Our train ride to from France to Italy landed us in Genova. This is a nice, smaller city that was a great way to figure out a bit of the Italian culture and finally get our pizza fix!

We got into town at the train station farthest from our hotel (bad planning on our part), so we made the 25 minute trek across town which was actually a really nice way to get a feel for the city and get orientated. We found our hotel, dropped off the backpacks, and proceeded to hunt down some pizza. We found a cute little place near our hotel and we had some amazing pizza, it was definitely worth the wait!

We decided to tackle Genoa on foot with the map provided by the hotel to guide us. We saw Piazza de Ferrari, Piazza Matteotti, lots of street vendors and musicians, and the Ligurian Sea. On our way to the water we happened upon a “Street Food from Around the World” mini festival that had music and so many different kinds of street food. I loved this! How lucky for us to find this and get to try a little bit of a few different things. There were stands with food from places like Amsterdam, the UK, and even the US. Everything smelt so yummy. We ate charcoal grilled corn on the cob, pesto ravioli, and for the grand finally we had cannoli’s. All were delicious, but the cannoli’s made us weak in the knees they were so amazing! Surprisingly this food fair didn't have pizza, but no worries because we hunted down a restaurant to have it again for supper :).

We started our third day in Italy with a train ride to Pisa where we took in the sites of the Cattedrele di Pisa and of course the leaning tower. It was a lovely couple hours of wandering around and getting some fun pictures!

After lunch, pizza of course ;), we hopped back on the train to continue onto Rome. We made it to Rome by dark and ventured out into the big city to find our hotel. It was a quick walk from the train station (better planning this time) and we unloaded our bags before finding supper. We took a break from the pizza to try our luck with some Italian pasta – so amazing! After supper we indulged in some gelato (Italian ice cream) and we were in heaven :), absolutely divine. We had been trying since we first got to Italy to get our hands on some gelato, but hadn’t had any luck until Rome. Totally worth the wait, but Quinn said we should have some everyday we have left in Italy and we haven't missed a day since, we even had some twice in one day :).

Our first full day in Rome started with breakfast and laundry as we were damn near out of clean clothes. We then jumped on a hop on hop off bus and rode the loop to get our bearings and figure out a plan to tackle this immense city with so much to offer. We saw countless sites and decided to spend our afternoon at the Vatican and take in the museum and the Sistine Chapel. On the bus tour we drove by: Piazza delle Finanze, The Colesseum, the Roman Forum, Circo Massimo, Piazza del Collegio Romano, and so much more. The art, architecture, and history enclosed in the Vatican was incredible. It was quite an experience to witness it all in person. Unfortunately we couldn’t take pictures while in the museum or Sistine Chapel, but our pictures do include the buildings, so you can see the architecture.

We finished off our day with a stop at the Trevi Fountain which was very pretty. We made our way down to the edge of the fountain and of course made sure to throw a coin in :).

Our second full day in Rome we put a lot of kilometres on the footsmobile, 21.62km according to the step counter on my phone, so that’s definitely our new record! Based on the bus tour yesterday we decided we wanted to get a closer look at a few more sites so we first walked to the Colesseum and Roman Forum and explored them for a few hours. It was an insane experience walking through the building and ruins that were built so long ago and housed such a powerful and advanced society. The architecture and history that is housed in this city is pretty difficult to fathom and it’s quite awe-inspiring.

We made our way to the Collegio Romano and climbed the steps to see the columns at the top and look out into the surrounding neighbourhood. Our next stop was the Spanish Steps, not as big as we thought they were going to be, but still cool to see. After our very full day of incredible sites and tons of walking we settled in for some supper and of course gelato to finish off our day :).

There is so much to see and experience in Rome, but I don’t feel like I can do it justice in words, so hopefully the pictures will fill in the blanks! We will post the link to the pictures as another blog as soon as possible, its just taking a while to upload.

Its difficult to wrap our brains around the age of the streets we are walking on and the buildings we are seeing, but its been such an amazing experience to take it all in. Rome wasn’t built in a day, but we walked it in one. :)

We have a Pompeii trip booked for tomorrow, so we’re going to rest up and get ready to be engrossed in more rich history.

Bye for now,

Quinn & Shelby