Venice to Bologna to Rome to Vernazza

It has been such a busy few days! It seems like our last post was forever ago, so much has happened since then. To get up to date:
We spent Tuesday in Bologna, thanks to Julie's recommendation, and had a fabulous time. We agreed that it wsd our best day in Italy so far, we just loved the city. It is beautiful and romantic with lovely arched porticoes on all of the buildings, most of which are bright yellow or orange so everything is so cheery and pretty. We did a tour and they said there are 23 miles of porticoes in the city, so they really are everywhere! We had a fun time walking through the university district - it's the oldest university in Europe (or the world?), dating from the 11th century. There were some outdoor markets and we explored one of the school buildings, which was all old stone with an interior courtyard, it's hard to imagine gping to class in such a beautiful place! It was just a great day and we would highly recommend Bologna to anyone visiting Italy.
Wednesday we took the entire day "off". We spent the whole day at the campground except for taking a walk through the neighborhood nearby and going out for pizza. Did laundry, etc. It was actually a pretty fun day.
Thursday we were up at quarter to five to catch our train to Rome. We had an unfortunate incident on the bus to Venice involving bus tickets (we didn't have one - oops), a crotchety driver, and public humiliation but otherwise our trip to Rome was fine. The trains are so easy to use.
That afternoon we met up with Aunt Linda and Uncle Bob at the Spanish Steps and spent the rest of the day with them - it was great! They were leaving the next morning after 3 weeks in Italy so we were so lucky to be able to meet up and it was fun to swap travel stories. It was also kind of nice to have some other English speakers and familiar faces for a few hours! We had a lovely lunch and then went back to their room, which was at the home of a really cute old couple named Luciano and Maria. It seemed like such a nice place to stay! We were going to head out to a cafe for some wine but Luciano and Maria insisted that we all stay there for their "vino della casa" so we had snacks and chatted abd it was really fun, mostly because the four of us spoke English, Luciano spoke only a little bit of English and otherwise Italian, and Maria spoke no English but Italian and French and I speak a little bit of French so there were lots of approximate translations and hand gestures going on! Then we went out for dinner before we had to catch a bus back to our hostel. It was a wonderful night and we were sad that they had to leave the next day but so glad we got to spend some time together.
Over the next two days, we went to the Vatican Museum, Sistine Chapel, and St. Peters and then the Colosseum and Roman Forum, all of which are of course magnificent and amazing. When we were at the Trevi Fountain all of the water was red for some reason and there were lots of police officers and TV camera crews there so we suspect it was not red on purpose, but we have yet to figure out what happened. We had planned to stay in Rome for over a week but actually ended up being there only two nights because our hostel was awful! Very icky and in a scary part of town and we couldn't find another place to stay, so we decided to leave. It was a little disappointing because we both really liked Rome a lot and would have enjoyed being there a few more days just to wander and take it all in. Also a little disappointing because we had a goal to see all of Michelangelo's work in Europe while we were here but since we left Rome early we missed two frescoes and one palace facade, but hopefully we'll be able stop over in Rome for a few hours at some point to see those.
In the end, it seems to have all worked out for the best because tonight we are in the breathtaking town of Vernazza in the Cinque Terre and we are staying in a small apartment! We haven't had a chance to explore because it was already getting dark when we got here but we're excited to see everything tomorrow and enjoy the next week here before we go to another farm!

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Venezia

We spent Saturday and Sunday wandering around bella Venezia. It is one of those places that in reality actually does look as beautiful as in movies and paintings, if not even more so. Saturday we really just walked all day and got lost way back in the side streets away from the main tourist area. Maybe it's just because we've been out in the boonies for the past 3 weeks, but Venice struck as us almost overwhelmingly touristy and crowded. It was hard to move in the Piazza San Marco and the lines were too long to visit any museums. When we were exploring the backstreets and little neighborhoods, though, it was beautiful enough to make up for the congestion of the main square. Sunday morning we got up early and went to mass at the Basilica San Marco, which was incredibly beautiful. Listening to the service in Italian, in an enormous gilt church feels like you've gone back 500 years in time.

Today we took the train to "fair Verona" for the day and had a lovely time. The city is picturesque, the weather was perfect, and we visited an art museum in the old castle as well as "Juliet's house". Verona was the setting for Romeo and Juliet, and in the 14th century there were feuding families named the Capulets and Montagues (or something very similar) so this was an old house that belonged to the Capulets and has a lovely balcony and all that. Okay, very touristy, but still fun.

It should also be noted that we've been eating pizza at least once a day and the pace does not seem to be slowing in the future.
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