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Karen won a trip to Italy at a charity event for the Salt Lake City Ronald McDonald House. Karen's Mom came to Salt Lake City to take care of the boys for eight days while we were in Italy.
Our trip began with a visit to Rome, where it rained intermittently for a couple of days. We had our umbrellas and did not let the rain stop us. We arrived in Rome at 8:00 am, took the train into town, checked into our hotel, and then headed to the Forum, which was just a few blocks away. The Forum was the heart of Rome during Roman times, and it is still in the center of the city. The Colosseum is the most prominent ruin, but there are also ruins of imperial palaces, government buildings, and temples.
We spent most of the second day visiting the Villa Borghese Museum, a world famous art museum. Cardinal Borghese was a nephew of the Pope and used his power to build a spectacular art collection with lots of statues and paintings of naked women. No photos were allowed. The museum includes many spectacular sculptures, including Bernini's David and Apollo Chasing Daphne, which is considered one of Bernini's masterpieces. Visitors are strictly limited to two hours, and we almost got locked inside. Too much to see in one visit. You must have a reservation in advance to visit this museum.
We knocked around Rome some our third morning, and then caught the bus to Sorrento. We arrived late in the evening in the middle of a downpour. Fortunately our hotel was only a couple of blocks from the town center. It was not until we woke up the next morning that we realized we were perched on the edge of a cliff with a spectacular view of the Bay of Naples.
We spent our first day in Sorrento exploring the city and getting our laundry done, which turned into a minor adventure. The southern part of Sorrento was originally a Greek city, and it has very narrow streets that are about 10 feet wide. No cars, but the Italians think they are perfectly fine for scooters. Lots of shopping and small cafes, including several rooftop garden cafes where we had lunches and dinners while in Sorrento.
Our second day in Sorrento was dedicated to a trip to Pompeii. This was a sprawling city of 20,000 when it was buried in 79 AD. Much of the city was row houses of about 2000 square feet, all with the same floor plan. Looked a lot like Phoenix. The main square had temples and government buildings, and there was a big stadium on the other side of town (a long walk). We had met Bert and Eleanore from San Francisco at breakfast in our hotel, and they joined us for the day. Because we discovered all the Pompeii artifacts are in the Archeological Museum in Naples, on our third day in Sorrento we took the ferry to Naples and went to the museum, which also had an interesting exhibit of Greek science artifacts, including a steam engine that was used as an amusement.
Heading back to Rome early the next day, we got in by 10:30 am and decided to take a quick trip to the Vatican. We probably managed to tour the Vatican Museum in world record time (45 minutes, but we did not cover the entire 6 miles of hallways and exhibits). The Sistine Chapel was okay, but we were not well prepared to appreciate it. St. Peter's Basilica (in Roman times, a basilica was the Hall of Justice, but the name came to mean a church after the fall of Rome when the buildings were rebuilt into churches) was spectacular. We have plenty of pictures of it. As our guidebook notes, there is little doubt when standing in St. Peter's that the power of Rome continued with the Catholic Church.
Click on image to enlarge
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