Italy and Germany -- 2003

It was a year in the planning, but well worth it. Three families from Foster City took a trip to Italy. For many, it was their first trip to Europe

Rome
All of the families spent the first few days in different apartments in Rome. What a beautiful city. Everywhere you look, history is there. Our apartment was at San Giovanni Laterano, the home of the pope before the papacy moved to France for awhile. It was a funky little apartment with only two windows and no air conditioning, but the location and price were right.


Our apartment building

Our trip to the the Vatican was quite an experience. Patrick had had surgery on his leg in may and it was still not healed. Therefore we got him a wheelchair to roll through the Vatican ?Museum. To see the Sistine Chapel we had to go through the museum in the reverse path of everyone else. At one point the guards had to stop everyone exiting the chapel so that Patrick could go on a little wheelchair elevator down some steps. It was quite a production.

Ostia Antiqua is a must see. It's about a one hour train ride from Rome. Ostia Antiqua was the seaport for ancient Rome and had over 40,000 inhabitants. Malaria finally caused it so be abandoned and it as covered with blowing sand and then forgotten. Rediscovered about a hundred years ago and slowly being restored. There are a huge number of ruins that you can just wander through. It's a much easier trip than the one to Pompei.


Christopher and Patrick doing a little exploring in Ostia Antiqua


More pictures of Rome