England

• London (6/9, 6/10, 6/24)

Italy

• Rome (6/11, 6/12)

• Capri (6/14)

• Sorrento (6/14)

• Pompeii (6/15)

• Assiss (6/15)

• San Marino (6/16)

• Venice (6/16, 6/17)

• Verona (6/18)

• Lugano (6/18)

• Como (6/19)

• Milan (6/19)

• Pisa (6/20)

• Florence (6/21)

• Siena (6/21)

• Rome (6/22, 6/23)

Hello (informal) = Goodbye (informal) = Ciao

Good morning = Good afternoon = Buon giorno

Good evening = Buona sera

Good night = Buona notte

Yes = Si

No = No

Excuse me = Mi scusi

Please = Per favore

Thank you = Grazie

You're welcome = Prego

Do you speak English = Parla ingliese?

How much does it cost? = Quanto costa?

Can I pay by credit card? = Posso pagare con la carta di credito?

Where are the toilets? = Dov'è la toilette?

Postcard= cartolina

Beer = birra

Red wine = vino rosso

White wine = vino bianco

Coffee = caffè

Tea= tè

Water = acqua

Saturday, 06/11

Rome

• Next morning after breakfast, I went up to the roof of the hotel to take my first-ever picture of Italy of grape vines on a bright sunny day.

• Next came the fun part of getting into Rome without knowing one word of Italian. First, I took a local bus to the Anagnina metro station. That was uneventful, except I didn't buy any bus ticket beforehand. Then, it was a 45-minute subway ride to the Cornelia station. Finally, I took the 246 bus to get to Ergife, the much overrated hotel. The whole trip cost me 1 Euro.  In hindsight, I'm so glad that I made the journey across town on a Saturday when there wasn't too much human traffic and fearing for my wallet getting lost.

• There was a co-op mercarto (market) about 10 minutes walking distance away from the hotel. We split a calzone and bought a bottle of lemoncello, having seen how it's made on the Food Network before. The bottle was made
  in Capri, but the alcohol content was 32%... Tasting too much like drinking EtOH! So Po and I decided that we would share the bottle with people on the tour.

• We met our tour director, Pietro, at 4PM. Then it was off to a little walking tour of Rome in the evening.  First, we went to Spanish Steps (Scalinata di Spagna), so called because the Spanish Embassy used to be headquartered here.  There were lots of expensive stores near the piazza.  Then we walked to the Pantheon (All the Gods), which was built in 27 B.C.  According to the Frommer's Guide, Michelangelo studied the dome here before he designed the dome of St. Peter's.  Afterwards we went to Piazza Navona where we had dinner (and discovered that in Italy, bread and salad weren't free.  Oh, wine was definitely cheaper than water...).  I had my first genuine Italian gelato here, which reminds me I should try to find recipes to make these yummy gelati.

Sunday, 06/12

Rome and surrounding area

• Need to learn to write executive summaries or it'll take me forever to finish the itinerary...

• The side trip this morning took us to Tivoli.  The gardens of Villa d'Este, with the lovely water fountains, were simply charming.  We later found out that Ron and Sam from our group exchanged their vows in the garden.  So romantic!

• After returning to Rome, we visited the Colosseum (Colosseo), the Roman Forum (Foro Romano) and St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican.

  • The Colosseum, in its former days, could seat 50,000 people.  It was inaugurated by Titus in A.D. 80. 

  • The Roman Forum, just a short walk away, was the centre of Roman life back in the days of the Republic. 

  • St. Peter's Basilica was commissioned by Constantine in A.D. 324 to be built over St. Peter's tomb.  The basilica is of high Renaissance and baroque style.  In the nave on the right is Michelangelo's timeless piece Pietà, the only piece that he signed.

• We had dinner at a local restaurant, where the chef moonlighted as our singer/guitarist for the night.  The pasta that I had that night was probably the best I've ever had before and after Italy.  After dinner, we were driven to Trevi Fountain (Fontana di Trevi).  According to some legend, a person is guaranteed his return to Rome if he throws a coin into this fountain.  After we tossed the coins, we then went to Piazza del Campidoglio, which afforded us a fantastic view of the Forum that we had seen earlier during the day.

Monday, 06/13

More Italian food and picture taking...

• We left Rome behind to head south.  The Amalfi Drive thru windy costal roads with views of towns like Positano was interesting, but it reminded me too much of HW1 in California.  However, I was able to get 1 kg of beautiful Rainier cherries from a street vendor which totally made my day!

• We also saw a little demonstration of how mazzarella cheese was made and subsequently had some for lunch with sliced tomato.  Good, I've got a picture to show here.  We also tried lemoncello and lemon cream, which were both famous of the region.  I must say I like lemon cream a lot more.  Everything is so lush here, thanks to the volcanic ashes from the nearby Mt. Vesuvius.

• We stayed in a little town called Stabia, approx. 30 minutes away from Sorrento by boat.  Traffic was absolutely crazy here...