Monday we set off early for the vatican. We stood in line for a long time but eventually made it in. Really all we wanted to see was the Sistine Chapel so we headed almost straight there. It was a disappointment. I don't know why people think it is so great....and really the whole vatican just put me in a bad mood thinking about all the riches that are stored there and how much money it cost to build in the first place. I think god and jesus would be very upset to see how the Catholic church takes money from people and doesn't give it to the poor. Then we found out that the pope doesn't even stay in the vatican in the summer. He has a summer house somewhere in the country. That made me even more angry. People shouldn't be paying for a second residence for the pope when people are starving and dying all over the world. Ridiculous. Needless to say, we didn't stay at the vatican muesum very long and went on to St. Peter's Basilica. It was amazing, but still didn't really feel nice, knowing that the marble was stolen from the Colosseum and its obvious show of the richness of the church. It was quite beautiful though.
After seeing the church we had to catch a bus out of town to see the catacombs. The internet said that there were still bones at the one we were going to, but we were disappointed. The catacombs had to be built outside of the city walls because people could not be buried in the city. This meant a bus ride and then searching for them. But we found them pretty easily. We didn't get to see any bones inside though. Apparently there are bone, but only in the parts that aren't accessible to the public. We just saw holes in the rock where bodies would have been. Oh well, it was nice and cool down there :)
After the tour we headed back to the bus and went home. We got some pistachio and chocolate gelato and it was delicious. Pistachio is my favourite kind, I think. We got pasta for dinner and then went and sat in a piazza near our hostel until it started to get dark. It was a very relaxing night. Then we went home to sleep before our last train ride to Pisa in the morning.
We got to Pisa after a 3 hour train ride and found our hostel fairly easily. We got to choose between an air conditioned room or one with a private bathroom. We chose the air conditioning, although Pisa turned out to be the coolest city we visited. We headed out to see the stuff around the tower and take pictures before our 8pm climb up the tower. We got done with our sight seeing and photo taking early so we decided to get dinner before climbing. It was pretty cool because we had a view of the leaning tower from our table at the restaurant. A very nice way to finish our trip.
Climbing the tower was weird. You could feel the lean as you went up the spiral staircase. You could also see the wear in the steps from people walking from side to side as the tower leans. Going up was okay, but coming back down the lean made me feel like I was going to topple down the stairs. It was pretty slow going for me :) The view from the top was really nice though and I'm glad we saved Pisa for last. It was a relaxing way to end the trip. The next morning we had to get up pretty early to catch the bus to the airport to catch our plane. Then we had a two hour delay because the air traffic controllers in France were on strike. We had to apply to Belgium to fly over France. At least we got home though. We heard from the taxi driver that some flights out of Bournemouth had been canceled.
When we got back I had to run to the library so return a book and pick up some new ones that I had on reserve. We also bought some CDs so that we could have copies of each others' pictures from the trip. The next morning we left fairly early for London. We got there around 12 and headed to our hostel. We left our stuff and then headed down to the river. We walked along it until we got to the London Eye. It looked like a really long line, but it was actually pretty quick. The eye was nice, but nothing that great really. It is a giant ferris wheel that you go up in to see the entire city. We could see almost everything from up there, but being enclosed in a bubble was a bit weird. From there we headed over to the Tower of London to meet our Jack the Ripper tour. It was fun, but not as good as I imagined that it would be. The tour guide didn't really seem to know anything beyond her script and when I asked a question she didn't really have an answer for it. Oh well, it was something to do at least.
Friday morning we had to go to the airport to meet my parents and drop Sara off. I didn't realize how long the underground would take and then we just missed the earlier train so we ended up being late to meet my parents, which of course freaked my mom out. But we got there and go Sara checked in and through security and then headed off. We got tickets for the coach and sat down to wait to go to Poole.
TBC....
Second set of pictures.
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