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Leaving the Leaning Tower of Pisa, our Perillo Tours group passes the vendors inside the courtyard. On the bus ride back to Florence, we see the water aqueduct from the opposite angle. Also seen are more beautiful hillside Italian towns, castles, countryside, a train, a tunnel, and more things you really should see in person. As immersive as these videos try to be, there's just no substitute for the real thing. (You can view this video, and other travel videos in full-size and near-DVD quality, travel stills and more at www.jpmeyer.com). Italy travel tours with Perillo Tours, www.PerilloTours.com Real People having Real Fun!

Italy travel: Florence. Bernardo our tour guide giving excellent information to our Perillo Tours Familia. If many of the statues look similar, it's because they were commissioned by the same guy! (You can view this video, and other travel videos in full-size and near-DVD quality, travel stills and more at www.jpmeyer.com). Italy travel tours with Perillo Tours, www.PerilloTours.com Real People having Real Fun!

Dinner, darkness, and more dancing at "The Vulture's" place. In the brief video in the middle of this slideshow, the ladies of our Perillo Tours Familia strut their stuff. Nicely, too! (You can view this video, and other travel videos in full-size and near-DVD quality, travel stills and more at www.jpmeyer.com). Italy travel tours with Perillo Tours, www.PerilloTours.com Real People having Real Fun!

Italy travel: Florence, shopping for Florentine Leather bookmarks. Two of the kids get bookmarks personalized with their names in 24 karat gold. We should have asked Aurelio to imprint "Perillo Tours" in 24 karat gold - that would have made an impression! (You can view this video, and other travel videos in full-size and near-DVD quality, travel stills and more at www.jpmeyer.com). Italy travel tours with Perillo Tours, www.PerilloTours.com Real People having Real Fun! jpmeyer.com

Italy travel: Padua. Statues, churches - our Perillo Tours Familia marches on! The Shakespeare in Italy connection continues: Verona was a favorite of Shakespeare (Juliet's balcony, Two Gentlemen of Verona), and Padua is the setting for most of the action in The Taming of the Shrew, according to Wikipedia. Also, Padua claims to be the oldest city in north Italy, founded in 1183 B.C. (You can view this video, and other travel videos in full-size and near-DVD quality, travel stills and more at www.jpmeyer.com). Italy travel tours with Perillo Tours, www.PerilloTours.com Real People having Real Fun! jpmeyer.com

Galapagos Islands, North Seymour, Mama frigate feeds baby. This is the second fantastic sequence from this island. Wait for it...wow, how far down can that baby go? jpmeyer.com

Galapagos Islands, Genovesa, Looking back to Prince Phillip stairs, we panga back to the Mary Ann. Finally, Ed gives us an audible "Arrrgh!" Most of our group shows in this clip, as does the Mary Ann. Love our little pirate ship! Arrrgh! jpmeyer.com

Galapagos Islands, Genovesa, Nocturnal Birds Still Flying jpmeyer.com

Italy travel: On our way to Pisa! Florence Ponte Vecchio. We had more time later for exploration. This footage is our Perillo Tours Familia walk back to our hotel, and some footage from the bus. First, a river rower contemplating the minor waterfall of the Arno River. (Interestingly enough, Pisa also lies on the Arno River, despite the 90 minute drive between the two cities!) Then some hillside villages on the way to Pisa. We passed a true Roman water aqueduct, which would certainly have been worth a stop. We're on our way to see the Leaning Tower of Pisa! Italy travel tours with Perillo Tours, www.PerilloTours.com Real People having Real Fun! jpmeyer.com

Galapagos Islands, Mary Ann, Opening Toast. Captain Patricio officially welcomes us to the Mary Ann. jpmeyer.com

Galapagos Islands, Genovesa, SLM and KLDM at Breakfast jpmeyer.com

Some pictures form the river, some from the bus. Here's a collection of our Perillo Tours Familia impressions of the area in and around the Ponte Vecchio bridge in Florence, Italy. Italy travel tours with www.perillotours.com Real People having Real Fun! jpmeyer.com

Italy travel: Florence, the Medici Palace's Boboli Gardens. The path less traveled on the Medici Palace grounds. A most interesting statue: a giant face mask? Very cool discovery, nonetheless. We decide not to go for the walk *down* the hill, only because we know we would need to climb back *up* the hill, and we would be as tired as those people who couldn't get out of the way of a nice piece of cinematography. Then, "now THAT'S a bath tub!" and the "He must have REALLY annoyed her" statue. There were lots of interesting statues as we walked around the estate, the most dramatic of which was the woman holding the head of a man in one hand, and what appears to be the manhood of the man in the other hand. Italy travel tours with www.perillotours.com Real People having Real Fun!

