Rome, Venice, Padua - Italy

We traveled to Italy to meet our friend Sara McP in Rome. We stayed for a few days in Rome and saw the Colosseum, the Forum (the central area around which ancient Rome developed, in which commerce and the administration of justice took place), the Vatican Museum, St. Peter's Basillica, the Pantheon, and the Spanish Steps. We stayed in the Campo dei Fiori section of town. In Rome, we greatly enjoyed Italian coffee and gellato, the musical language, the scenic views, the well-preserved history, and the site tours.

After a few days in Rome, we traveled south to Venice. Venice is a dying city, slowly sinking into a watery grave, kept alive and held afloat soley by tourism dollars. Whereas Rome is a major city with many sites, Venice is home to only 5,000 Venetians, most of whom work in the tourism industry in shops that seem to be all fairly similar and blur together after a day or two there. We purposefully traveled to see Venice in the off-season (so it would be less crowded and less expensive) but were a bit disappointed by the combination of buildings in disrepair, dirty paths (few large open places), cold and rainy weather, and lack of specific sites to see. However, there's only one Venice, and we are glad we went for the experience. Venice, even in the off-season, is pricey, but being there we can see how, given the right combination of weather, music, and activity from other tourists, many tourists might find it charming and enjoy the ambiance.

We took a day trip from Venice to Padua (Padova), about 30 minutes away. There we saw Europe's 3rd oldest university, which was founded in 1222 - Dante, Gallileo, and Copernicus all studied or taught there.


In all the travel, Josh found himself overwhelmed with absorbing the lessons of history and sat down do a little thinking.(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_thinker)



Startled and afraid of being 'bombed,' Josh frantically tries to duck as several pigeons(he would later learn there were not, as he thought at the time, HUNDREDS pigeons)fly up, over, and around him in their attempt to escape an oncoming dog rushing toward them.