florence and rome

i wish i had written down the names of all the places we saw in these two cities, because i am having trouble remembering right now.
the first thing we came upon was a loading dock door that was open when it should not have been. sounds pretty mysterious, right?
well, the Academia is closed on mondays, and we were there on a monday! we knew that in advance, so had resigned ourselves to the fact that we would not be able to see one very important statue that we all wanted to see so badly.
that open door gave us a quick glimpse into a gallery in the Academia. we were able to peek through the open door and see Michelangelo's David statue... just from the waist down!! even from a distance and only seeing part of it, it was pretty great! the staff inside noticed us crowding outside the door and quickly shut us out - wendy got a picture of just the door, but mom got the statue! i will attach the picture when i get home!
next we saw the duomo, the outside of the uffizi gallery (also closed!!), Santa Croce (Westminster abbey of Italy - lots of famous folks buried there), the ponte vecchio (the bridge lined with jewellery shops). then we had a great lunch and had some free time. we went back to the jewellery bridge and each got cameos (well, not dad... he just paid!!). then we went back to Santa Croce and saw the graves of Machiavelli, Michelangelo, Galileo, etc.
Rome was similarly impressive. we had beautifly weather and were able to see lots of stuff in Vatican City. St. Peter's Basillica was breath-taking, the Sistine Chapel was phenomenal! Next, we went to the Colloseum, which was also super cool to see!!
I can't fully describe how amazing it was to see these landmarks that i have learned about, seen pictures of, dreamed of seeing... my whole life!
of course, i have zillions of pictures and can't wait to get them all put into photo galleries on the web.
ok, i will end for now.
next up... naples (pompeii and the amalfi coast) and mykonos. sneak preview... they were both fantastic!