Paul and I decided to go big this year on our family vacation, as we knew that next year Summer would likely have a job to work around and the kids' schedules are only getting busier! It was so much fun to watch the kids' excitement as they anticipated and experienced Europe for the first time. Our trip had the following itinerary:

Tuesday: Fly to Rome (with one layover in Atlanta)
Wednesday: Roman Landmarks (and try to stay awake!)
Thursday: Vatican City and Borghese Museum
Friday: Colosseum and Roman Forum Tour
Saturday: Day Trip to Pompeii
Sunday: Travel Day to Paris
Monday: Eiffel Tower and Louvre
Tuesday: Day Trip to Palace of Versailles
Wednesday: Disneyland, Paris
Thursday: Fly Home

Here are some pictures!

Tuesday: Fly to Rome

Wednesday: Roman Landmarks
We flew overnight, so we "woke up" on the airplane to a brand new morning in Rome. We walked all day long, seeing sights and doing our best to stay awake so that we could get over the jet lag as quickly as possible. We crashed at our place around 5pm, made a quick dinner of pasta while we took turns showering, and everyone was in bed between 6-7pm!

The entrance to our airBnB, an old small church restored as a little home.

Our view from the top of Castel Sant'Angel, and old castle that we spent time wandering around.

A square that had restaurants and many old fountains.

The Pantheon - the largest concrete free-standing dome in the world!

Midafternoon coffee and gelato!

Trevi Fountain

We also walked through a lot of old churches. Then, we stopped at a grocery store to grab breakfast items and some basic dinner items for a quick dinner and early bedtime.

Thursday: Vatican City and Borghese Museum
We woke up early for a tour of the Vatican Museum and got to see the Sistine Chapel (no pictures allowed). We also spent quite a bit of time in St Peter's Basilica, seeing where Peter is believed to be buried, and also the Pieta. We spent the afternoon at the Borghese Museum, Paul's and my favorite art museum in Rome. Our tour guide was amazing and full of interesting stories. We made a quick stop at the Spanish Steps, and also enjoyed window shopping at the fancy Italian brand-name stores.
Heading to Vatican City. We walked EVERYWHERE averaging around 8 miles a day.
Larkyn did a great job keeping up!

My favorite art piece in the Vatican Museum was to the left of Summer (not shown), a statue whose other piece was randomly found in an antique shop and reconnected. The stories make the artwork so much more interesting. The Egyptian art was also pretty cool, along with ALL of the painted ceilings and massive tapestries.

Our tour of the Vatican Museum ended in the Sistine Chapel, which was amazing, but no pictures are allowed. We then walked around St. Peter's Basilica.

Where St. Peter is believed to be buried.

It felt GREAT to change out of our long pants (required for the Vatican), as the day was incredibly hot! We walked to the Borghese Museum and got there just in time for our tour. It was fun that all of the tours we went on had headsets so we could hear the tour guide even in a large group.

The statues carved by Bernini were the highlight for sure, seeing how he was able to make one piece of stone come to life.

After our tour, we walked to the Spanish Steps.

Larkyn especially enjoyed seeing all the expensive jewelry and purses for sale near the Spanish Steps.

Old cool buildings on every stretch made the walk back to our place very interesting!

Friday: Colosseum and Roman Forum Tour

We started our day by walking to Mamertine Prison, where it was believed that both Paul and Peter were imprisoned. On the way, we saw this impressive building, which we later found out was a government building.

Mamertine Prison was super cool. There was a museum inside, and then we got to go down to the cell which would have only been accessible at the time by a hole in the ground of the prison (now there are stairs build down to it).

Our tour of the Roman Forum and Colosseum was fantastic! Alessia, our tour guide, was great with the kids and so engaging and interesting. There is no way to capture all that we saw but here are a few photos.

We learned a lot about the Roman goddes Nike, for victory, which these wings respresented.

We got to see a new area that was recently opened/restored near the Roman Forum. There was so much to see and do, and our tour guide was constantly telling us about everything, that we really didn't stop to take pictures until the Colosseum.

In Rome, they love cats! They even built cat doors into the Colosseum so cats can freely roam!

We had some extra time after our Col-seum tour, and we last minute went to this Welcome to Rome exhibit. It was amazing and I highly recommend! It was a 4D experience that tied together all of the sights we had seen and gave a history of Rome. And, it was air conditioned!

After dinner, we had our daily gelato! (Yes, we ate gelato every day - it was soooo good!)

Saturday: Day Trip to Pompeii

It was absolutely amazing to be able to visit Pompeii! It required a lot of public transportation to get there, but it was totally worth it. The city was much bigger than I had pictured and so well preserved. Our tour guide was so interesting and we all learned a lot about the city, the culture, and the lifestyle of the people of Pompeii. For example, we learned about how they had "fast food", basically shop owners had marble counters with holes in it that they would put cooked food in, and travelers could come by and pick out their food and purchase it. Because Pompeii was a place where travelers met to exchange merchandise, when they would order from a menu they had pictures instead of words, which are still evident today!

We took two buses and train

It was very interesting learning that they are able to identify the specific plants that were grown in pompeii at the time of the eruption due to the root structure casts they can make from the spaces in the ash! They recreated this garden exactly as it was.

Mount Vesuvius -the volcano whose ash preserved the city of Pompeii - shrouded in smoke as there was a fire on the mountain the day we visited

The hole in the center of the houses was used to collect rainwater that they used as water

They were able to uncover "political propaganda" about who was running for office

This doorway says "Beware of Dog"!

After arriving back in Rome, we visited the cat sanctuary (which we visited several times). Larkyn loved seeing all the cats!

Sunday: Travel Day to Paris

After another trip to the cat sanctuary, we started our journey to Paris. We arrived in time for dinner, picked up groceries, and got settled in our apartment.

Monday: Eiffel Tower and Louvre

One Monday, we enjoyed seeing the Eiffel Tower, climbing up in the Eiffel Tower, seeing the Arc de Triomphe, lunch, and taking a tour of the Louvre. While we waited for our ticket time for the Louvre we enjoyed playing a family game of "The Bible is Funny".

Mona Lisa!

Tuesday: Day Trip to Palace of Versailles

The Palace of Versailles was HUGE! We spent the entire day there from open to close, and there were still things we didn't see. My favorite part was the gardens! And, as became our habit, finished off the evening with Gelato! The heat wave followed us wherever we went, and each day was HOT, which made the cool Gelato taste even better!