Kevin and me in front of the Forum. Just behind us is the building where Cesar held Senate!!

Stacey and Kevin in front of the Forum!! The Colosseum is just over their shoulders.

Kevin arrived today sporting some new facial hair on his chin. After picking him up at the airport, unpacking, and showering, he was wide awake and wanted his first Italian brick oven pizza. He loved it!! After coming back to the hotel he thought about laying out by the pool but fell asleep. His 24 hour, transcontinental traveling caught up with him. We woke him up for dinner and took him to downtown Rome. We took a quick walk to the Forum, then found an outside resturant and he had his first spaghetti! We then hurried over to Circus Maximus. That's not how they spell it, but you know what I mean. The place where Charlton Heston had the famous horse race in the movie Ben Hur. Anyway, the only thing left of the famous place is one long grassy indention about a city block long. Most of the time we see homeless people sleeping there, or in the daytime people picnic or do whatever else you do in wide open spaces. Tonight the area had a big screen TV so people could watch Italy play Germany in the World Cup. I don't know how many people were there, but my guess is they would have filled OU's football stadium. Wall to wall people, standing, sitting, dancing, waving Italian flags, tv crews, and street venders were everywhere!!! It was crazy!!! We left at halftime because we didn't want to drive in the madness and we needed to get Kevin to bed. We want to try to get him on Italian time as soon as possible.

Beautiful white marble quarries!! It looked just like snow!!

Nope! It's not snow!!!! White marble. It was beautiful!

These pictures are not very good, but I have to tell you what they are. I had been reading in a book about this city named Carrara. It has the world's most famous marble quarries and is located near Pisa...somewhat. Anyway, Micelangelo himself traveled to these valleys to pick out the marble that he would work into his masterpieces!!! The town and region are dominated by marble. There is a museum where visitors can trace the story of marble-cutting in these valleys from pre-Roman times until today!! We were driving back to Rome and all of the sudden we saw the white and realized the name of the town and knew what it was! If I hadn't read the book, we would have thought they were snow-peaked moutains!!! (Good job reading teacher!)They were beautiful stark white!!!! I just had time for a couple of shots out the window and we were past the town.

One last terrace shot, I promise!! This little table is where we had dinner the first night. That is the sea, with the crescent curve of the shoreline in the distance. The furthest mountain peaks are where Portofino is located. It is just a 20 minute boat ride from Santa Margherita's harbor. Most people get there by boat. I forgot to mention in my Portofino information that the town is so tiny that when the parking garage is full, you can't get into town!!! Most of the millionaires don't worry about it because they stay on their yachts!

We ate breakfast the second morning just to the right of this picture at he top of the staircase. Nice veiw huh!? The lower terrace is used to serve drinks before dinner, or if you just want to hang out.

Thought you might like a shot of the breakfast terrace at the hotel we stayed at in Santa Margherita. We ate tucked back behind the two tree trunks growing up through the floor. Oh yeah, it was on the second floor and we had a spectacular view of the Sea! I know...Brat!!!

This is a shot of Portofino taken while we were standing on the port, and looking back out of the harbor to the sea. We didn't take the short boat ride around the shore to the San Fruttuoso Abbey. The 11th century Abbey isn't the main attraction. The intriguing draw is the statue Chris of the Abyss 60 feet underwater out in front of the Abbey in the sea!!! For a small fee, boats run from the Abbey to the statue, where you can look down to the arms of Jesus--outstretched, reaching upward! We thought we would save that side-trip for next time, and decided to spend our last hour in Portofino eating our gelato, and people watching. I still wonder why that statue is 60 feet underwater, so far off shore that you need a boat to see it!!!

This is the inside of a church just behind the buildings that front the harbor. It was wonderful, and had good light for me to finally get a decent inside shot of a church in Italy!

A close up of some of the balconies in Portofino. You can't really tell from the picture, but what the smaller towns do to dress up the outside of the buildings is paint false balconies, weapons, saints, door and window frames and 3-D Gothic concentrate. (These were real balconies, but obove the window and down the middle of the two buildings was false.

Portofino has what they call sleek shops, and it reeks of new money. There are a few pizzeries, bars, and grocery shops mixed in with Portofino's jewelry shops, art galleries, and houte courture boutiques. We didn't walk inside any shops, except for one small art gallerie. Only because they seemed friendly and acted like they wanted people to enter. I don't usually shop at Hermes, so I just passed those shops right up and headed for the gelato place.

This is Portofino! They say since the Romans founded Portofino for its safe harbor, it has had a strategic value from Napoleon to the Nazis! In the 1950s, National Geographic did a story on the port, and locals claim that's when the Hollywood elite took note. Liz Taylor and Richard Burton came here annually. During one famous party, Rex Harrison dropped his Oscar into the bay (it was recovered). And Ava Gardner came down from her villa each evening for a drink--sporting her famous fur coat. Greta Garbo loved to swim naked in the harbor, not knowing that half the town was watching. Truman Capote called Portofino home.