When in Rome...

Well, I have to say, I think Venice was my favourite place so far. Actually they're all  my favourite, but still, it was AWESOME!

So yeah, picked up Jessica Saturday night, then on Sunday morning we took a vaporetto to San Michele, and Island off of Venice that's pretty much just a graveyard. That was cool, and there were so many skinks everywhere!! Then we took another vaporetto to Morano, and Island famous for it's glass. SO many glass shops everywhere... and in some shops the artists were making their glass jewelry/figures right in front of you! And of course we had to get more gelato!

Then we took a vaporetto to our house and got pizza :). Love love love the pizza! I think I had it every day here. Then we took a vaporetto down the grand canal to see all the buildings and stuff, and just see Venice. We walked around a bit too, after the sun went down. It was all so pretty! Then we had dinner at a restaurant, but we sat outside, right over the grand canal! That was really cool.

Monday we got up and went to Piazza San Marco, the main square in Venice. We went there to see San Marco Basilica, the church where apparently Mark's (from the Bible) bones are! So we go in and the entire ceiling is mosaic, and most of it is gold!! And the ceiling was huge too.... it was so crazy!! So so pretty. We went up to the balcony outside, and we were overlooking the Piazza!

Then we went into the Doge's Palace. That was pretty cool- it was so so huge, and inside was the world's largest canvas painting! We had lunch and then climbed up a bell tower, which gave us a great view of Venice!

 We then shopped for breakfast and took a little rest, then got more gelato and went for a gondola ride!! That was so much fun- we went down only the small quiet canals, so it was so pretty. Our gondolier even sang a bit!

If you've watch The Italian Job, do you remember that part where they escape in the boat, near the beginning, and the boat speeds out of the garage? Well, we floated by that exact spot!! So so cool.

Tuesday morning we took a train to Rome, and then the scary metro to the Colosseum. This is what we saw when we came out of the station.

I KNOW SO COOL RIGHT!! We saw sooooo many cool things- the Forum, Caesar Augustus's house, the Arch of Constantine... it was awesome! And this was the original stone road!

That was super fun, and it was so so hot, like 24 degrees, and we were all wearing pants! So then we went back to the station and took a train at 7:12 to Civitavecchia where we boarded our ferry to Barcelona!! The ferry was pretty nice-Jess was in an all-girls dorm room, but turned out she was the only one in the room! So Madeline and I slept with her. So then we left about 10:15 Tuesday night and got to Barcelona at about 7:30 today! Since we're 5 people we had to take two taxis to our place, but our taxi driver didn't speak any english so he was driving my mom and I to the wrong place at first... but we got to the right place after a bit of confusion, so it's all good. Our place is right on the La Rambla, the main street in Barcelona, and we're on the 3d floor so it's super fun to watch everything that's going on!

Since I know a LITTLE bit of spanish it's really nice being hear, compared to Italy, because I can actually understand a few things. Super excited to explore tomorrow!