Blogging A to Z EXTRA: Italy

For the regularly scheduled "Blogging A to Z" post I picked India for "I". We have some friends that have spent some time there and I've really wanted to go there myself. However, there is another country that starts with "I" that I wanted to give a little more time to.

The Colosseum in Rome ~ Photo by Bonnie Falk

Five years ago, if you had asked where I would go if I could go anywhere on the planet, the answer would have been Italy. When my husband and I first started dating, we had talked about how much we both loved travel and would really like to spend some time in Europe. So, after we got married, we packed up our MEC travel packs and flew across the pond!

Roman pigeon ~ Photo by Bonnie Falk

We flew in and out of Rome. We were very blessed that we could take three month away from our offices (while both still working part-time) to travel Europe. Near one third of that time was spent in Italy.

Italian countryside ~ Photo by Bonnie

It is thousands of years of human history condensed, set on beautiful land and surrounded by gorgeous sea. It is so rich in culture, art, architecture, food, fashion... There are breath-taking structures everywhere.

Duomo in Milan ~ Photo by Bonnie Falk

Standing in an ornate Catholic cathedral brings up such strong yet conflicting emotions for me. "Why don't we still create such awe-inspiring beauty in our churches now?" "How many people who starved to death or died of a curable disease could have been saved if the offerings of these parishioners were better allocated?"

Pompeii was even more fascinating than we had expected. It's huge! I don't know why were expecting some little village dig; it was a huge city in its time. We spent a whole day roaming around. Naples was conversely dirty and dingy but has the best pizza in the world.

Vineyard in Pompeii ~ Photo by Bonnie Falk

But that's the thing about Italy: the ancient is well preserved and scattered in along with the modern. Everywhere we turned we would see some that looked very old and say to each other, "That's probably important." I think it was our first full day in Rome when we were just randomly walking that we looked down the street and saw the Colosseum in the distance. Not only do all roads lead to Rome, but all roads lead to the Colosseum.

Lots of important stuff in Rome. ~ Photo by Bonnie Falk

And, oh, the food! Not only the best pizza, but all the pasta, seafood, buffalo mozzarella... dairy in general was great, more variety of meat, fresh fruit and veggies... and the pastries... The Italians know their food!

Even though it was a dream of mine to go and I had fairly high expectations, I was still blown away. I would go back in a heart-beat and could see completely new things even we had years to explore.

A canal in Venice ~ Photo by Bonnie Falk

Italy is amazing.