London

London Tower




Pompeii




Capri


Capri


Positano


Naples




Venice

Venice

Venice

Hello again! We are back in London and are flying home later tonight. Yesterday we flew out of Treviso Italy to London and spent most of the day here. It feels really good to be back in a country where one speaks English, also its a lot cooler here in London compared to the heat we have been dealing with the past 2 days so that is nice. Last Tuesday we left Naples for Verona. We spent Wednesday in Verona and we really enjoyed our stay there. We visited these really old gardens that had a small maze. We also saw Romeo and Juliet's fake houses. Later that night we went to the Verona Jazz Festival and listened to some blues. The next day we went to Venice. It was cool to see all the canals and gondolas. In Venice we took an elevator (because they wouldnt let us climb) to the top of the bell tower. From there we saw the whole city, it was really nice. We also went into the Basilica Di San Marco, which was so beautiful. The ceiling was covered in gold mosaics and it was really pretty. The next day we went to the Peggy Guggenheim Museum which Orry really enjoyed alot. It was full of really modern art like Picasso, Dali, Jackson Pollock, Max Ernest, and alot of other really talented artists. We also had alot of gellati and it was sooo good.

So now we are here in London catching up on what we missed last time we were here. Yesterday we did the Tower of London. It was really cool to see all the prisoner's graffiti from hundreds of years ago and also the Royal Jewels. We also went to Camden Market last night but everything was closed. It was a really cool area though and maybe we will get to it today when everything is open. Well thats it for our trip! We had a really great time here and saw so many amazing and unforgetable sites. Thanks to everyone who has left us messages, it was really nice to hear from back home. We will leave you guys with pictures from Naples and from the past week. See you all soon!

Love, Melissa and Orry

Napoli

Ciao! The past 3 nights we have been staying in Naples and taking day trips out of here. Sorry we dont have any pictures to show you, we cant upload any on this computer. I dont think we will be able to upload any photos the rest of our trip because we will mostly be staying in B&B and cheap hotels. But we will see. So our first day in Naples we took a day trip to Pompeii. The excavation site was huge and it was really neat to see all the ruins and the brightly painted frecos that survived. There wasnt as many plastered casts of the bodies as you would think. We only saw about 5, so Melissa was alittle disappointed about that. Yesterday we took a day trip to the Island of Capri with a guy from New Zealand named Anthony. Capri was really beautiful and the water was so blue. We took a hike up the mountain in Capri to Villa Jovis, which is the ruins of Emperor Tiberius' estate. We saw amazing views from the top. Today we took a trip to Sorrento and Positano. We were in search of a beach but when we got to Sorrento we only found a lame whimpy beach. So we took a bus ride to Positano. The bus ride was really cool, we went up this long winding roads all along the coast. The bus dropped us off at the top of the town in Positano and we had to walk all the way down to the bottom, but we finally found a beach! Unfortunately we didnt spend too long at the beach because the clouds started to come in. So we had to walk all the way back to the top, which was really tiring. We then had to wait forever for the bus back to Sorrento because the first bus was too full to get on. So tomorrow we are just going to explore the city of Naples and take it easy until we head up north again to Verona. We have a 6 hour train ride the next day to Verona and then 2 days after we are going to Venice. Hope everything is well.
Love, Melissa and Orry

Roma

Florence

Spanish Steps

Roman Forum

Roman Soldiers

Top of the Duomo

Florence

Can you spot Tom Hank's side head?

Hello again! We have been in Rome the past two days and we have seen alot. Yesterday we went to Palatine Hill where Augustus' house was. We then did the Roman Forum, which both of us thought was really cool. We were trying to imagine what it would have looked like when it was in it's prime. Then we made our way to the Colosseum and walked all around it. Orry was amazed how big it was. We did get suckered in yesterday though by some Gladiator shaisters. There were guys dressed up as Roman soldiers and Melissa wanted to take a picture with them. It ended up costing us 5 dollars...we have now learned that there are shaisters all over the world.

Today we walked around the center city. We made our way down the Spanish Steps, saw the Trevi Fountain, and best of all TOM HANKS! While we were making our way back from seeing the Pantheon they were filming a shot from the new movie "Angels and Demons", we watched them film a scene and even got a picture of the side of Tom Hank's head from a distance (we will post the picture, you just have to look closely.) After our run in with fame we walked over to see the Column of Trajan, Orry thought it was cool to see it because he learned about it in his art history class. Now we are updating to you and we will leave you with lots of photos. Some are from Florence and the others are from the past two days. Tomorrow we are going to see the Vatican. We heard the Pope comes out at noon on Wednesdays to bless the crowd so maybe we will get to see him. On Thursday we are leaving Rome for Naples and taking day trips to Pompeii, Capri and Positano. We heard Naples is a bit smelly because of a garbage crisis having to do with the mafia. Hopefully it wont be too unbearable. Well thats it for now. Hope everything is well. (And mom let me know what credit card company that bill is for-Melissa)

