes that if you put your fingers through the hole and tell a lie you will lose your fingers. Back in the day they would just chop them off to punish liars and stealers.

We left this place and walked for about 10 minutes when we came to an open square up a staircase. The square itself was designed by Michelangelo and there is a fabulous statue of Marcus Aurelius in it. There is also a cool museum but very expensive to get in. Good thing that we managed to accidentally sneak in through the book shop. There were some amazing sculptures there. From here we went to the pantheon and saw the beautiful inside. Gorgeous. And we ate our first pizza lunch. Cheap lunch ad only 9€ for both Bryce and I. We made our way to the Trevi fountain and Spanish steps also.

That evening Bryce and I met with our contiki group and we did a walking tour which included a lot of the same things we had seen however during the evening and we got a bit of a history too.

Next morning we were. Back in sweltering hot Rome where we ha a guided tour of The roman forum (personal highlight seeing the place where Julius Cesar was cremated), the coliseum and the vatican. It was very hot and i think by the end I was ready for a break!!

The next day off to sorrento on the coast. It was soooo beautiful. The town was full of little alleyways and such which always makes shopping there so easy and fun. That region is huge on their lemoncello so all the stores pretty much sell that. Not being such a huge fan of the lemoncello I bought and orange version. And a chocolate. We tried to go out that night to a karaoke bar but it was full of high school exchange students some of them were from canada and ironically were over here to learn English. Hmmm.

The next morning we were off to Capri. This is the view from sorrento port as we were waiting for the ferry. The Morning was quite cloudy which after the heat was welcome except that we had a boat cruise around Capri. Because of rough water they had got turn the boat around ad we did not get to the blue grotto. It was crazy. The boat was crashing into waves and some were coming in the boat. Everyone was popping gravol which I can’t take because it make me vomit. One girl threw up on the boat but it wasn’t me!!! We did get a chance for a swim which was nice and to walk around Capri. Lots of expensive designer shopping there!!! Beautiful place if you can afford it’s lifestyle.

Today we went and visited the most interesting stop so far, Pompeii. In 79 AD the city, which was a business trade city for the Romans was basically preserved with volcanic ash from near by Mt visuvius (not sure on my spelling there). There were perfectly preserved people and animals. Their roofs were burned but the rest preserved. The funniest were all the brothels. As they were an important trading port they kept all their tradesmen happy!!! They even had sculptures of penises on the outside to point people to the direction of the ‘red light district’

The rest of travel today was on bus and tonight I am on the ferry from brindisi to Corfu. We have been told in another hour to expect VERY choppy water the captain told our tour manager everyone was throwing up. So I have taken myself a sleeping tablet and am going to get to sleep hopefully before that starts. Hope I will get to post this soon!! I will post more pics eventually but may not be until we get back!!! Wifi is hard to come by!!! Xoxo