Feeling Hot Hot Hot! The Rain Curse is Broken! Two Weeks of Fun in the Sun! COMPLETE

[Lifelong_Dreamer]

Venice

We had to take a shuttle boat from the town we were staying at to Venice. It was a very lovely approach.

We toured the Doge's Palace and St. Mark's Square.

We were taken to a Venetian glass workshop where we watched a glass blowing demonstration. I bought two lovely vases which I still have in my bedroom. It is a good thing that they were wrapped well because as I was descending the stairs from the workshop I slipped and fell back right onto the bag that help the glass. It would have been horrible if they had broken as they were not cheap!

Next we were taken on a gondola ride.

After that we had free time. Once again our "chaperons" sent us off on our own while they did their own thing. The girls and I wandered through the city going into all the clothes shops and taking everything in.

That night back in the town we were staying in our "chaperons" gave us permission to go to a nightclub, they stayed at the hotel. We had a good time and nothing bad happened, luckily!

 

[Lifelong_Dreamer]

Florence

The next day we drove to Florence with a pit stop in Bologna for lunch. Where did we eat? McDonald's. We spent too much time at the bank changing money that we didn't have time for a real lunch.

We spent the night in a hotel in the outskirt of Florence. The next day we toured the city.

We went to the famous Uffizi Gallery where we saw many wonderful paintings including The Birth of Venus. http://www.virtualuffizi.com/uffizi1/Uffizi_Pictures.asp?Contatore=25

We were then given free time to once again explore on our own.

That night we were once again allowed to go to a nightclub. While there one of the girls I was traveling with had her crotch grabbed by one of the guys at the club. Very shocking and we quickly left. Great chaperoning at work there.

The next day we left Florence and drove to Assisi. We stopped for a nice view of Florence and a replica of David.

 

[teachermommy78]

Great pics!!! I've always wanted to go to the real Italy!!! Sweden will have to be first, though. Your stepmother sounds like a tool!!!

I didn't see rapunzel's tower when we were there in June, sadly. however, there was a meet and greet that had a line 43 million hours long!!! I don't know if any of you had heard of this before.

 

[KatMark]

How old were you when you went? If I were one of the parents and found out about the chaperones, I would have been livid.

Great photos and thank you for sharing them with us. I'll never get there (I've never left the US because I HATE flying), so I really enjoyed seeing them.

 

[Lifelong_Dreamer]

Great pics!!! I've always wanted to go to the real Italy!!! Sweden will have to be first, though. Your stepmother sounds like a tool!!!

I didn't see rapunzel's tower when we were there in June, sadly. however, there was a meet and greet that had a line 43 million hours long!!! I don't know if any of you had heard of this before.

Is your family Swedish or is that just a place you really want to visit?

Yes, the step monster is a very big tool!

The dreaded Rapunzel line, hopefully it gets better in years to come.

 

[Lifelong_Dreamer]

How old were you when you went? If I were one of the parents and found out about the chaperones, I would have been livid.

Great photos and thank you for sharing them with us. I'll never get there (I've never left the US because I HATE flying), so I really enjoyed seeing them.

I was 15, turned 16 that summer. The oldest girl in my group was a senior, I think she had just turned 18 before the trip.

Luckily we were smart girls and stuck together when we were sent off on our own. Although we were teenagers so the chaperons should not have trusted that we would be that responsible.

 

[Lifelong_Dreamer]

Assisi

We traveled to Assisi from Florence. I really liked this small hilltop city. It was very charming.

A view looking out into the country.

We visited the famous church and were treated to a private mass in a small chapel. I am not Catholic but I appreciated the beauty and the ritual.

We climbed up the streets of the town and found a quaint little restaurant where we had lunch.

This is a great picture of the town without the scaffolding.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5a/Assisi-skyline.jpg

That night was very memorable. The girls and I were very chummy with several of the guys from the San Francisco group. Well we got in a massive shaving cream fight in their room. All started because we thought it would be funny to shave the legs of one of the guys who was passed out drunk in his bed, don't worry we didn't actually do it as the fight seemed to be more fun. Remember, there are no drinking laws there and we were not well chaperoned. By the time we were through the boys room was completely covered in shaving cream. We did get caught by one of our chaperons and she was livid. The boys apparently spent the whole night cleaning up the room. Our chaperon told us to come up with a list of punishments that we thought were suitable to hand over to her by the end of the day. Well when we gave it to her she told us making the list was our punishment and next time we misbehaved she would be using one of the punishments from the list.

Sorrento

We left Assisi and continued to Sorrento. We stayed in a lovely hotel up in the cliffs that offered a fantastic view of the Bay of Naples. We could see Mt. Vesuvius across the water and at night we could see the cruise ships lit up in the bay and the lights of the city of Naples.

While in Sorrento we took a boat tour over to Capri which was absolutely lovely.

Capri was one of my favourite spots on the whole trip. It was just so lovely!

We took a boat to the blue grotto

Those are fish you see, that is how clear the water was.

The rest of the island was beautiful as well.

We took the funicular to the top of the island. That was an experience. No a/c and we were all stuffed in there like sardines with quite a few people who did not believe in the use of deodorant.

Back in Sorrento we visited a wood carving/inlay shop were I purchased a beautiful jewelry box which I still use today. We were then allowed an hour of free time to shop.

The next day we were off to Sicily.

 

[Lifelong_Dreamer]

I'll finish with the Italy pictures tomorrow. Coming up: Sicily, Pompeii and Rome.

 

[mom3sonstt]

Anyways I don't think she can read English well enough to follow along even if she did know about it and had the desire to read. She is too busy being a gold digging harpy.

