Our train made it to Rome in an hour and a half!  We are getting ready to head out to the Spanish Steps and other fun stuff.  Rome is enormous! 

We are leaving beautiful Florence behind to travel to Rome.  I’m not sure how good our internet access will be at the hotel, so we’ll see if I can keep up.  I’m sad to be leaving our great hotel.  We have 2 1/2 hours on the train.

Yesterday I watched the Simpsons in Italian.  It was fun 🙂

This morning we started at the Bargello museum, which houses wonderful Renaissance sculptures.  Jason & I agree that the sculptures we have seen around the city has been our favorite art pieces.  The coolest thing in the museum was the restoration of David by Donatello.  They had it laid out on an operating table with lights and instruments all around him.  There were women there working on him and it will take the rest of the year to complete.  It was interesting to watch them work.

We then headed to Santa Croce, a 13th century Gothic church that is home to many famous tombs.  The place was massive inside with two large courtyards and a small museum in the middle.  We saw the large tombs of Michelangelo, Galileo, Dante, and Machiavello.  There were other tombs, but since we can’t read Italian and we didn’t recognize the names I cannot say much about them.  We were both fascinated by all of the people buried under the floor of the church where you could just walk over their marble ‘caskets’.  It was a little eerie.

After the church I came back to the room because I needed a rest.  Jason continued across the river to Michelangelo Piazza and Fort Belvedere which both had stunning views of the city.  He claims he took enough photos that it will seem like I was there myself.  We’ll see.

There are people arriving at the hotel that drove here.  After being here for a few days I can say without hesitation that I am so glad that we did not rent a car to drive here.  I do not know how there are not more pedestrian/car/bus accidents.  Not a lot of people drive cars, but those that do buzz past you pretty close.  I love seeing the little mini cars that seat two people, but Jason couldn’t fit into.  They are cute 🙂

Jason is taking a siesta before our evening drink at the hotel.  We have really enjoyed our time here.  There is so much to see that it would take at least a week to come close.  Tonight we’ll walk over to the train station to get our tickets to Rome tomorrow.  I think the progression of cities was a good one.  Venice was small, Florence is over 400,000, but it feels a bit smaller because it is another great walking city where everything you want to see you can reach without a car.  And our last stop, Rome I think will be big and feel big.

Ciao!