Italia

We came close to missing out on Italia - both a lack of pingers and too few fine days left. But with help we squeezed it in to the end of October - and found it was 19 degrees in Roma. Flew first into Bologna cos it was a thousand pound cheaper than Rome or Venice, then trained it to the water city. This though the closest we got to a gondola - could've had a ride for 60 euros for 40 minutes but decided to wait till the sun came out. And it never did.


Skinny streets - the lack of parking is one reason Venezia has depopulated by two-thirds in the last 30 years, down to just 60,000 souls, all of them selling tshirts and pizza to tourists like us.






Jac: "Venice is truly weird, we weren’t staying on the island but in a small suburban town, which was ok but it was a 20 minute bus ride to the Island. I think if we ever go back it would be worth it to pay the money & stay on the island itself. It was quite wet & cold but we went on the water taxis and explored a lot by foot. This of course was not met well by certain members of the family and by golly I had some beautiful mother moments often witnessed by the tourists."



Catching salmonella in St Mark's Square. Apparently the old-timer Venetians actually knicked St Mark's body from Jerusalem while on a Crusade or somesuch, and it's buried in the Basilica. Yes, truly weird.











The oldest game in town ... This particular pillar outside the Duomo (4th from left) has an eroded sloping edge where zillions of prisoners - having walked over the Bridge of Sighs from the gaol - got a chance for freedom: get around the pillar with no hands and without falling off, and off you went. Otherwise, the Big Chop. Only Rosa made it, helped by Kiwi-kid bare feet.









View from Rialto Bridge.










When the train compartment gets too much...




Jac: "We had a 6 hour train ride from Venice to Rome, so we bought a couple of HUGE pizzas to take with us, much to my horror one with chips & sausages on it. In our compartment with 6 seats we spread out - we only had 5 tickets and it was agreed that Rosa, if checked, would plead ignorance & if made to, get off and meet us later in Rome. An hour into the journey this poor young Italian woman hops on - yes, short straw, the sixth seat in our compartment is hers. She can't believe it. We shift our stuff off her seat & she joins our happy family for the next 5 hours. About an hour out of Rome we pull out the now bicycle-wheel-sized cold pizza with sausage & chips on. I did offer her a piece ...




The second giant pizza also suffered an ignominious fate - after being carefully carried for several hours and more than several hundred kilometres by public transport to Roma, Lara dropped it out of its box, splat!, on to the floor of the H Line bus as we got off at 8pm in Trastevere.









How do they keep the rain out of the extraordinary Pantheon when there's this hole in the roof?




Colosseum and The Gladiators - the blood-and-guts-and-glory Russell Crowe story we regaled the kids with to get them to wait an hour in a queue to get tickets (online would've cost us 118 euros; luckily we just showed up, and got the 3 way pass to the Palatine hill and Roman Forum too for 19 euros all up - not usually the way it works, where the Net saves you time and $s) was diminished somewhat by the lack of a floor in the Big C.






Statue of Roma-founding Romulus, Remus and their She-Wolf fostermum
















St Peter's Square. Would've had that cuppa with Benedict but Sam got a nosebleed.



















My own version of art in the Sistine Chapel, aided by the fact this was clandestinely shot so the guards wouldn't stop their "shhh-shing" and leap on me - photography forbidden.

We gaze in wonder at Raphael's SomethingOrOther.



















A moment's piece in the Vatican gardens. Or it would have been had the minis been in London.









The best staircase ever, in the Vatican Museum. One whorl is for Up, another whorl for Down.





Buses, trains and brilliant rooftop apartments boasting Sky TV, like the one in Roma we scored for under 90 euro a night - a huge bargain.














Firenze - a bit of a damp squib actually. It rained alot and it's a bit dull for kids.

Our saviours - cards on the train ('Hearts' was a big hit) and gelato in the streets.
















We can't be accused of lacking unoriginality in our photo choices...




And so, after 11 days in Italy it was back to Bologna airport, and some of the best action the kids had all holiday, with adhoc soccer and baseball in the terminal