Brisvegas Adventurers

Hello all!

So you have all read the news that Josh and I are now engaged, what a surprise that was - i nearly lost my breath, not only due to the high altitude but over the shock of the event at hand, it was actually perfect and that is the only word that i can use to explain it.

So further more, now we are in Italy.
We started off in Florence, I must admit that when we got off the train we were grossly shocked at the state of the streets and the smell of this place we were in.
We got to our hostel and that was nothing worth mentioning, the "guest kitchen" was not even a kitchen, it was a room with a sink and 2 little electric hot plates - no fridge and no kettle or microwave!!!!
So after we got over the shock of the disgust, we journeyed around the city - personally i was starting to like Florence, bridge Vecchio (the longest standing bridge in florence) is worth marvelling over as it is full of goldsmiths and jewellery shops, oh and not to mention the polizia that patrol the bridge that Josh thought were strippers after his first glance at them.
We saw the Duomo that is quiet amazing and the Michaelangelo square are also tourist sights to see..... here we had our first taste of Italian pasta and gelati (yes they are the best ever).
The next day we took a day tour to Siena and San Gimignano which are in Tuscany and the drive there was just like the movies - Siena holds an anual horse race around the octagonal town square which is the event not to miss here....Tuscany really is a beautiful part of Italy.

After Florence we headed to Naples and travelling there we werent sure what to expect as we had heard so many bad stories about this city. However, as we had already accepted that there is alot more pollution here than our lovely clean country of residence, arriving was not so bad.
My personal hate is the walk from the train station to the hostel as we are carrying our 15kg+ backpacks and are totally helpless. Naples when we got off the train was busy with scooters speeding through the streets and ignoring the pedestrians, i was a little afraid doing this walk....
Our hostel here was nice though and really quiet homely, however there was a great flight of stairs to climb.
We did a day tour to Capri during our stay here and absolutely loved it, the water was clear blue and the sun was shining brightly... we easily could have stayed here for a week - I would strongly recommend Capri to anyone.

The next day we did a trip to Pompeii, the city that was covered over by the vulcano Vesuvius and then later rediscovered and left to its original state.... i think the vulcano erupted in 79AD and excavations did not commence until the 1700s.... some buildings still have the frescoes on the walls and one particular building worth mentioning is the brothel that is still intact and has concrete beds in each room and frescoes on the walls of "compromising positions"! (the brothel is not in use at present however and has not been since the vulcanic eruption)
I took alot from Pompeii as walking through these cobblestone streets that are now a tourist destination and able to see the vulcano, how immense and extreme this natural disaster would have been.

So leaving Naples we were off to Rome, a much nicer and relatively clean city, the hostel once again is not worth mentioning.
Firstly, Vatican city was cool, St peters Basillica (the largest cathedral in the world) is really quiet large!
And secondly the Sistine Chapel was fascinating - Michaelangelo and Boticelli and other famous artists climbed the walls to illustrate these fabulously colourful and meaningful pieces of work!
I could have sat in here for hours, 'the last judgement' by Michelangelo is the one that will remain my favourite.....
Other sights that we have seen on our walking through the city are : the monument dedicated to the unknown soldier, the pantheon, the trevi fountain, the spanish steps i will mention however they were full of italian teenagers so not alot to build a judgement on....
You may be wondering why i have forgotten to mention another huge tourist destination in Rome..... the Colosseum, well we havent been there yet - we still have 3 more nights here so we are doing that on Monday!

So now we are planning our time with Josh's parents that we meet in Paris in 2 weeks - we are looking forward to spending time with them and driving through Europe (i in particular am looking forward to some female company, and josh some male company).
So i will say goodbye and you should hear from Josh soon about the rest of Rome and some of Ireland (we are going there for St. Pattys day)

As the Italians say "Ciao"