Sunday, April 22, 2012

England and Italy

We had such an amazing opportunity to go over to Europe for a couple weeks with my family to celebrate Jamie's graduation! We started the trip off in England where we visited Trent's best friend Bradford at Oxford for a few days.  Then we spent 10 days in Italy.  5 days in Rome and 5 days in Florence. We also took day trains over to Pompeii, Pisa, and Venice.  Sorry for the picture overload.  Trent discovered a new hobby while we were there and took over 1600 pictures over the 2 weeks!!! So this is a VERY condensed version of the pictures we have.


This was one of our first stops around Oxford.  Do you recognize it? It is the dining hall from Harry Potter! My Harry Potter dreams were coming true. I was happy it was even set up like the movie was!





This is Trent "punting" around Oxford.  Pretty much you stick a pole in the river and guide the boat that way.  I had the biggest struggle, but Trent was a natural.


We went over to Stonehenge one afternoon.  It was cool to see but in all honesty, I don't think I'll ever go back.  If you've seen a picture of it before you have seen all there is to see haha. 


This was at the Tower of London with the Tower Bridge in the background.


Bradford, Megan, me and Trent posing for the 4th or 5th time to get this picture.  We had a bit of a struggle finding someone who was camera savvy enough to take this for us. 


 Big Ben

Westminster Abbey

My Royal Wedding dreams came true too when we saw where the Royal party was during the production.



Here is the countdown to the Olympics in London this summer.  This was in front of the British National museum in Trafalgar Square.




This was in front of Buckingham Palace.  


We had a great opportunity to go to the London temple before we left.  The grounds are probably my favorite out of any temple I've seen before.  


 So long England! We're heading to Rome!


We met up with my family and flew down to Rome together from England.  This is Jamie and me in front of the entrance to the Vatican.
 
Trent and me in front of a statue of Moses.


The Pieta


Trent inside of St. Peter's Cathedral.  Such an amazing place! There was pure gold all over the place!


The whole gang inside the cathedral.


St. Peter's Square


The Pantheon




 Looking out over the Forum.



 An inside look at the Coliseum



 Just a funny little picture of us all inside the Coliseum again


 Jamie was getting bored with the regular smiling pictures so we tried to change it up a bit


 Trevi Fountain



 Hanging with Grandma in St. Peter's Square


 Pompeii



 The Spanish Steps


 At the top of the Duomo in Florence


Galileo's tomb


Michael Angelo's tomb


Grandma and me in Pisa!



The leaning tower of Pisa


We went to the Galileo museum in Florence and they definitely had 2 of his fingers and one of his teeth on display. Pretty fascinating but also a little weird.


 Riding through Venice on the water bus


The Rialto bridge





We loved Italy and look forward to visiting again someday!