Croatia, Venice, Rome

Ok, so I haven't had a reliable internet connection in like... 6 days. In that time Robert and I stayed in Split, Croatia, took an old, decrepit ferry to Ancona, Italy, took a train to Rome for two nights, stayed two nights in Venice, and are now in the Cinque Terre. Since I don't have a ton of time at the moment (doing laundry then hiking around the villages for a second day in a row, it's beautiful here), I'm just going to upload a bunch of pictures with minimal commentary.

Split, Croatia

This place is really nice, it's the second biggest city in Croatia and situated right on the Aegean. It also happened to be overrun by Australians, which was not a terrible thing.






Some pictures from the water




And then our delightfully luxurious (read: Reminiscent of the lower levels of the Titanic) ferry brought us to...

Rome, Italy

What can I say? Amazing city steeped in history. I saw a lot of really cool, old rocks that used to be part of buildings or something. I guess there used to be a pretty massive empire situated near here. Also the Pope lives here and stuff.

First stop: Ancient Rome

Colosseum! Home of Russel Crowe

Arch of Constantine

The Palatine Hill and the Roman Forum are like 10 times as big as I thought they were

The Forum and Column of Trajan

Swiss Guard going into the Vatican

In St. Peter's

We climbed up the Cupola in St. Peter's. Quote of the day: "I bet there's a water slide at the top. That would be the coolest and holiest water slide on the planet" - me, walking/running up the 550 steps to the top. There was no water slide.

Great view of St. Peter's Square

Great view of me blocking the great view of St. Peter's Square

Leaving the Vatican

And now my favorite building in Rome, the Pantheon. Final resting place of Raphael and amazing goddamn building.

Oh yay, it's under construction. How special. Damn you Europe

The inside is still amazing though

And this is officially one of my favorite pictures ever. Bye, Rome

Venice, Italy

Amazing city where the roads are made of water and tourists overrun everything. Beautiful place, but hot as hell. No fans in the hostel = awful sleep. At least it was pretty:

Nice patio

Tired puppy

Fruit stand, amazing strawberries

Some of the most amazing lasagna I've ever had

Old tomb

I found a friend in the cemetery

And that wraps up that week. I've gotta run, I have hiking to do and pesto to eat. I got a taste of the cliffs of Cinque Terre yesterday as we went down an extremely dangerous trail to the beach, and I feel the need to explore between more of the towns. I also need to take more awesome pictures like this:

First taste of the cliffs. Love it here