My Trip to Italy (Part 1)

Hello!
You may be wondering why I haven't written a blog entry for a while. This is because I have been on holiday in Italy, which is what this blog entry is about. I will split my trip summary into two parts. Part 1: days 1-5, Part 2: days 6-10. Along the way I will also include some little facts and some pictures taken on our trip.

Day 1


St Peter's Square

On this day, after departing from our apartment in Rome, we explored the Vatican City. First we went to St Peter's Square. It was really big and the statues on the colonnade were really impressive. After queuing for a bit, we went into St Peter's Basilica. This was amazing and it had a fabulous painted ceiling. I saw the tomb of St Peter. In the afternoon, we visited the Vatican Museum. This was a huge museum full of loads of exhibitions, statues and artefacts. My favourite part was the Sistine Chapel, which has a magnificent ceiling painted by Michelangelo.
Did you know that: it took Michelangelo 4 years to complete painting the ceiling!

Day 2

The Trevi Fountain

On day two, we departed on a walking tour around the sites of Rome. This included many churches, obelisks, monuments and fountains. Some of my favourite sites were: the Trevi Fountain- a busy fountain where you commonly see people throwing coins into it backwards, the Spanish Steps- loads of steps in the basking sun looking over a busy piazza- and the Pantheon- a huge church with a hole in the roof so when daylight or rain comes in, it looks beautiful. In the afternoon, we went to some lovely gardens and admired the views riding on a sort of chariot thing that you pedal and steer.
Did you know that: many ancient roman houses had an atrium with a hole in the roof. They would also have an impluvium- a pool of water in the floor so that the rainwater doesn't get the room wet!

Day 3



The Colosseum

Day three was the Roman Forum and The Colosseum. The forum was really interesting because you could actually see the remains of all the old buildings. I really liked looking at a guidebook that we had which showed what things used to look like and what they look like now. In the afternoon, we went to the Colosseum. It was absolutely huge and you could actually go inside it! I really liked looking at all secret passages and trapdoors where they would suddenly release beasts and other animals for the gladiators to fight. I found looking at the different gladiators interesting. For example- ones armed with nets and a short sword or ones with lots of heavy armour.
Did you know that: in The Colosseum, there was a death gate and a life gate. If the gladiators won their fight and got to kill the other, they could leave through the life gate. However, if they died, being dragged out of death gate would be their fate!

Day 4

One of the views we saw on the train

We didn't do much on this day because we were travelling to our next destination: Sorrento. To get there, we had to travel by train. First, we took a nice train from the station to Naples. That train was quite peaceful and not too busy. However I was extremely surprised to find cats and dogs travelling too! At one point, a dog was actually wandering down the aisle. After that train, we had to catch another which I have to say was not very pleasant. It was so busy that we had to stand in the gaps between carriages! We were squished in, clutching on to our suitcases but eventually, because we were getting off at the last stop, we found seats! The train was quite loud and was jolting about so we ended up sitting and looking out of the window with the occasional piece of entertainment from passing buskers. Overall, it was quite a tiring day!
Did you know that: some of the tunnels that you go through in Italy are really long! One of them went on for a good five minutes!

Day 5

The theatre

On day 5, we set out for Pompeii. After another journey on the train, we arrived at the ruins. It was amazing looking at the stone ruins that actually used to be houses. There were temples, shops, houses, plaster casts of pots and people, the theatre and much more! I was amazed when we went into a temple to find a greenish coloured statue that had actually survived Mount Vesuvius's eruption! I got to look inside Caecilius's house which I have mentioned in other blog posts. One of my favourite bits was the remains of the baths. They were buildings which still had roofs and you could see the big baths where people would have bathed. If you are interested in the Roman Baths, do look at my blog entry called 'The Roman Baths' which contains more information. However my favourite part has to be the theatre which is shown in the picture. We could actually sit in the very seats where they would have sat hundreds of years ago. I had a really fun time!
Did you know that: Pompeii used to be by the sea but due to Mount Vesuvius's eruption, two whole kilometres of land formed between the sea and Pompeii!

I hope my readers have enjoyed finding out about my trip and I really recommend all the places that I have described. Keep on the look out for 'My trip to Italy (Part 2)' to find out how I got on with climbing Mount Vesuvius!
Bye!