Throughout 2009 we provided you with countless must-see spots across the world.  When planning your Italy vacation we hope that these Rome must-see sights will make your Rome vacation more memorable.

Full-Day Excursion to Pompeii

A scenic drive along the Highway of the Sun takes you past the famous Abbey of Montecassino and Naples for a guided visit of Pompeii, both destroyed and preserved by an eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD.

Roman Highlights

A guided walking tour takes you to some of the most famous monuments. Admire the Spanish Steps, Via Condotti, Piazza Navona, Parliament, and Pantheon.

Gelateria de Palme

All roads don’t lead to this tiny gelateria down a hidden alley. But after a taste of its addictive chocolate-chipped straciatella ice cream, a nightly pilgrimage to this off-the-beaten-track gem may be in order.

Monte Testaccio

When terracotta oil and wine shipping containers were no longer needed, the ancient Romans piled them up here. Now this grassy knoll built on the broken pottery is a hip enclave of artists, wine cellars and chic restaurants. Come experience how one man’s trash can truly be another’s treasure.

Bulgari

Andy Warhol called this posh boutique the “most important museum of modern art in Europe.” Since 1884, when Sotirio Bulgari arrived in Rome from Epirus, Greece, his store’s Renaissance-inspired jewelry has marked the pinnacle of Italian design.

Villa Ada

When in Rome, do as the Romans do. Everybody and their dog (literally) frequent this sprawling 450-acre city park. Lush vegetation and rolling fields make this park a popular summer spot for outdoor concerts.

A memorable Italy vacation post from 2009!

If you were visiting Rome 2,000 years ago, you would have been awakened at dawn by the melodious bass of a copper gong resounding through the streets, announcing the opening of the thermae, or heated public baths.

To ancient Romans, their routine visits to the more than 1,000 bath houses in the Italian city were one of life’s ultimate pleasures. As one nobleman recorded on his tomb, “Wine, sex and the baths may destroy our bodies, but they make life worth living.” These thermae were far more than simple washhouses.

They were the Western world’s first full-service spas, combining the facilities of gymnasiums, massage parlors, restaurants and community centers. In their beloved halls, citizens of all classes would loll by the pools with their friends, play ball games, drink wine, flirt and even enjoy elegant candle-lit dinners. Like modern gyms today, Rome’s baths were unofficially graded: Some were chic, others déclassé. Some were expensive, others cost only a copper. Some, like the Baths of Caracalla and the Baths of Diocletian that can still be viewed in Rome today, were palatial structures, as large as cathedrals, decorated with multi-colored mosaics of Neptune and his dolphins.

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As one decade closes and a new one begins, we would like to take the time to say thank you for traveling with us through our vacation themed posts.  We are grateful to be able to share our stories and experiences with fellow travel enthusiasts.

Over the next month, join us as we take a look back at 2009’s most memorable posts, including some reader favorites.  We will travel to Germany, vacation in France, honeymoon in Hawaii and hit the must-see sights of Rome.

Pack your bags & let’s start traveling because 2010 is the time to make vacationing a priority again!

It was the most perfect experiment in the history of science.  Holding both a cannon ball and a small musket ball, the 30-something Pisa native Galileo Galilei scaled the steps of his city’s famous Leaning Tower, and held them dramatically over the edge.  Eight stories below, the town’s most learned scholars and priests were gathered as observers.  They watched as the two balls dropped to the ground at the same speed – disproving, with a single stroke, the ancient idea that objects fall at different rates depending on their weight and size.

This archaic concept, which had been espoused by the ancient Greek author Aristotle, had been accepted without question for more than 2,000 years, Galileo’s great innovation was to put it to a practical test of observation.

Unfortunately, this famous story is probably not true. Galileo never wrote about it himself – it was recounted in a late biography penned by his secretary, Vincenzo Viviani.  Most historians now believe that it was Galileo’s imaginative disciples who invented the Leaning Tower tale in order to make the theory so clear that even a child could understand it.

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Enjoy art treasure at every turn in the Renaissance city of Florence, Italy.  Wander the city at leisure taking in sights of famous architecture,  smelling the aromas of delectable cuisine, making the most of this culturally rich city.

As the Nazis retreated from Florence during the Second World War, they blew up all of the bridges across the River Arno except one – the Ponte Vecchio.  It was evidently saved on Hitler’s personal orders.  This was where he had met the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini in 1938, cementing the “pact of steel” alliance.  The Führer had been so impressed by the elegant “Old Bridge,” which had graced the spot since being built in stone in 1345,  that he decided to save it.  The German army instead blew up all of the ancient buildings on either side, so that the bridge could not be used by the Allies, but the Ponte Vecchio itself was salvaged for posterity.

Today, thousands flock to this glorious arched edifice to buy gold and silver from local vendors, much as they have since 1593, when the Grand Duke Ferdinando Medici ordered that metalworkers and jewelers replace the butchers and tanners who worked there.  He wanted a more pleasant walkway and was offended by the stench of rotting meat and pungent odor of hides that were cured in horse urine and washed in the river.  A bust of Benevento Cellini, the most accomplished of all Renaissance goldsmiths, stands as a reminder of this great tradition. In its heyday, like all bridges of the period, the Ponte Vecchio was bustling with merchants and crowded with domestic residences, taverns and shops.

