Pizza and the Pope

Well, here we are, the last few days in Italy and we have yet to post something about our time here. I think this is due mainly to the fact that the laserbeam intensity sun has sapped us of all our will to do anything except stare blankly at the beautiful architecture with our mouths hanging slack as we welp pitifully for acqua...acqua....needless to say we have really enjoyed the architecture and art inside the many large, COOL churches. :)

So a short recap of our time here...we spent the first 3 days in Rome and managed to see the colusseum, the palatine, the roman forum and the pantheon. We also gazed awestruck at the sistine chapel and saw a 3,000 year old egyptian mummy(whom I have affectionally dubbed as Nick's girlfriend) in the Vatican Museum. We had the incredible priviledge to attend a Latin mass in St. Peter's Basilica--that was quite an experience. There was incense and a hauntingly beautiful choir that echoed amazingly in the vacuous space. To add the experience, as people were going up for communion, we heard a 'psst...kristin' behind us and saw our good friend Molly and her friend Melissa who are visiting in Rome also before MOlly enters a convent in August. We got to have some deliciously cheap pizza and red wine in a hole in the wall in Rome then ate gelato as we watched the Basilica disappear into the sunset...

sounds like a corny chick flick, no? :)

Anyway, our last day in Rome we spent UNDER the Basilica. We managed to score tickets (thanks to Molly letting us know about it) to the 'Scavi Tour' -- the excavations that are going on below the Basilica that revealed an ancient necropolis (amazingly well preserved) and what archeologists have decided is the original tomb of St. Peter and, what some surmise are his actual bones. Regardless, it was phenomenol...our guide, Vladimir, was great. He even let us cut in line at the end to see Pope John Paul II's tomb.

We are now in Tuscany...we are staying at a beautiful campsite outside of Fiesole (about 8km from the center of Florence). We have an amazing view of florence from where we eat dinner and, best of all, it's cheap! Camping in Italy is NOTHING like camping in the states...they have a full service restaurant with their own house wine (very good actually), a swimming pool, bungalows (although we are tenting it).

We wandered the streets of Florence yesterday and today--saw the Duomo and climbed all 493 stairs to the top of the cupola. We also saw David today. Amazing. That is all I can say. Nick and I kept expecting him to turn around and start talking to us. In fact, I am convinced he breathed a couple of times.

We are planning on simply tooling around the Tuscan countryside the next few days before heading out on Friday for Ireland. We'll try to hit up a vineyard. Here are the rest of our photos. Actually, this one may be better:
http://www1.snapfish.com/photolibrary/t_=53866009
Remember, email us if you have trouble getting into the site. Hope all of you are cooler back home and enjoying the summer there!