Aw come on Lessa, tell us how you really feel about her!

• eta: ok - so Dan beat me to that

 

[Lifelong_Dreamer]

Aw come on Lessa, tell us how you really feel about her!

 

[englishrose47]

Love the Italy TR !!I was in Milan once when on vacation in Austria, it was just a day trip though !! As for those chaperonesI have chaperoned many aYouth group trip !!!! You do have to allow some freedom but there is a limit !!!
On one trip 3 girls were sharing with 2 others who were annoying the H*** outta them .. well they decided to put ice intheir bed and the 2 of cause squawked and told the chaperone they knew would blow a gasket !! Me and the other chaperone walked away and got our giggles under control, when the 3 guilty ones bemoaned how mean the other chaperone was to us !! I said well if it was me I wouldn't have stripped the bed or yelled at you . I would have had you switch beds !!! They decided they liked the yelling better !!!!

 

[Lifelong_Dreamer]

Love the Italy TR !!I was in Milan once when on vacation in Austria, it was just a day trip though !! As for those chaperonesI have chaperoned many aYouth group trip !!!! You do have to allow some freedom but there is a limit !!!
On one trip 3 girls were sharing with 2 others who were annoying the H*** outta them .. well they decided to put ice intheir bed and the 2 of cause squawked and told the chaperone they knew would blow a gasket !! Me and the other chaperone walked away and got our giggles under control, when the 3 guilty ones bemoaned how mean the other chaperone was to us !! I said well if it was me I wouldn't have stripped the bed or yelled at you . I would have had you switch beds !!! They decided they liked the yelling better !!!!

I bet you are a great chaperone Rosie.

 

[IheartDDuck]

Great pictures. Europe is just so beautiful. So worth visiting. I've never been to Italy, but it's on my list for sure. I've only visited France and Belgium.

 

[Lifelong_Dreamer]

Great pictures. Europe is just so beautiful. So worth visiting. I've never been to Italy, but it's on my list for sure. I've only visited France and Belgium.

I want to visit pretty much all of Europe. If only I could win the lottery.

 

[Lifelong_Dreamer]

Sicily

We left Sorrento and made our way to Sicily. We stayed in a seaside town ata beautiful hotel that was right on the water.

We visited Taromina which is a lovely town located up on a hill overlooking the sea. It is an ancient Greek city and was beautiful. We visited an ancient Greek theatre, a beautiful garden, and explored the town. That night was a free night and we were given the option of returning to the theatre to see a performance of Oedipus Rex. How cool is that?! It was amazing to see an ancient Greek play performed in the exact same theatre it would have been performed in thousands of years ago. It was performed in Italian so we couldn't understand what the actors were saying. I was very familiar with the play so I was the only person from our tour group who actually knew what was going on.

A view from my hotel balcony of the courtyard where we were served dinner.

The ancient theatre

The gardens

 

[Lesprivate]

What an amazing trip to Italy, that is a trip of a lifetime.

 

[Lifelong_Dreamer]

Pompeii

We took a night ferry from Sicily to Naples. The ferry departed from Palermo and we were given free time once again. We wandered the streets and found a restaurant for lunch.

The night ferry was interesting. Our room was teeny tiny but the bed was comfortable enough. One of the girls was wearing a sea sickness patch, I think she didn't wear the right size and was overmedicated as she was actually very strangely that night, almost as tough she were high. No incidents occurred, luckily.

In the morning we arrived in Naples and were taken to Pompeii.

Pompeii was very interesting and it is very sad when you think about how those poor people died. We were able to see the ash bodies of the victims of Pompeii, I do not have any pictures of this. Basically the victims were preserved in their dying pose for centuries.

I remember that it started to rain during the last part of our tour and we got absolutely drenched!

After Pompeii it was off to Rome for the last few days of our trip.

 

[Lifelong_Dreamer]

What an amazing trip to Italy, that is a trip of a lifetime.

It was an amazing trip, I can't wait to go back someday and spend more time there and do things on my own schedule.

 

[wdwgirl03]

Very cool Italy pictures! I'd love to go there some day. It is funny seeing pictures/TV shows/movies that are set in the countries found in World Showcase because you can see all the detail and research the Imagineers put into each pavilion to make it authentic.

 

[Lifelong_Dreamer]

Rome

We spent a few days in Rome. I don't remember the exact order of events since back then I did not take notes during all my trips.

We stayed in a hotel in the outskirts of the city. The girls and I had a big room all to ourselves in a separate wing of the hotel from where the rest of the tour was located. Do you sense trouble brewing? Well you would be correct if you did! The guys that we were chummy with decided that our room was the perfect place to hang out and get drunk since it was away from their chaperons and ours obviously didn't care all that much. The girls and I weren't drinking but the guys certainly were. Eventually they were drunk enough that they agreed to let us dress them up in our clothes and do their make-up. Well, of course, once they were in full "drag" who should come knocking at our door? Their chaperon, he had been looking for them and knew that we were friends with them so assumed they were with us. He was not please to find them in their drunken dressed up state. Our chaperons were pretty much forced to "punish" us so for the last two nights of the trip once we were back at the hotel we were restricted to our room.

That is the last of our antics. Overall they were pretty harmless and just silly teenage stuff and it certainly made for a memorable trip!

Our first day in Rome was spent exploring ancient Rome. This included a visit to the Forum, we walked by the Colosseum, and the Pantheon. We also saw the Trevi Fountain, Spanish Steps and other beautiful fountains and courtyards.