Today, if you visit the bridge in the early morning or at night, when the vendors’ stone-walled stalls are closed, you can see city’s ancient symbol, a stylized lily (not unlike the fleur de lis) used as a decorative pattern on the metal hinges of all the wooden shutters. But at any time of day, make sure you look up and spot the barred round windows in the top level of the bridge.  Unbeknownst to most visitors, a secret passage runs above the Ponte Vecchio – it was added by the Medici family in 1565 so that they could get from the Uffizi to the Palazzo Pitti without having to weave through the crowds and risk assassination.  It is known as the Vasari Corridor after its designer Giorgio Vasari, and its circular windows are called “the eyes of Florence.”  Through them, the Medicis could spy on their subjects and even eavesdrop on conversations.  It was actually in this passageway that Adolf met Benito back in 1938, in order to hatch their plans in privacy.

The world’s most famous statue after Lady Liberty, Michelangelo’s David has suffered some hard knocks since it was completed in 1504.  The artist worked over thirty months for a mere 400 florins (roughly $50,000 today), and when the official committee couldn’t agree where to erect it, Michelangelo suggested it be placed in front of the Palazzo Vecchio in the Signoria Square, with full public access.  It was an admirably democratic gesture, but Michelangelo hadn’t taken into account the violence of Florentine politics, let alone the effects of wild Italian weather.

As Il Gigante, The Giant, was being moved into position in 1504 – it took three weeks to shift the monolith, using a purpose-built scaffold on wheels – angry demonstrators pelted it with stones.  The affront was not an act of art criticism; the triumphant David was seen to symbolize the recent victory of the Florentine Republic over the deposed Medici family, so pro-Medici factions decide to make a rowdy statement.

Then, in 1512, lightning struck the base.  In 1527, during another of Florence’s many riots, a wooden bench tossed from a window of the Palace hit the statue and broke off David’s lower left arm.  A couple of young art students gathered up the pieces for safe keeping, which were eventually replaced. David stood exposed but unmolested for the next three centuries, until in 1873 it was apparent that the elements were taking their toll on the statue’s surface.

The city finally decided to move David to a purpose-built gallery within the Accademia delle Belle Arti, the Florentine Academy of Fine Arts, where it now stands, suffused by warm light.  A recent cleaning has even restored its 16th century marble sheen.  (A splendid marble replica today stands on the original spot in the Piazza della Signoria, causing bottlenecks of snapshot-taking tourists moving between the square and the Uffizi). But even the move to the Accademia did not protect David against the lunatic fringe: In 1991, a crazed Italian artist, protesting Florence’s excessive reverence for the past, smuggled a hammer into the building and attacked the statue, managing to shatter a big toe before he was apprehended.

Everyone was a critic in Renaissance Florence.  While citizens agreed in 1504 that Michelangelo’s David was a masterpiece, a few local artists carped that there were flaws in the statue – the right hand was a touch too big, the neck a little bit long, the left shin over-sized and something about the left buttock was not quite right.

A story from the time recounts that Piero Soderino, the head of the powerful Florentine Republic, even told the famously irascible Michelangelo that David’s nose was much too large.  Michelangelo then hid some marble dust in his hand, climbed back up his ladder and pretended to do some more “chiseling” on the offending proboscis.  While he did so, he let some marble dust fall from his hand.  The pompous Soderino was fooled – he examined the unchanged nose and announced it was much improved and far more “life-like.” Curiously, nose stories play a big part in Michelangelo’s life.

When he was a 16-year-old student in the Medici Palace, his brusque, rude manner offended a certain Pietro Torrigiano.  Torrigiano punched Michelangelo square on the nose: “I felt bone and cartilage go down like biscuit beneath my knuckles,” Torrigiano gloated, “and this mark of mine he will carry to the grave.” Indeed, for the rest of his life, Michelangelo’s nose was disfigured at the bridge, making his notoriously unkempt, grizzled face look even more wild and unappealing than ever.

The historian Paul Barosky adds a curious footnote to these nose sagas.  In Florentine slang, the nose is often used as a euphemism for another prominent part of the male anatomy.  Thus, in the famous 1504 dispute, Soderino might not have ordered Michelangelo to reduce the size of David’s nose but this other organ, which the storyteller was too polite to directly name.   Indeed, some early viewers of David were so offended by the statue’s casual nudity that the city council commissioned a gold fig leaf to make it more modest; but after a few years, it was quietly removed.

Benvenuta, or welcome, to our second series of posts on Florence, Italy. Over the next two weeks, we will once again travel to the capital city of Tuscany to explore the history and culture of this great region.

As you escape everyday life with our posts we will expose the secrets of the Ponte Vecchio and discover the truth behind the statue of David having two noses.  During your whirlwind trip we will also travel west to spend the day in Pisa.

So, grab a cup of caffè, or espresso as we call it in the States, and settle in as we begin our Italian vacation.

Elegant piazzas, glistening waterways, famous art and stunning cathedrals awaits on your Italy Honeymoon.

Take a romantic gondola ride through Venice’s canals; gaze into one another’s eyes over a plate of pasta while sipping Chianti in one of Rome’s many piazzas—now that’s Amore!