The Walls of the Cave: Buongiorno!

So today I got back from an 11-day trip to Italy with my girlfriend, Kara. We went to Venice, Florence, Perugia, Rome, Pompeii, and Amalfi. Overall it was an incredible experience, way too much to try to put in one posting, so I'll try to post entries gradually this week to cover everywhere we went.

We started in Venice, which definitely lived up to all the hype. We met in the airport in Milan, caught a bus to town, and then a train to Venice. We immediately got lost trying to find our hotel, but that's part of the experience. Later, we met two of Kara's former roommates in St. Mark's Square and had dinner, before getting lost again trying to find our hotel in the rain (Note: getting to St. Mark's is very easy due to the signs. Finding your way back, however, not so much).

Saturday (Kara's birthday), despite the weather forecasts to the contrary, it did not rain, and we actually had a little bit of sun. We took a gondola ride, walked around all the shops and looked at the Murano glass, saw St. Mark's Basilica, saw the Rialto Bridge, and eventually found our way back to the train station to go to Florence that afternoon.

Here are some more of the pictures from Venice. I'll make more updates later this week.