One day we went hiking in the forest in San Bartolomeo, which is a tiny village in Northern Italy. We collected lots of chestnuts! Our inspiration for this was that we saw a man collecting chestnuts. We filled our pockets with them, and we ended up having eight pockets full of chestnuts. They were really tricky to get because they came in pods that were super spiky. We found lots of big ones, even two huge chestnuts. We had a great time. We ended up giving them to our friends at our AirBnB Apartment. I didn’t know that hiking could be so fun!
The next day we went to Bellagio and it was so amazing. I thought I was in Disney Animation Studios. It is just so beautiful. You have the lake, then the mountains in the background. The water is so clear that you can see straight down to the bottom. We walked among the many narrow alleyways cutting through the town. At one time we stumbled upon a café and I had a glass of hot cocoa. My parents had some coffee. Then we kept walking among the narrow alleyways. At one point we explored some gardens. After that I had some gelato. Yum yum!
As I told you, we stayed in a AirBnB Apartment. The owners of the AirBnB apartment had two kids: a 3-year-old named Jimmy and a 10-year-old named Jessie. I enjoyed playing board games with them. We played “Crazy Monopoly”, which is just like regular Monopoly, but you make up the numbers and whatever’s on the Community Chest and Chance cards. That was very fun. I also played “Guess the Code” with Jessie. Once she even guessed my code in one try!
“This church is round. Are you kidding me?” I asked.
Columns circled the inside of the building. They supported small arches that held up the building. Each level up they got smaller and smaller. It was all made of stone. I was told that the church had been built from 1150 – 1180 A.D. This was during the Romanesque period. Next we saw a complex of three churches that were built into one. The first part of the church was a Renaissance building that was built in the 1500s A.D. Its arches were much bigger than the ones inside the round church. Through a doorway we found a 9th century church. This place was more like the round church. It was rectangular, though, and had thicker columns that were the shape of the building itself. The next level contained a 7th century crypt that was much smaller and more closed than any other building we had seen. We exited and next we saw a church that was built in the 1100s A.D. Inside were many frescos that were used to teach bible stories, because reading and writing was too rare. The pews had been replaced by pop-up chairs for cleaning. A whale bone was on one of the arches. During the building of the church, workers found it in the ground.
As we left, we were given rosaries, medallions, and bracelets. We got back in the car and drove to our AirBnB apartment.
I said, ” The medallion actually warms me up. ”
Round the World Kid 