Buonjourno !

On our last day in the Alps Laura and I picked up a few souveniers and planned our trek through Italy. We ventured out for dinner to a cute restaurant called the Kasser-Mandl where the servers wore Lederhosen ! The Schnitzel there was excellent! Laura & I were sad to be leaving the Mountains, ecspecially when it was snowing huge flakes the morning we were leaving. It was actually really pretty! Our first stop in Italy was Bolzano. The train ride there was awesome, we were cruisin right through the mountains so the view was awesome. Grape vines filled the country side. Bolzano was a really nice place, but we came to see one thing, The Ice Man. Laura had discovered this in one of the books she was reading and made sure that we stopped in to check it out. It was really quite interesting. Two mountain hikers had discovered the torso of a frozen man sticking out of the ice while on a hike through the moutains. As it wasn't uncommon to discover lost hikers who didn't make it frozen in the ice, the two hikers thought nothing of it. Although, upon closer inspection the body they found was actually 5300 years old. They kept the body in a temperature controlled room with a viewing window so we could see him. Kinda gross looking but interesting that he's so old ! The discovery of this ice man and the items found around him helped archeologists learn more about the people who lived at that time. So after a few hours in the museum we head out for our first Italian Pizza ! From Bolzano we head out to Verona. In Verona we met up with a German girl, Maline, who was travelling alone and wandered the streets of Veronal. We saw the balcony of Juliette and her tomb, Verona also still has a really old Arena that is still in use for Opera's ! There were 2 men outside the arena dressed in cheezy Roman soldiers outfits, we thought it'd be fun to get a picture with them until they wanted either some money or a kiss for the picture ! We skipped the picture and continued on our way. We stopped for some Pizza, again, for dinner. It was nice that we were able to spend the day with Maline. She was a really cool girl who's only 22 and already has done so much travelling. She's taking a business degree in Germany and is doing an internship at Addidas which is pretty impressive. From Verona we head to Venice ! Venice was great, and the temps were warm ! It was nice to be able to walk around without a sweater on. There wasn't a single car in Venice, you either had to walk everywhere or take a water bus. We pretty much walked everywhere we need to get to from our hostel. We saw the Rialto bridge, St.Marks square and Doge's palace. St.Marks square was filled with Pigeons, I'm suprised we made it through there without getting pooped on ! Phew... There were tons of tourists there, it's wierd to hear other people speaking english. I'm used to not understanding what everyone around me is saying that when I hear english it catches my attention. We had to stop for some gelati along the way as well ! mmm, it's so good here. The gelati places have really fancy displays for their flavours, it's quite impressive. We took a water bus from St. Marks square back to our hostel, it was a great view from the canal ! A lot of the buildings look dull from the outside b ut once the doors are opened there are elegant restaurants and hotels inside. It was interesting, all the streets are so narrow that people just dissappear into another alley infront of you. Laura and I enjoy a nice fire roasted pizza along the canal one evening ! After Venice we stopped in Rome ! Rome is a huge city and we had a bit of an experience trying to find our hostel, which was supposed to only be a block away from the train station. There was no sign for the hostel, and the address we found was a Chinese restaurant. It turns out the hostel was above the restaurant, and the Asian lady in charge didn't speak english. We pulled out our Phrase book and attempted some Italian but it seemed she didn't speak Italian either. We were finally able to communicate to her what we wanted and settled in for the night. Our first day we took a tour of the Colleseum and the ancient Roman forum. Wow, although there wasn't much left to see in the Colleseum it's still amazing to imagine what happened there so long ago ! We stopped at a few other sites, Palatine Hill, Trevi Fountain (which was packed with people but really nice), and the Spanish steps. We've been really lucky with the weather, it's been clear sunny days ! The next day in Rome we spent at the Vatican Museum and saw the Sistine Chapel. The line just to get in was huge, we waited over an hour! The museum was packed with people so it was hard to really look at everything closely but the main thing we wanted to see was the Sistine chapel ! It was pretty cool to see something in real life that I've only ever just heard about. On our way back to the hostel that night Laura and I stopped in at a blockbuster. I can now say I am the offical owner of a blockbuster membership in Rome ! We rented the Gladiator... how suitable ! Anyways, we continue our tour of Rome to Pompeii next which should be an interesting stop.
Take care !

Ciao !