Love, Melissa and Orry

Florence

Bonjorno!
We are finally in Italy and much has happend since our last update. Tuesday we were in Genoa and walked around the city. There wasnt much to see there but it was a nice little town. The next day we went to Pisa which was pretty awesome. The leaning tower doesnt really look as big as it does in pictures. We didnt climb it though because it was too expensive. After our little day trip in Pisa we headed over to Lucca. This place was also a small city surrounded by an a fortified wall. Our main plans were to ride bikes around the wall, however the day we went to ride around it started pouring. So that screwed up our plans. The good part of the trip was that Orry bought some olive oil worth 15.50. Lets hope it was worth the money. After our plans were ruined in Lucca we took the train to Florence. The place we are staying in is a really cool place with amazing views of the city. Its a campsite with tents sets up already and there are bunk beds inside with a wooden floor. Yesterday we spent most of the day exploring the city. We got up early and went to the Uffizi so we didnt have to wait in line. It was a little disappointing after going to the Louvre. After that we climbed up to the Duomo. It took 463 steps to reach the top. We saw amazing views of the city and it while we were up there 12 oclock struck and all the bells from all the different churches started ringing. It was pretty neat. Afterwards we walked passed "the gates of paradise" which are these famous doors made from gold that are on the baptistry doors. Today we woke up early again to go see the Statue of David in the Galleria dell Accademia. The statue of David was very impressive and a lot bigger than we had imagined it to be. So now we are here in an internet cafe updating our blog because its too expensive at the campsite. Unfortunately we cant upload any pictures. Hopefully within the next couple of days we can show you some more photos of our trip. Tomorrow we are heading to Rome for the next 4 days. Hope everyone is doing okay and Melissa wants some more phone calls from home! Ciao for now!

Love,
Orry and Melissa

Nice

Hello everyone. Tonight is our last night in France and we had a great day in Nice. As you all know last night we took the night train from Paris to Nice and it sucked! We didnt get too much sleep and it was really uncomfortable. Despite the night train Nice is extremely "Nice"! The beaches are really beautiful and the water is really blue. It definately doesnt feel like we are in France. The only downfall here is that the beaches are all rocks and not a lot of sand. This really takes a toll on your feet. Today we also took the bus to Monaco which wasnt too spectacular unless your really rich and you like to gamble. But the bus ride was worth it because the views were AMAZING! Tomorrow we are heading into Italy and our first stop is Genoa. We hope to eat a lot of Genoa salami and hopefully there will be some cool things to see there. The following day we are going to Lucca where we will be renting bikes to ride around the city wall. After that its off to Pisa and Florence. We dont know when the next time we will have internet access so we might not update for a while. Hope everyone is doing fine in the states and so long for now!

Love,

Melissa and Orry

Night Train To Nice

Hello everyone,

Just stopping in for a quick message. Tonight Melissa and I are taking the night train to Nice, France. Today we went to the Musee D'Orsey, the Sacre Coeur, and this small Dali exhibit. The Musee D'Orsey was pretty cool. This Musuem had some famous paintings from Monet, and Van Gogh. It was cool to see actual paintings of Monet as opposed to the ones hung in my living room. The Sacre Coeur was pretty nice. It's a church located on the top of a hill so there is a beautiful view of Paris from there. The Dali exhibit was kind of disapointing. It was rather small and there weren't any of his famous paintings in there. That's all for now. We will post again as soon as we have access to the interent.

Love,
Orry and Melissa

Paris

Bonjour! We are here in Paris for a 3rd night. We have done so many things these past few days and we have soooo many pictures. We took a D-Day tour in Bayeux on Wednesday. The tour was awesome, we here some great stories, visited Utah and Omaha beaches, and finally ended the day at the American Cemetery. We stayed in Bayeux for about 2 days, it is a very cute little town. There we saw the Bayeux tapestry, which is very very old and tells the story of the Normans invasion of England. We also met up with Dana in Bayeux where she took the D-Day tour with us.

