Pizza in Pisa

The rain that has followed us pretty much everywhere has stopped stalking us. The sun finally came out in Pisa, which was just as well as we had to walk from the station to the hotel.

Like Florence, Pisa is located on the river Arno. We took a nice walk in the evening across the bridge so as to take a look at the Leaning Tower of Pisa. It was great being there in the evening as we missed the crowds of people.

We found a restaurant with a great view of the tower and ate pizza that was amazing.

The tower was the bell tower for the Catherdral next door. The problem with the tower is that it is tall and skinny and the soil is soft. The tower started to lean almost as soon as they started building. They stopped for a hundred years, and then they thought "Oh what the heck" and just carried on.

After a lot of hard work wth today's technology, they have managed to make it 43 centimetres straighter at the top. Even so it is still over 4 metres off at the top.

Here's Dad trying to stop the situation from getting any worse:

Now we are on the train to Sienna.

Singing in the rain in Florence

If I wasn't singing I'd be crying. When we left Venice we thought the rain could not get any worse - how wrong were we!

Apparently the river Arno floods in every double digit year - like 1933, 1966 etc - well it looks like 2011 could be bad news.

 

The train from Venice was really nice. The scenery was quite different from Sicily. The hills here in Tuscany are all green.

Our hotel was also great. Unlike in Canada, you can't just stick extra people in your room. So I got a room all to myself - lucky me!

Last night it stopped raining long enough for us to walk along the Arno river and see a famous bridge called the Ponte Vecchio.


There seems to be a communication problem. The sign says "It is not allowed to hang locks on the railing, as it is ruled by the rule of the Municipal Police. Fine 160 Euros to trasgressors." 

Doesn't look like people pay attention to this sign. The padlocks have names on them. It looks as if they have locked their hearts in Florence.

Today we went round Il Duomo, which is the big cathedral of Florence. A quick description of Il Duomo - big and covered in marble.

Before that I ate Cookie Dough ice cream from Ben and Jerry's. It was delicious. Who needs Gelato, when there's Ben and Jerry's?

We also lined up for hours to get into the Uffizi art museum. The good news was that we were out of the pouring rain. Among my favorite pictures was the Birth of Venus by Botticelli. 

My Dad liked the Medusa by Carravaggio, because it reminded him of me on a bad hair day. 

I also liked this Michelangelo painting. 

I heard a guide saying that it was his only painting apart from the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Rome, which we will see soon.

There were so many paintings to see, I didn't know where to start.

All this art has made me curious about Leonardo da Vinci. I am reading one of the Horrible Histories - "Da Vinci and his Super Brain". So I am doing my Horrible homework! I am learning a lot. 

For example, did you know that in the painting there were two stone pillars on either side of Mona Lisa, which were part of the window she was sitting at. For some reason someone sawed about 6 centimetres from each side of the painting so that the pillars disappeared. These pillars have never been seen since.

Next stop Pisa - let's hope it's not raining there!

Venice

Today we did Venice. The weather was a buzz kill. It thundered and poured with rain.

Yesterday, because there are no cars in Venice we had to take a water bus from the airport. Our hotel was right on the Grand Canal.

The first thing we did was walk to Saint Mark's Square or Piaza San Marco as the locals call it. 

We went round Saint Mark's Basilica. The outside was spectacular, so I could not wait to see what was inside. Just as important it was a great chance to get out of the pouring rain. Even though it was amazing inside, I sill was able to find a secluded spot for a nap. Joking aside there was lots to see. The ceilings were covered with the most beautiful gold mosaics. The mosaics represented the Heavens and the gold colour represented God.

Behind the altar was a altarpiece called Pala D'Oro that was covered in 2000 jewels. It showed pictures of different biblical scenes.

When we were done that we were trying to get back to our hotel and we got LOST!!! The streets I might add belong in a horror movie because they were so skinny and winding. There is a horror movie set here called "Don't look now" - I advise you not to look.

Today was my Mom's birthday so as her treat we got to go on a gondola ride. We were so lucky because we got the only 20 minutes when it wasn't raining on the gondola.

Our gondolier, Alessandro who I might add, at the first glance, had a remarkable resemblance to Johnny Depp, took us through little canals.

We went under bridges and he had to duck because the tide was high.  As I write this we're on the train to ..................... Florence! Life's tough!!!

Sicily

This is our last night in Sicily and WOW it has just been a whirlwind of intresting events. Sorry I haven't written anything for a few days but as you will read, we have been so busy there has been no time. When you come home you just want to go to bed because you are so tired. We stayed at my aunt and uncle's villa and it is amazing.

