In my whirlwind visit to Rome, my friend Carol and I took a bus tour that went to the Vatican Museums and Sistine Chapel in the morning and the catacombs in the afternoon. Trying to see the Vatican Museums in one morning is an utter joke. Merely trying to get a good look at the […]
Posts in category italy
Travel Review: Santa Maria Maggiore
The Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore (St. Mary Major) was the first church dedicated to The Virgin Mary and is one of Rome’s four great basilicas. It is 1,600 years old and was first built after the Council of Ephesus; a legend states that the church was founded on its site because a miraculous snowfall […]
Travel review: Sorrento
Sorrento is a small seaside city on the southwestern coast of Italy in the province of Campania. It has a population of about 15,000 people and is built on a long cliff that overlooks the Bay of Naples. The town is old (people have lived there for over 2,000 years), scenic, and very touristy. It […]
Travel review: Hotel Il Nido
The Il Nido (Italian for “The Nest”) is a pretty little family-run hotel about 5 kilometers outside Sorrento, Italy. It was established in 1964. The hotel is set terrace-style in the hillside, so all the rooms have a great view of the ocean and Mt. Vesuvius. However, they are well away from the beach. If […]
Travel review: The Isle of Capri
This Italian island’s name is pronounced CAP-ree, rather than ca-PREE. Capri was not named for goats (as one might guess from the name, since “capreae” is Latin for “goats”) but for a colony of wild boars that the first ancient settlers found there (“kapros” is Greek for “boar”). Our tour group went to Capri in […]
Travel review: Pompeii
If you’re visiting southwestern Italy and have the chance to visit the ruins at Pompeii, I strongly suggest you do so. The place is amazing, and much larger than I expected it to be. Travel expert Rick Steves claims that you can tour Pompeii in three hours; I say that’s far, far too short a […]
Travel review: Herculaneum
The Italian ruins at Herculaneum are about 6 miles from the shore of the Bay of Naples. Visiting them was quite an interesting experience. If you have the chance to see them, I highly recommend it, but you should probably see Pompeii first because the ruins at Pompeii will give you better perspective on what […]
