Florence and Rome, Italy (09/24/2012-09/27/2012)

Our next stop in the trip was Italy - specifically Rome and Florence.  I was quite surprised that Bucharest was cleaner than Rome given Italy obviously had better circumstances over the past 50 years. Most of the pictures (up until the pyramid) are of Florence.  Speaking of pyramids, I was actually quite surprised to stumble across one in Rome of all places; it turns out around 15 BC, Gaius Cestius, a Roman magistrate, inspired by the Egyptian (or possibly later Nubian) pyramids, sought to have one built for himself for when he passed.

Florence was absolutely beautiful and the buildings had exquisite attention to detail. Every last surface was carved, or decorated in some fashion.  It's that sort of pervasiveness of art and pride in civic spaces I think we strongly lack here in North America.  The highlight was climbing to the top of Il Duomo (Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore) which in itself was a steep,dark and narrow climb - well worth the view.

Rome was mostly for family - so we did not sight see much - that said, we had a brief stroll through the Jewish Quarter on Yom Kippur (a Jewish lunch served by very some jovial yet highly political Egyptians was a fun point of irony).