Pompeii & Rome

I just got back from my pre-exam holiday to Itlay! Our flight to Naples left VERY early on Wednesday morning from Basel, Switzerland, so the four of us (Graeme, Taryn, Chelsea and I) decided to go to the airport late Tuesday night and sleep there!! Needless to say, we didn't get much sleep! We left Wed morning to Naples, Italy.

Naples is not a particularly beautiful city, it does have some rough around the edges character though. Our main point of going to Naples was to visit Pompeii the ancient city that was destroyed and covered by lava from the mountain Vitruvius and was re-discovered in the 18th century. It is very interesting to see how the city was built during the Roman Empire.

On Thursday morning we were on our way to Rome where we saw so many great ruins! I absolutely LOVED Rome! It is such a city of contrasts. You can wander the city and all of a sudden you have stumbled across some ancient ruin! My favorite was one ruin that had a few temples and it was where Julius Caesar was assassinated...but now it has become a cat sanctuary!

On Saturday Dec 8th it was the Catholic public holiday The Immaculate Conception and the Pope decided to make an appearance at the Spanish Steps to give a prayer to the Virgin Mary. We were fortunate enough to be standing on the side of the road when the Pope-mobile rolled on past, so here is a video of the Pope waving to me!!! (Ok, maybe he wasn't waving directly AT me, but it was close enough!)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Xgycrn48O0 (copy and paste this into internet explorer to watch)

So now it's back to school for 2 more weeks, then Christmas break! I don't have any exams to take, so I'm taking it easy and enjoying the Christmas Markets...even though the tourists make me angry (and no, I am NOT a tourist!).