Rome & Florence

With Lisa's parents over visiting us, we organise a tour to some of the must see cities, starting off with Rome and Florence.

Starting off in Rome, the Eternal city, and one of the most visited cities in Europe, we started our day early and headed for the Vatican City (a city and a country) to see one of the worlds largest Cathedrals, St Peters Basilica, a grand marbled building, home to the Pope and the Catholic community. We spent a few hours exploring and discovering all the statues & religous relics, and Lisa and her mum even had time to attend a mass.

Upon leaving the Basilica, we headed the the famed Piazza Navona, passing along the way the Castel Sant' Angelo (mausoleum of Hadrian). After grabbing lunch, we stopped by an old Gelato place Lisa and I ate at on our first trip to Europe, on our honeymoon. What's so special about this place? There's well over 50 different Gelato flavours to choose from.

Moving along, we stopped by the Pantheon (a temple built for all the gods of Ancient Rome), recognisable for a great hole in the roof of the dome. We then walked to Rome's largest and most famous fountain, Trevi Fountain, threw in a coin, and wishing to one day return. After re-couping a little bit of energy, we made our way towards the spanish steps, window shopped along via Condotti (I call it designer street) before retiring to our hotel for an afternoon siesta like the Italians do.Nightime we explored the area surrounding the Colosseum, and relaxed, admiring the view of of floodlit Colosseum, had our last gelato for the day before calling it a day.

The second day started with a visit to the Roman ruins, once a bustling city graced by Julius Ceasar and Napoleon Bonaparte, before heading over to see the inside of the Colosseum where gladiators once fought, and criminals fed to the lions.
Continuing our Italian tour, we caught a train from Rome to Florence, a city famous for it's culture, art, leather goods, and gelato. After checking into our hotel, we had a quick night tour of Florence, and went searching for a good Florentine gelato, and in Florence city centre alone, there were over 50 gelaterias.The next morning started with a climb of 463 steps to the top of the dome of the Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore for a birds eye view of Florence and it's famous terracotta rooftops. We then wandered through the many small streets of Florence, for more gelatos, pizza's, and paninis, while bargain hunting at the markets. In the evening, we made our way up to Piazza Michaelangelo, where there was a magnificent view of Florence 's skyline as the sun began to set, before ending the day with a visit to 'GROM' the best gelatos we've eaten on this trip.
The final day was about shopping, hunting for leather goods, italian foods, and more gelato. Unfortunately, I only managed to squeeze in one more Gelato before I headed back to London, and Lisa and her parents continued on their tour to PISA.

Dublin, Ireland

Our much anticipated trip to Dublin was our first exploration to Ireland, a country famed for its sports loving, Guinness beer drinking, happy go-lucky people with natural beautiful countryside of rolling hills, castles, and amazing land formations such as the Giant Causeway in Northern Ireland.Dublin city is divided by the river Liffey, with the northern side a shoppers heaven dominated by some of Dublin's largest departments stores and shopping malls dotted along pedestrian only streets, and this is where our self discovery tour of Dublin started.

Crossing the river to the southern side, we visited one of Dublins most famous institutions, Trinity College, a 400+ year old year old university producing famous graduates such as Oscar Wilde and Bram Stoker, both fmous writers. The College library holds one of Irelands most important national treasures, the Book of Kells.For lunch, we search for a traditional Irish pub, and settled for some traditional Irish stew, and some bangers and mash, washed down with a pint of Kilkenny (no Guinness for me, I knew I wouldn't be able to handle the taste). Our day ended early due to heavy rainfall, to the point when we arrived at the hotel, we found the reception to be flooded. We stayed in for dinner having local Chinese take away.The following day started with great weather as we headed for Temple bar, and area where the main attraction are the Irish Pubs, and restuarants. Afterwards we explored nearby Dublin castle, St Patricks Cathedral, then all the way over the to the east side to explore Merrion Square Park, which has a statue of Oscar Wilde, & the St Stephens Green, a beautifull park/garden at the end of another famous Dublin shopping strip, Grafton street.

We both agreed next time, we'd like to see more of the Irish Countryside.