Venice is definately my favourite city so far. It is made up of 150 islands and joined by many canals and 400 bridges. Up until 1805 it was an independent country until it became part of Italy. This might explain your confusion this morning Mum as it was probably it's own country when you studied geography in high school. :P Venice is also home to the first public library and the first spiral staircase. Leonardo Da Vinci also invented and tested the first ever s...

You thought I was a lucky devil in Monoco Dad... look what we drove today! Happy birthday to me!

After our anticlimax visit to the Vatican, we walked up a hill to a big green door. As we looked through the keyhole we had a perfect view of of the Vatican Cathedral. It's hard to explain, but believe me when I say it is amazing and someone very clever created it... Michaelangelo! Scott spent about 20 minutes at the keyhole trying to perfect the photo, so that will definately be part of the slideshow when we get home! Scott's advice to you when you visit is to ...

We headed closer to the equator on today's drive day, landing ourselves in historical Rome. It is amazing to see the Roman ruins scattered across the city's landscape and we have really enjoyed learning about their controversial history. We have learnt so much on this trip that we believe we should be claiming it all on tax! Our guided tour of the Colosseum added to our extensive knowledge that was gained from watching Gladiator on the bus. We also saw many oth...

We have mixed feelings about Italy after spending the day in Florence. We did a wonderful walking tour around the town in which the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Michaelangelo, Leonardo and Donatello) lived and worked. We learnt that their old Roman town was filled in and the new town was built over the top. We also learnt that all bridges were destroyed in World War 2 except one with fish markets on it because Hitler liked it. Today it is home to 48 gold jewell...