From Christmas to New Year’s Day, my family, including my cousin and grandparents, are going to take a family trip to Italy. Our family is planning to spend seven or eight days in Italy, and visit famous places like the Leaning Tower of Pisa, the Vatican Museums, and the Colosseum. I’m nervous about the trip but also excited.

On the first day of our trip – on Christmas – our family is going to spend thirteen hours on an airplane heading to Italy from Korea. I am not looking forward to being cramped in a small seat in the airplane. If I imagine a long line for washroom and babies crying very loudly, the first day of our trip looks like it will be very tiring and boring. I guess I am going to play games and read books to pass the time.

The first place our family is going to visit is Siena. Siena is a village declared by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site. This village has been very well-preserved. The village has plenty of Romanesque architecture, and buildings built in the Middle Ages. There are also houses that have been made of red bricks and with red roof tiles. They are very concentrated, which makes the road very narrow. Our family will walk on this narrow road to get a sense of the Middle Ages.

One of the most well-known landmarks in Italy that our family will visit is the Leaning Tower of Pisa. The Leaning Tower of Pisa is famous indeed. The tower was built during the Middle Ages. According to “Leaning Tower of Pisa Facts,” the Leaning Tower of Pisa is representative of medieval architecture in the Romanesque style. I plan to take lame pictures of myself posing like I am supporting the tower.

Another place our family is going to visit is Orvieto. It is a small village on the cliff with lots of greenery. According to the “Orvieto Profile”: “the city rises dramatically above the almost-vertical faces of tuff cliffs that are completed by defensive walls built of the same stone called Tufa.” It is a high area, and I’m not expecting to walk up there. In the village, there are red, yellow, and blond colored houses, which presents a perfect harmony with the foliage there.

The place I am most looking forward to visiting is the Vatican Museums -- a Christian church and art museum combined in Vatican City. According to “Top 100 Art Museum Attendance” written by “The Art Newspaper,” in 2013, the Vatican Museums were visited by 6 million people, which combined makes it the 6th most visited art museum in the world. As a very well-known art museum, the Vatican Museums has the most important masterpieces from the Renaissance, such as Michelangelo’s ceiling and Raphael’s paintings. It has been my lifelong dream to see Michelangelo’s Creation of Heaven and Earth. I might cry while I look at those gorgeous paintings there. I'm expecting to visit there often during our trip to Vatican City.

Although I am not looking forward to my thirteen-hour plane trip, I am excited about our family trip abroad. I hope our family gets back to Korea without any incidents, and with happy memories from Italy.