So for the past 3 days we have been in Paris. Our first day we went to the Notre Dame, which was okay, we sort of expected more. Later that night we had our first French pastry, which was soooo good. Yesterday we got up early and went to Versailles. That was probably our favorite part of our trip so far. The gardens, the palace, and Marie Antoinette's estate were so amazing. We were especially amazed by Marie Antoinette's estate. Her estate was huge and we probably spent about a good 2 hours walking around that alone. I dont even think we got to see all of it (Janet, next time you come here you definitely have to see her estate. I think that was my favorite part of Versailles). After Versailles we went to the Louvre. The Mona Lisa wasn't too amazing, we expected more from that too. The Venus de Milo was definitely worth seeing though. Today we went to the cemetery where Jim Morrison is buried. We visited his grave and also Edith Piaf. Later on we climbed the Arc de Triumph, we got to see pretty much the whole city from that view but it was overcast so the view wasnt to great. We just got back from seeing the Eiffel Tower. We took the elevator all the way to the top and it was an AMAZING view. When we went back down we got a chance to watch the tower sparkle. Tomorrow all the museums are free so we will probably be museum hopping all day and then we are taking the night train to Nice. We hope all is well with everyone. Keep in touch.
Love, Melissa and Orry

Hello all again! We are in Portsmouth, England today and yesterday we were in Salisbury. We had a really great time in Salisbury yesterday and met some really awesome Brits! We visited Stone Henge and it was really amazing to see something that old! The English country side is really a beautiful site, there are meadows with sheep and cows grazing every where. We also went into the Salisbury Cathedral which is the tallest cathedral in the UK. We also saw the Magna Carta which is stored inside the cathedral. Salisbury is a really cute town and we had a really great time. Tomorrow we are taking the Ferry into France, and spending the night in Caen. The next two days we will be in Bayeux and taking a D-Day tour. Sorry we don't have any pictures to upload this time... there is no connection. Happy birthday to Little Buddy and Joe, I hope you guys had a great day. Tell Ali that I miss her too. For trying to call us the best time is around 8 or 9 our time, starting tomorrow we will now be 6 hours ahead of you. We are running out of time. Hope all is well! Keep us posted and we will post again soon.
Love, Melissa and Orry

London

Hello everyone. We hope all is well back in the U.S. Today is May 23rd and within the past 2 1/2 days we've done quite a bit. On Wednesday our we landed in London at around 8 o'clockish and got a little lost finding our way to the hotel but eventually we were successful. We didn't do much on Wednesday do to the hour we got in. The next day we woke up early and started our journey through London. We started out walking through Hyde Park than found our way to Buckingham Palace and watched the "changing of the guards." Afterwards we walked over to Westminster and went inside the Parliament building and sat in on a session. Than we went to Westminster Abbey which was really awesome. We saw the tombs of many past kings and queens of England. Then we walked over to the British Museum where we saw the Rosetta Stone and alot of other cool artifacts. We did alot of walking that day. Today we did more walking. We went to the Tate Modern Museum where there is a huge gallery of modern art. Then we went to go to the Globe theatre but we got there a few minutes too late to take the tour. Same with the Tower of London. Maybe we will be able to get to them on the way back. We also walked over Tower Bridge today, it was a cool site to see. So tonight is the first night in a hostel, its all right, a little bit smelly. Tomorrow we are going to take a early train to Salisbury to see Stonehenge and most likely we will end up camping in the rain :( Hopefully it wont rain though. Then we are off to Portsmouth where we will take the ferry to Caen, France. Well hopefully we will get to post again soon. Leave us some comments.
Love, Melissa and Orry

Europe Itinerary

Hey guys, Orry and I leave for Europe next week! We are excited. Here is the itinerary of were we are going to be and when:

May 21- Arrive in London around 8 (Hotel)
May 22- Explore London (Hotel)
May 23- Explore London (Hostel)
May 24- Leave London for Salisbury
. Arrive in Salisbury around 14:05
. Stay at campground
May 25- Take 9:45 tour of Stonehenge (buses at the train station)
. Take the train to Portsmouth
. Stay in Portsmouth
May 26- Take the 8:45 ferry to Caen
. Arrive in Caen at 15:45
.Stay in Caen
May 27- Explore Caen
.Take the train or bus to Bayeux
May 28- D-Day Tour
May 29- Take early train from Bayeux to Paris
May 30- Explore Paris
May 31- Explore Paris
June 1- Versailles
June 2 -Take early train from Paris to Nice
June 3 -Take bus to Monaco
June 4 -Explore Genoa
June 5 -Take train to Lucca
June 6- Take train from Pisa to Florence
June 7- Explore Florence
June 8- Tuscany Vineyard?
June 9- Take train to Rome
June 10- Explore Rome
June 11- Explore Rome
June 12- Explore Rome
June 13- Pompeii
June 14- Explore Naples
June 15- Capri
June 16- Capri
June 17- Take train from Naples to Venice
June 18- Venice
June 19- Venice
June 20- Venice
June 21- Go to Treviso
June 22- Fly out of Treviso Airport @ 9:50, Arrive in London @10:50
June 23- Back to America

We will have a cell phone with us so if you'd like to call us you can the number is a UK one so its long distance : +44 792 4448 229

Also keep us posted on whats going on back in the states. See you in a month!

Love, Melissa and Orry