Here are a few more pictures from Rome, as well as one from Athens (we wanted to make sure the Parthenon was a part of one of our posts). We have been in Florence for the past 3 days, and will be leaving tomorrow morning for Vincenza, where we are staying with a family we met on couch-surfing. We have really enjoyed all the artwork in Florence, which the girls have been studying in their classes. Near the Colosseum, we visited the Agora, a large site of ancient Roman ruins. There were temples, arches, palaces of Roman rulers, as well the 'belly button of Rome'.

After driving up Mt. Vesuvius, we visitied the ruins of Pompei, which were very extensive. The streets were made of large stone, and as you walked along them the villas were open to go inside. They were large and open, with beautiful artwork well preserved on the walls and floor of many of the richer houses.

This is inside the Colesseum. There would have been a wood floor on top of the network you can see on the bottom. It was a huge and impressivly built structure.

We were walking the streets of Athens one evening, when we turned the corner on a hill and saw our first view of the Acropolis. Beautiful! What a lovely surprise.