You've waited so patiently for the Italian Finale

To all our readers who still check in on us to see that we're doing while months go by without writing, GOD BLESS YOU. It's been such a long time since I've been able to sit down at the cafe in order to upload pics with our entries, and for some reason that's been holding me back from blogging on any other topic until I finished talking about Italy. Monkey off my back now.

As I said before, we were SO happy to get out of Naples. Lesson learned, Sorrento is a much better base of operations. Ironically it was so lovely and relaxing that I plum forgot to take a whole lot of pictures! But you can the craggy beauty of the Amalfi Coast above.

Our hostel was a 10 minute walk from the centre of Sorrento. The place reminded me of a villa. It was light and breezy with white walls and a thatched roof. To our surprise and delight we were not sharing a dorm but got our own private double-bed room for the same price we would normally pay to share with 12 other people! And even though the breakfast was an extra 5 euro, it was the best breakfast of the trip, with eggs and bacon and a multitude of morning pastries. The hostel was also apparently a small cooking college, as one guest from Atlanta was staying there 3 months to get hands-on experience cooking Italian food.

Sorrento is simply stunning. Laid back and picturesque tourist town with plenty of shopping and restaurants, plus wonderful views of the bay. We stopped into a beautiful little church with frescoes and ceiling art, and poked into the shops that line a labyrinth of alleys just off the main road. We picked up the southern Italian Limoncello, a lemon liquer, in a boot-shaped bottle as a gift for our pals Clare and Jonathan -- they specifically asked for something tacky.

We had been jonesing for a nice beach for days in the heat, and finally found one along the coast at Positano, a short but incredibly winding bus trip. Sadly, it was not sandy but pebbly, but we made the best of it and managed to unwind completely. Of course, all good things come at a price, and I burnt pretty badly. Notice the unique "I can only reach so far" pattern.We stepped out for dinner both nights to little restaurants within the alley maze. The first night we went to The Lantern, and it reminded me a bit of Lady and the Tramp. Glorious pasta and wine. The next night we went to a slightly cheaper hole-in-the-wall place, and learned the lesson that if a place offers food at a few Euros cheaper, there's a reason . . . Brianne found a thick black hair in her ravioli. Aaarrgh.

We said our farewell to Sorrento and boarded the train back to Naples so as to catch our connection to Rome. We learned another valuable lesson -- ALWAYS check for the little electronic card punchers on the platform to validate your train ticket before you board the train. We had neglected to do this on the way TO Naples without incident, but this time a conductor checked our ticket and there was a very tense exchange before he let us off with a warning and a weary smile. Phew.

We were very glad to be back in the grandeur of Rome. After booking back in to the same hostel as our first stop, we made our way down to the Colisseum again. We'd been wanting to do something fun and silly, which was to pay a little money to have a picture taken with the guys who dress up as centurions outside. More specifically, Toby needed to be in the shot. The armoured chaps were very nice about it and gave us more poses than we expected. From there we continued to wander about the centre of town, checking back in at a view overlooking the Forum to see the spot it is believed that Julius Caesar met his sticky end. We ended the night with a trip to Trevi at night.

We had hoped to take in a mass given by the Pope, which occurs regularly on Wednesdays. Unfortunately His Holiness was in the Middle East that week so we missed out. But as luck would have it we ran into a young American priest-in-training who offered to take us on a tour of the Vatican with a couple of friends of his sister's from the States, as well as get us into the Catacombs, which one normally must book well in advance! We all got along famously -- the two girls from Atlanta reminding me very much of the Willicks back home and their Redeemer Bible Church crowd; the phrases "God not just good, He's FABULOUS!" and "Jazz Hands for Jesus!" came to mind.

No photography we could muster would do justice to La Pieta, the lighting and protective glass make it nigh impossible. The tour our priest friend took us one was quite informative, such as telling us that the chapel is designed in a kind of sliding scale so that everything looks proportional: the higher up you look, the larger the statue or lettering has been made so it looks even with the stonework closer to you on the floor. Speaking of the floor, there's a patch of marble at the entrance that is just about the rarest and most expensive material on the planet. And I stood right on top of it. Yay.

The trade-off on the informative nature of the priest's tour was the fact that it was heavily faith-based; it was practically a sermon moreso than a history lesson and got a little tedious at times. I made a mental note not to mention that, practicing Catholics as we are, we had been married on a golf course by a woman.

Interesting tidbit about the spectacular canopy. At the bases of the columns are crests with have rather contorted faces; these are representations of the agony of childbirth that Bernini put in. He also discretely placed a representation of his own rosary lying on top of one of the bases.

This statue of my namesake saint, Andrew, made B and me giggle when we heard a rather humourous take on his martyrdom and crucifiction as told by our priest friend. St. Andrew was very positive and upbeat, apparently, and went to his execution essentially shouting to the masses, "HEY! Hey! Guess what! I've got this really awesome friend named Jesus who's the best guy ever and now I'm gonna die just like HE did! Except a little slanty." B said, "Y'know, that really does sound like you."

Another little tidbit of info I liked was a massive sculpture involving a host of Virtues, i.e. female figures representing things like Charity and Chastity and the like. This particular one was commissioned during the time of Henry VIII's split from Rome; in retaliation, the sculptor depicted the virtue of Truth with her foot atop a globe of the Earth, with it's big toe directly on top of The Tower of London.

After a light lunch with our new friends, we said goodbye and toddled along to the last few sights we wanted to visit or revisit, including the Spanish Steps (above), Piazza Navono (just another obelisk with some lion fountains, really), and one last look at Trevi. We dragged ourselves to the bus stop to take us to the airport, where B and Toby summed up our feelings . . .