Berlin

Our first stop in Berlin was at the Radio Tower where the East Germans used to spy on the West Germans from.

Then it was off to the Reichstag which had a big glass dome on the top. We learnt about some of the history and then climbed around the ramp to the top. We got a good view of the city and had an Audio Guide to tell us things.

The next day we hired some bikes and went to the canal to find a path to ride on. Then we found a café that we called have breakfasts at. I got a muffin .then we rode to the Berlin Wall. It had lots of really cool graffiti on it. 

We rode past one mural and it showed how many people died trying to cross from east to west during the time it was up. The wall was there because after the war the Russians owned the east. There was a west side which you were safe in because it was owned by France, America and the UK but if you were on the east you were stuffed because the Russians didn’t want the people who lived in East Berlin leaving.

So many died trying to escape and lots actually managed to. It was sad looking at the berlin wall. There was something called NO MANS LAND. Where the army was guarding and shot people who they saw trying to climb over the wall.

We kept seeing lots of the graffiti. There are 2 famous ones. The first one is the graffiti of the car smashing throw the walls [ I think who ever in those day was there and walk past said ‘’ I wish that happened to us’’ and the other one was the two famous leaders kissing. 

Then we looked at an exhibition of photos from other walls in Mexico, Palestine and Northern Ireland. The Berlin Wall was very interesting and I learnt a lot.

We then rode through Berlin to the Brandenburg Gate which was a border crossing through the wall. There was a line on the road where the wall was and me and Emma stood in both sides of Berlin at one time.

 

Then we went for a ride into Tiergarten and saw the Victory Column and the Berlin Cathedral that got bombed out during the War. We took the bikes back and went out for dinner. It was great riding around Berlin.

The next day we went to the Checkpoint Charlie Museum and learnt more about the Berlin Wall and how people tried to and successfully climbed, flying foxed and got smuggled across in cars.

It was then time to fly to the UK but Berlin was D-Cool.

 

Rome

Colosseum

We got to our apartment and dumped our bags and had a chill out. They had a DVD with the film Gladiator so we put it to get an idea of the colosseum in the past. Then we went for a walk to the colosseum and got our tickets and walked around it. We looked at the bottom where they put the people in to fight. It would have been really scary. The stadium was huge and would have been unbelievably noisy.

Vatican Museum

The next day we went to the Vatican Museum and Sistine Chapel. It was a very long queue to get in but when we finally did we went to look at all the very special and valuable statues and paintings.

After walking around for a couple of hours we still hadn’t been into the Sistine Chapel but we went to the cafe because we all were really hungry.

 

Finally we went into the Sistine Chapel where the painting of the touching fingers is. It is a painting of God and Adam touching fingers. It was in the middle on the roof. It was very crowded and you weren’t allowed to take photos, which was annoying. 

St Peters Basilica

After the Vatican we went to St Peters Basilica, the head of the Catholic Church. When I walked in the church, I was amazed when I saw it. The roof was blue, white and gold and there were amazing statues all around. I think it the most beautiful church I have ever seen. Just as we were leaving it went mad with rain and lighting. It was horrendous!  We tried to shelter undercover hiding behind a column in St Peters square but we still got wet as the rain came in sideways. There were people selling rain coats and umbrellas but it was no use because we were already soaking wet. We tried to get home but it was really wet. We had to run through the puddles. I was really cold, so was Emma. I still had a great day though. I rate it a 10 out of 10

Trevi Fountain

Mum and Dad made us go to a lot of sights in Rome on our last day there. I was looking forward to seeing the Trevi Fountain because I had been reading about it in a book that morning and had made lots of notes that I wanted to read out when we were there. Eventually we got to the Trevi Fountain. There were lots of tourists there but we fought our way to the fountain and threw in a coin which means we will come back to Rome. 

I read out all of the information to Mum, Dad and Emma who found it very interesting.

I loved Rome it was a very interesting place.

My week on the Amalfi Coast

Feragosta Fireworks

On the night of Feragosta we walked to Atrani to Amalfi, to get a ferry to watch the fireworks the fireworks. Before we got on the boat though we had gelati and a parade came through with the priest signing hymns and lots of people behind him.

We were going to two firework displays. The first one was at Maoiri. The ferry stopped out in the sea and we watched the fireworks. It wasn't the best fireworks I've ever seen but they were pretty awesome though. 