Most of our Perillo Tours Familia did not tour the Medici Palace. Well worth the walk. Next time, for sure! This slideshow gives the highlights of the Boboli Gardens of the Pitti Palace. Italy travel tours with www.perillotours.com Real People having Real Fun! jpmeyer.com

Italy travel: Florence, the Medici Palace. More of the Boboli Gardens of the Medici Pitti Palace, including more views of the Florence skyline as we come off the hill. Another marvelous discovery in the stunningly beautiful 'chapel of the seas' as we dubbed it. The sea tribute chapel was amazing in its subtle colors and sand-castle coarseness. Nowhere in the Perillo catalog was this treasure mentioned, nor did Wikipedia have any references for details. Bonus discovery! Italy travel tours with www.perillotours.com Real People having Real Fun!

Italy travel: Florence, shopping for Florentine Leather with Aurelio. More demonstration of 24 karat gold being applied to leather, as the other two kids get their names in gold. Aurelio was very concerned about making us happy - very refreshing! Perillo Tours ought to give Aurelio a gold star! Italy travel tours with www.perillotours.com Real People having Real Fun!

In this slideshow, we see some of the art of Florence, and we create some of our own at a restaurant during lunch. This was a fantastic restaurant, and Perillo Tours ought to add it to the recommended list! Now, if only we could remember the name of the place... Italy travel tours with www.perillotours.com Real People having Real Fun! jpmeyer.com

Italy travel: Florence, shopping for Florentine Leather, continued. Aurelio, our "George Clooney's brother" leather salesperson, continues our lesson in the application of 24 karat gold. Here we see a gold leaf daisy applied next to Kathy's initials. Aurelio was excellent. Perillo Tours ought to recommend this smaller, more intimate and much less expensive shop over the one to which we were brought. (In all fairness, Tony did point out Aurelio's shop as we walked by, but it wasn't open yet.) Italy travel tours with www.perillotours.com Real People having Real Fun! jpmeyer.com

Some of our Perillo Tours Familia shows in the first part of this slideshow, in a piazza not really called "leather plaza". Walking in and around this piazza, lots of photo ops are obtained. Fortunately, Katharine remembered to take pictures of the leather goods; her pictures appear at the end of this segment. Italy travel tours with www.perillotours.com Real People having Real Fun! http://jpmeyer.com

Italy travel: Florence. Dinner at "The Vulture's" Ristorante. Salvadore "The Vulture" Falciani either made you laugh, or made you uncomfortable, or made you laugh uncomfortably. Dr. Dave cuts a rug with the pretty signoria; The Vulture scowls until he grabs Elke. Our Perillo Tours Familia is just warming up! Italy travel tours with www.perillotours.com Real People having Real Fun!

Italy travel: Florence, shopping for Florentine Leather. Our Perillo Tours Familia walks around "just another piazza." Then, a demonstration on how 24 karat gold leaf is transferred on to leather, in one of the two shops that Perillo recommends. The other shop had a bonus: Aurelio, who looked liked he could be George Clooney's brother, was working there. Not kidding about how much less expensive Aurelio's leather jackets were as compared to the first store. Also very cool how Aurelio gave us a very personalized lesson on how to apply our initials in 24 karat gold on to the leather jackets we purchased! Italy travel tours with www.perillotours.com Real People having Real Fun! jpmeyer.com

Italy travel: Florence walk to Signoria Plaza, or Piazza della Signoria, with outside statues. Our Perillo Tours Familia and amazing statues, including a replica of David, under the Plazzo Vecchio, or Old Palace of Florence. Italy travel tours with www.perillotours.com Real People having Real Fun! http://jpmeyer.com

Italy travel: Florence. Church of Florence named Santa Maria del Fiore. Wish we would have had time to climb to the top. Florence is such an action packed and walkable city. We did get a spectacular overview from Perillo Tours, but Florence would be worth a week's trip all by itself. Race for third place in the 'world's largest cathedrals' competition? That competition kept the construction of this cathedral going for decades. "Prosperous Florence wanted to surpass in grandeur its Tuscan rivals, Pisa and Siena, with a yet more magnificent church, grander in size and more richly adorned. This cathedral was, as a result, the largest in Europe when completed, with room for 30,000 people. It is now only exceeded in size by Saint Paul's Cathedral in London, the Seville Cathedral , and the Milan Cathedral." - Wikipedia. Italy travel tours with www.perillotours.com Real People having Real Fun! http://jpmeyer.com

