Learnings and PICTURES!

Adventuresome is one way to describe how crazy the past two weeks have been travelling around Spain and Italy with my dad.  He and I have been at odds more than once, but we had a wonderful time seeing the sights and hanging out with awesome people that we’ve met along the way.  Here are some of the highlights: 

1. Australians are awesome.
2. Someone from Manchester can support Liverpool.
3. Tapas bar owners in the south of Spain are wonderful.
4. Spain has the best hotel pillows. EVER.
5. Traveling to a different city every day sucks when you aren’t going on the same tour bus every day.
6. Taxi drivers are much nicer when you’re traveling with lots of luggage and an older gentleman.
7. Rome is my favorite. Of anything. Ever.
8. Talking to the people who are sitting next to you in restaurants leads to the best conversations and recommendations for everything.
9. Having someone who really speaks a language with you is incredibly helpful.
10. Walking up the steps to the top of the cupola of the Vatican is ridiculously exhausting, but the views are more than worth it.  And we even took the lift halfway.
11. Bring less luggage.
12. Don’t freak out so much (I did a lot of this, and it really never helped.  Being calm would have been much more enjoyable).
13. Ants in your suitcase are not a fun thing to wake up to at 5:45 in the morning.

So that’s a short list of some interesting things/fun things that have happened in the past two weeks.  I’ll be writing a more extensive post soon!

Here are some pictures to tide you over until I sort through the nearly 3000 pictures my dad and I took:

Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin

Plaza Mayor, Madrid

Almudena Cathedral, Madrid 

Palacio Real, Madrid

La Mezquita, Cordoba

Inside of La Mezquita

Inside of Almudena

The Organ at Almudena Cathedral: There were two of these and they were MASSIVE

Lion fountain at the Alhambra

Sagrada Familia, Barcelona

Sagrada Familia, Barcelona

View from the top of the Cupola of St. Peter's

Cathedral in Amalfi

The fanciest hotel on the Amalfi coast where all the celebrities stay for thousands of euros a night

Entrance to Pompeii

The seat of the republic in Florence

The Duomo!

The best view of Florence.  What you can't see is the rally car competition in front of me.

The cupola of St. Peter's

The Trevi Fountain!

The Colosseum

The ruins of the Roman Forum and the Palatine Hill

OH-IO on top of the Colosseum

View from the third tier down into the Colosseum

The Pantheon!

My favorite church that we saw: Santa Maria Maggiore

The Spanish Steps!