Josh & Diana (my brother and his girlfriend) were travelling through Europe, so I decided to become a third wheel by joining them for a few days in Italy!
What’s great about living in Zürich is how easy it is to travel to other countries. For this trip, I decided to take an overnight Flixbus from Zürich to Rome, which was much cheaper than a plane, plus I arrived first thing in the morning! On the way back, I took another overnight bus from Florence to Zürich, then went straight to the office. I must say… overnight busses are awesome.
The trip lasted 4 days. I arrived in Rome pretty early (about 10am), so I had a full day right off the bat! I met J&D; in a Café, and we shortly thereafter began our travels through Rome & Florence. My highlights of Rome were ruins littered everywhere, and the map room in The Vatican. It’s crazy how accurate the cartographers were back then!
Day 1
On the first day, we mainly explored architecture around the city, ate a lot of pasta, drank a lot of wine, and visited the Colosseum.
Diana in her natural habitat.
Pantheon!
Josh fell in love with scoots!
There were a bunch of these funny little cars!
Classique.
Inside the colosseum.
Colosseum Cat.
You can find ruins randomly throughout the city, which is super cool!
A street painter making spray paint art. It was cool until I realized there were about 5 other people doing the exact same thing :P
Day 2
On the second day, we went to the Vatican & the Roman Forum.
The first spiral staircase of the Vatican.
We chose to visit the Museo Gregoriano Egiziano first, which is a museum of ancient Egyptian artifacts. Strange that there is a holy Dog in a holy site of God! My best guess is that priests likes anadromes :)
Miscellaneous Egyptian cat idols
A bathtub for kings!.. or.. well.. popes.
It's kind of creepy how the eyes are missing on some of the carvings...
What a pothead
Woven art
There was a room full of these map paintings. Über cool!
Our next destination!
A mighty Polish man (I don't remember why he was in the Vatican)
Believe it or not, this painting was using a single color of paint!
I expected the Vatican café to cost an arm and a leg, but compared to Zürich these prices were a pleasant surprise!
It's stunning how accurate the cartographers were at the time. I found it really interesting how accurate Europe, Asia, and Africa were portrayed! Of course, the Americas were not very well explored at the time, so their portrayal is very course.
Spiral staircase in the Vatican
The Roman Forum!
I would have liked more pictures in the Roman Forum - it was incredible. But we came pretty late, so we had to leave :/
A street 'magician' exposed :P
A bike hanging on the wall, inside the café
The Ducati Caffe! It was themed with all things Ducati
Day 3
On the third, we explored Florence. On the top of a hill (as shown in some pictures), you can oversee the entire city!
Out the window from our Airbnb.
Duomo Firenze
This was on top of a hill, where you could see across the entire city
Day 4
On day 4, we explored some more, and visited some gardens, including the Boboli Garden.
This restauraunt was owned by a winery. Or maybe the winery was owned by the restaurant. Regardless, it was cool to realize this when we ordered the house wine!