Italy travel: Padua. Tony starts our Perillo Tours Familia off on the tour of the two churches, The Basilica of Santa Giustina and The Basilica of Saint Anthony. Italy travel tours with www.perillotours.com Real People having Real Fun! http://jpmeyer.com

Italy travel: Padua Via Donatello and our Perillo Tours Familia walks amongst Padua's famous statues. Wikipedia says " One of the best known symbols of Padua is the Prato della Valle , a 90,000 m� elliptical square believed to be the biggest in Europe, after Red Square in Moscow. In the center is a wide garden surrounded by a ditch, which is lined by 78 statues portraying famous citizens." Then we're back on the bus passing beautiful country side and countless missed photo ops; we get out of the flat countryside and into more mountainous territory. Italy travel tours with www.perillotours.com Real People having Real Fun! http://jpmeyer.com

Our Perillo Tours Familia walks through and around Padua. This is some of our still pictures. Italy travel tours with www.perillotours.com Real People having Real Fun! http://jpmeyer.com

Italy travel: Florence. Our Perillo Tours Familia is entertained with different angles of amazing stonework. "The exterior walls are faced in alternate vertical and horizontal bands polychrome marble from Carrara (white), Prato (green), Siena (red), Lavenza and a few other places. These marble bands had to repeat the already existing bands on the walls of the Baptistery and Giotto's bell tower." - Wikipedia. Italy travel tours with www.perillotours.com Real People having Real Fun! http://jpmeyer.com

Venice, Italy travel: Rialto Bridge. We stumble across the Rialto Bridge, spanning the Grand Canal in Venice since 1591. We walked down many a small and lovely sidestreet looking for this famous landmark, using the Perillo Tours philosophy "If you end up in water, you've walked too far." A delightful exploration. www.perillotours.com http://jpmeyer.com

Italy travel: Venice's St. Mark's Square feeding pigeons, part 4. Other tourists shrieked when the pigeons landed on them. Our kids just laughed. Did the rest of our Perillo Tours Familia fare as well? www.perillotours.com http://jpmeyer.com

Venice, Italy travel: St. Mark's Square feeding pigeons. Here's video of the best two Euro we ever spent! Those pigeons in St. Mark's Square are quite persistent, even when the seed is gone. Did you ever notice the first three letters of 'pigeon' is 'pig'? Hmmm. Hopefully the rest of our Perillo Tours Familia had time to experience this most interesting event. (By the way, yelling at the pigeons in Spanish is ineffective.) www.perillotours.com http://jpmeyer.com

Venice, Italy travel: St. Mark's Square feeding pigeons, part 2. The Perillo tour guide book doesn't mention how much fun this activity can be. Wikipedia has a sense of humor, defining St. Mark's Square in Venice as "...the central landmark and gathering place for Venice, Piazza San Marco is extremely popular with tourists, photographers, and pigeons." Ya think? www.perillotours.com http://jpmeyer.com

Venice, Italy travel: St. Mark's Square feeding pigeons, part 3. In this section of our encounter with the pigeons of St. Mark's Square in Venice, Sebastian is overwhelmed with birds, and is advised to "keep your mouth shut." That advice should be in the Perillo tour guide book! www.perillotours.com http://jpmeyer.com

Venice, Italy travel: St. Mark's Square at night. Running around St. Mark's Square at night. Where are the infamous Venice pigeons? Early morning view from the hotel room, our favorite hotel on our Perillo tour of Italy, the Westin Europa and Regina. Then, Tony gives our Perillo Tours Familia a briefing on the bus. (Clearly, this is a video transition segment to Padua, on our way to Florence!) www.perillotours.com http://jpmeyer.com

Serene, surrealistic Venice at night. Perillo tours should try to describe this peaceful feeling in the tour guide, but it can't be described in words. www.perillotours.com http://jpmeyer.com

Leaving Venice may have been one of the most difficult things our Perillo Tours Familia had to do on this trip. In that spirit, here is another edit of our departure. In this segment, the camera captures the Grand Canal and some of the beautiful smaller canals of Venice, for a wonderful eight minute mini tour of the city. www.perillotours.com http://jpmeyer.com

Venice, Italy travel: Rialto Bridge exploration. Both sides of the Rialto Bridge provide excellent views of the canals of Venice, Italy. There's another tour company (not Perillo tours) that uses a picture of the Rialto Bridge in Venice on the cover of it's Europe guide book. Not the Eiffel Tower, or Big Ben, or the Leaning Tower of Pisa. They use the Rialto Bridge as their cover representation of all of Europe. It's a powerful sight! www.perillotours.com http://jpmeyer.com