It was very luxurious you felt like you were at a movie star's house. They had everything a movie star would have even a chef that would come and cook these unreal meals for us. They were often 3 courses and very big portions - always pasta.

There was a town just outside of where we were staying called Modica. This is where my three little cousins, the youngest being 3, took cooking classes. For one of their classes I tagged along and took part in it. We made eggplant spaghetti rolls. They were very good. 


In fact a lot of our time in Sicily has revolved around food. One day we went to a herb farm nearby. We had a tour of many different kinds of herbs, sat down to enjoy the view and BAM out came the food and some more food and some more. Then when you thought you were going to explode from eating so much some more came out. It was delicious, my favorite being the fried sage.


This area of Sicily is famous for its Baroque towns (Scicli, Modica and Noto).  These towns have many beautiful cathedrals and buildings made out of limestone and built with arches, stone decorations and carved gargoyles which is the Baroque style.  Just like Malta, this area of Sicily was devastated in 1693 with an earthquake and tsunami.  Everything had to be rebuilt.  The Baroque style was the popular choice.

Yesterday we left Scicli and the cousins and luxury and came to Catania.  It's the town closest to Mt Etna so we did a trip to the volcano. I now know everything there is to know about volcanos.  Did you know that when the volcano explodes the lava travels slowly and it is often pushed on from the lava behind it and it sounds like breaking glass.  We saw lots of lava flows because there have been many  explosions, the latest one being in 2007.  We got to walk on the lava, it's not shiny like in the movies, it's rocky.  Some of the flows had houses in the middle of them and some villages were totally covered. Our trip was in a 4wd jeep and it was very, very bumpy. I thought it was just going to be a quick up and down sitting in the jeep, but oh no, we had to get out and do a 2 hour hike up to a crater.I'm over volcanos, 6 hours of looking at one and I'm all good.

Today as a treat we got to do more walking. We couldn't figure out the Italian train and bus times so we couldn't get to Siracusa and walk around the ancient Greek (although we are in Italy) amplitheatre. Well, that didn't make me too sad. No problemo! There's lots of ancient things in Catania (where we're staying). More walking. There is even a Greek and Roman amplitheatre here that dates back to the 1st century. I think it was Greek first and then Roman.  The famous thing about this one was that it was covered up and built over with houses for hundreds of years and it's still being excavated now. Did you know that in the 2nd century it could seat 16,000 people and I got to sit one one of the seats today. A lot of the stone is lava rock. Did you know that the word arena is latin for sand which was placed on the amplitheatre floor to soak up spilled blood (google is my friend).

An adventure of a lifetime in about 8 hours

Right now I am with my aunt and uncle and three little cousins. We went to a little island across from Valleta called Gozo. It was very cute and tiny. The first part of this adventure was intresting. There are nine of us so we needed a big car to fit all of us, then the ferry was full, so we ended up getting a private motor boat, then we got another car to take us around Gozo.  It was a bit like being on The Amazing Race. The boat ride was like something out of Disneyland - it's the next day now, I'm dry, but I still have salt in my hair.

One thing I saw in Gozo were the salt pans. Salt pans are natural pools in the rock where the water accumalates like a pool. After a while the water evaporates leaving natural sea salt.

The rock of Gozo is Limestone which is a soft rock which means there are lots of caves and arches along the coast. We went in some neat caves.

In between Malta and Gozo is an even smaller island called Camino which has nothing on it except for a church and a defence tower. I have no idea what they were trying to defend. It's famous for it's Blue Lagoon. All the water in the area is bright blue and really clear.

Valletta

We are staying in Malta's capital city Valletta.  Here are some pictures of the city.

This is an aqueduct which was built to carry water from the countryside into Valletta.

The streets of Valletta are very old.

as are the buses!

Mdina

Today we went to the ancient city of Mdina in the middle of Malta. The city has had various names. The Romans called it Melita. The Moors called it Mdina and that name has stuck.

This is me in front of the gates of Mdina.

I guess I should have done my homework! No rotten tomatoes please!

We did not go in here.  It was all about the not very nice things people did to each other in the Middle Ages!

This is a Calendar Clock. The picture was taken on May 26, so I would say it is pretty accurate!

This is me besides a Knight of St. John.  Men were not very big in those days.  I guess they should have eaten their Cheerios.  The Knights of St. John ruled Malta for hundreds of years.  The cross on the shield is the same as St. John's Ambulance.

I would explain this for those of you who do not understand Latin but unfortunately there is not any room in this blog!