Rome

Buon giorno/Hello

We're in Rome, the capital of Italy. Rome is a very old city and it has some buildings that are nearly 2000 years old. Some of these buildings have been restored (fixed up) so you can see what they used to look like, others are just the remains of buildings (ruins).
Some of the buildings we went to visit were:

the Pantheon

the Colosseum

and St Peters Basilica at the Vatican.

We also saw some fantastic fountains and statues:

 Bernini's Elephant

 Trevi Fountain

 Arch of Constantine

the Leaky Boat

We also love Italian food. We are eating:

 pizza

 lasagne

spaghetti bolognaise

and gelato. Very yummy.

Our favourite day in Rome was Friday, October 12. It was Matthew's birthday and we went to Gladiator School. It was fantastic.

Arrivederci/Good bye

Venice

Buon giorno/Hello

We are now in Italy and the main language is Italian.
(per favore - please, gratzie - thank you, si - yes, no - no, prego - you're welcome)

We are in Venice in Italy. Venice is a group of 118 small islands separated by canals and joined together by bridges.

There are no cars on Venice. Instead of using cars, people walk or they use small boats. We caught a ferry to go from where we were staying to the main island. It was amazing. The Grand Canal (the main canal in Venice) looked like our highways, full of dinghies, ferries and gondole (gondolas).

The main island in Venice is called San Marco. San Marco has a large square full of buildings that are very beautiful.

Venice is famous for masks 

One of the islands, Murano, is famous for the special things they create from glass. They have shops all over Venice that sell Murano glass figurines, jewellery and vases. They are very nice. 

Matthew bought a glass tiger. I liked this one, but it was too big to bring home.

Arrivederci/Good bye

Switzerland

Gutt morgen (Good morning)

We have been in Switzerland. Switzerland has many high mountains and lots of lakes. It is very beautiful (and very cold). They also have gorgeous houses. I'd love to live in one of these.

A lot of people here speak German (so my German is getting a little better, but I still need to practise).

The best things we have done in Switzerland have been to go up some mountains. We went on a cable car to get up to the top of Schilthorn mountain. It went quite fast and very high.

Up the top of the mountain it was so cold that there was snow. It was fantastic. Matthew and I had a snowball fight

and then we made a snowman.

Matthew also made Kev a little house.

We also went inside a mountain where the water from some of the mountains goes when the snow melts. The water coming down from the mountain makes a waterfall, but this mountain had waterfalls inside the mountain. Pretty amazing.

Another mountain that we went up had an ice cave. We walked through tunnels in the ice cave.

Someone had even carved a dog out of the ice. It was as cold as your freezer, so the dog didn't melt. We didn't stay in there to long,  it was too cold.

Now we're driving through the tunnels and roads that they have made through the mountains to go to Italy.

Auf wiedersehen/Good Bye

Germany

Guten tag/Hallo 

We are in Germany. In Germany people speak German. We're not very good at German, although I have been learning to count to 10 and I can say thank you 

(danke). 

Germany has a large river that runs right through the country from the bottom to the top. It's called the Rhine River. We stayed in Boppard, which is on the river bank and we took a cruise on the river. It was beautiful. We could see castles on the hills and passed lots of little villages. 

Down the bottom of Germany, near where the river starts are the Rhine falls, a huge waterfall.

In Germany we ate lots of black forest cake and apple struedel. They were yummy.

Mercedes Benz and Porsche cars are also made in Germany. We went to some museums where we saw lots of these brands of cars, from really old ones to new ones. 

Now we are going to Switzerland.

Auf wiedersehen (good bye)