Leaving Venice may have been one of the most difficult things our Perillo Tours Familia had to do on this trip. In that spirit, here is one edit of our departure. www.perillotours.com http://jpmeyer.com

Venice, Italy travel: St. Mark's Square trying to make the pigeons fly. The kids have fed all the pigeons that two Euros will feed, and then are prompted to chase the birds. However, Venice pigeons are wise to that, and do not scare easily. Beautiful sunset lighting on St. Mark's Square. Finally, the lost luggage arrives! Perillo Tours home office was helpful in finding the lost luggage. www.perillotours.com http://jpmeyer.com

Italy travel: Venice Gondola ride and Rialto Bridge slideshow. Most of our Perillo Tours Familia shows at one point or another in this slideshow of our gondola ride down a side canal and the Grand Canal of Venice. Then, we encounter the Rialto Bridge, one of Venice's most famous landmarks. www.perillotours.com http://jpmeyer.com

Venice, Italy travel: Gondola ride continued. In this, the best video segment of our gondola ride in Venice, the blessed song of the canals continues, only this time accentuated by the most sublime streaks of sunshine. If you try, you can ignore the falic-u-lee in the background, and hear the gondola's oar in the canal. Perillo Tours ought to give a "no singing" option to the gondola ride in Venice. www.perillotours.com http://jpmeyer.com

You wouldn't think it possible, but an even more impressive demonstration of the art of glass blowing. Our Perillo Tours Familia watches as a horse is almost magically extracted from a clump of molten glass. Then, the inevitable but gentle sales pitch. A quick panoramic view of the stunning works of art, and a peek at a lovely sparkling bauble. www.perillotours.com http://jpmeyer.com

A brilliant demonstration of the dying art of glass blowing. In this segment, George takes a clump of molten glass, adds colors, and turns it into a beautiful vase. It will take 24 hours for the vase to cool before it can be finished. Our Perillo Tours Familia sits in amazement. www.perillotours.com http://jpmeye.com

More of the unendingly entertaining streets and shops of Venice. Visit Italy, visit Venice. Let Perillo Tours take you there. www.perillotours.com http://jpmeyer.com

Just a lovely five minute stroll down some of the beautiful maze that is Venice. Each of our Perillo Tours Familia undoubtedly had a different and unique experience, depending on one different turn of one particular street. www.perillotours.com http://jpmeyer.com

Venice, Italy travel: Gondola ride continued. We get a taste of the peaceful serenity offered by the canals of Venice. Too bad the ride is almost over! It is good that our Perillo Tours Familia had a chance to listen to the canals sing. www.perillotours.com http://jpmeyer.com

Venice, Italy travel: our Perillo Tours Familia Gondola ride. Our group assembling in the Hotel Europa and Regina, the nicest hotel we had on our Perillo tour of Italy. Of course, when in Venice, one must take a gondola ride. This was a bit expensive, but there was a complimentary bottle of wine, a powerful tenor belting out stereotypical favorites, and countless photo ops. www.perillotours.com http://jpmeyer.com

Venice, Italy travel: Gondola ride on the Grand Canal. The Rialto bridge is visible in the background as our Perillo Tours Familia is serenaded. www.perillotours.com http://jpmeyer.com

A sample of the many, many beautiful works of glass art that were available for purchase. Several of our Perillo Tours Familia bought lovely items. www.perillotours.com http://jpmeyer.com

Venice, Italy travel: Gondola ride continued. Here our Perillo Tours Familia sings along with the only word from the song that everyone knows: "Volare!" We pass hotels and houses which are accessible only from the water. www.perillotours.com http://jpmeyer.com

A view of a stereotypical Italian hillside town began our brief walking tour of Verona, Italy, on our way to Venice from Milan. Our Perillo Tours Familia saw the fabled balcony of Romeo and Juliet. More interesting than the balcony is the countless love notes stuck on the walls all around the entranceway to the balcony. The Perillo Tours website says "Shakespeare set 'Romeo and Juliet' in beautiful Verona. People can visit a tall ivy-laden balcony at 'Casa de Giulietta'. Although Juliet Capulet of Shakespeare's play did not live here, one can imagine her calling down to her Romeo from above. One can also visit Juliet's tomb and another home not too far away called 'Casa de Romeo', home of the Montecchi family, the models for Shakespeare's Montagues." www.perillotours.com http://jpmeyer.com