Then the ferry went to Positano. They were even better then the one in Maoiri. It was well past midnight so I was very tired. I fell asleep in my Dad's lap. We had to go back to Amalfi then to get off the boat and walk back to Atrani where our apartment was. It isn't a far walk at all. We stopped on the way home and looked at Atrani at night.

We got home and I collapsed like what the Roman Empire did and went to sleep. I rate it a 10 out of 10.

Amalfi Musical Show

Me and Emma wanted to see the opera. It wasn't really a opera where they just stand there, it was about Amalfi in the olden days.

We got our bad seats at the back where there was someone in front of you. Then some music came on and the show started. There was no one in the good seats that were in the good spots, so me and Emma nicked them.

In the Opera there was a baddy called Prince Sicardo and all the rest were goodies. The main two goodies were Antonio and Giovanna. There was lots of other characters too. The cool part was all the time they did fighting scenes and love romance parts. A TV screen had the words in English which was good.

Antonio and Giovanna loved each other but Prince Sicardo loved Giovanna. Prince Sicardo sent Giovanna to jail because she didn't love him. Then she pretend to love him so she could kill him she did but then he woke up and went to the high stage and the prisoners that the people freed killed him anyway so it was kind of funny.

After that the town was free.

While we were trying to look backstage after the show a lady came up to us and said do you want to meet your favourite character and have a photo. We said yes.

My favourite was Antonio and Emma's was Prince Sicardo who were the main characters.

I rate it a 10000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000out of 10

Positano 

After sitting on a bus driving on the crazy road to Sorrento, Mum and Dad decided that we should catch the ferry to Positano. It was a really pretty town built on steep cliffs and we had a walk around.

There are lots a art galleries and paintings of Positano to buy and we looked in lots of them. We had some lunch and went around to more of the painting shops but they were too pricey. I was inspired by so many good paintings that I wanted to do a sketch in my new sketch book.
 

 

While I was doing my sketch this tall man came passed and we could tell he was an Aussie. Emma said it was James Magnussen so I stopped doing my sketch and we chased after him. Dad asked if he was who we thought he was, he said "who do you think I am" and Emma said with a big smile on her face "You're James Magnussen". He smiled and we got a photo and had a quick chat. 

I rate the day
10000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 out of 10 

More Tuscany - San Gimignano & Sienna

San Gimignano

We walked through the town and found a free museum that had a miniature version of what the city would have been like in the 1300’s. They showed all the buildings and we could work out the streets we had already walked down. It was really cool. Then inside they had some models of people doing the things that they would have done in those days.

Mum and Dad wanted to climb the biggest tower in the town so they could get a good view. That meant that we had climb up lots of stairs. I hate climbing stairs, we have had to climb too many.

Because we climbed the stairs though we could get gelati. There were two shops there that said they had the Worlds’ Best Gelati across the road from each other. We didn’t know which one to go to so we decided to go to the one with more people.

 

We had a walk around and I took some more photos. Mum and Dad love this one because you can see my reflection. It was a nice day.

Sienna

Sienna was about an hour’s drive from our villa which Emma and I thought was too far. Sienna is an old walled city with lots of the buildings the same as what they were like hundreds of years ago. When we were walking through we saw an awesome old door with scary knockers on it.

The first place we went to was the Duomo di Sienna which was the main cathedral. I really liked the inside of this church, it was spectacular. 

 

 

I liked the statues of all of the emperors around the roof inside it. It was like they were looking down on you. There were lots of cool mosaics on the floor.

We also went into the library where there were books that were hundreds of years old. The room was really bright and colourful with paintings on the ceiling. They books had lots of colourful writing in them and I thought it would have taken the monks who wrote them a very very long time to do.

 

 

Then we went outside and down some really steep steps next to the Duomo to a door at the bottom which lead into the Crypt. There was a famous painting in there and you could see the foundations for the church.

Mum had told us about a famous horse race they have in Sienna where people race around the main square with not saddles on. So we went to the square to have a look. I was surprised because the square was actually quite hilly and round. We could see a tall building with a tower that overlooked the square that was a terra cotta colour. Mummy was a bit annoyed because if we were there the next week we would have been able to see the horse race. We saw a picture in one of the shops where two of the horses in the race had no rider.

 

Because it was really hot we had more gelati to cool down. On the way out of town we saw a really pig with a fedora and classes on that looked really cool.

I liked Sienna so I’ll give it a 9 out of 10, again 1 point off because it was too hot.