Rome day 4 FLORECE

 On day 4 we woke up early and headed to Termini to buy train tickets and catch our train. We couldn't get any of the machines to work at first and when we finally did we had to run to the train terminals. We kept asking people who worked there where our track was and they would just point. We went to the end of all the tracks and still couldn't find it and it was supposed to leave in 2 minutes. We asked again and finally they pointed all the way down one of the tracks. We had to run and got on just in time! The train ride was peaceful. The boys slept and watched out the window and I read some more. I love reading, but it is so hard when I have responsibilities like at home. Vacation is the perfect time to read good books.

Once in Florence we walked to this church. It was so colorful. It looked like candy! Then we walked around taking in more sights and eating lunch and Gelato. We saw lots of statues, real and fake and just enjoyed relaxing.

After the sights in Florence we took a bus up to a little town on the hill and just enjoyed the view for a while. Then we saw a sign for a hike, so we hiked for a while and enjoyed the outdoors. The boys ended up throwing rocks for like half an hour. Boys will be boys, no matter the country I guess:)

Throwing rocks at their target

relaxing in the grass waiting for the bus

 We rode the bus back down to Florence and tried finding a good gelato place, but ran out of time. So we got pizza from this restaurant and ran(again) to catch our train. The wait for the pizza and running to catch the train were worth it. It was delish!

Making the pizza

Putting it in the oven

cooking

and done!

mmmmmm.....

Drinks to go with it.

 We had fun in Florence, but we were on sight seeing overload, so things weren't really sinking in anymore. We sure did get lots of exercise though with all our running to catch buses, trains and subways!

Rome day 3

 Friday morning we woke up we grabbed some nutella(instead of peanut butter) and jam at the store and headed to the National Museum of Rome. It was on our Roma pass, so we thought we would hit it since we had already paid. It took us a little over an hour to go through it. We aren't huge artsy people, so staring at different kinds of art that have half of them missing didn't take us too long. The discus thrower was pretty cool though. Blake and Eric even gave it at try!

"Discobolus"

"Discobolus" and trainees

Funny view of the room, all back sides

So walking around Rome you just kind of get used to naked statues everywhere! I thought it was quite funny, but I'm glad I didn't have to explain to my kids why all of the statues were naked. 

After the museum we caught a subway at termini and took it to a train station, where we caught a train to the beach!!! It was a beautiful day. Not quite warm enough for a swim in my book, but we had a nice relaxing day at the beach. I read my book while the boys walked around and Eric even went for a swim. We even enjoyed some Gelato on our walk.

What I did all day

Using a shell to spread nutell on bread

Preparing to swim...

Running...

And swimming. He said it wasn't too bad

Mens toilet

Eric demonstrating how mens toilet is used. Hmmm... GROSS!

After the beach we headed back towards Rome to find some dinner. We walked around for a while until it was dinner time, then started asking people where was a good place to eat. We finally found a place some people had told us about and as soon as we sat down knew it was out of our league. We aren't really fancy people and they immediately brought us each a glass of Champagne? Some kind of alcoholic drink. We were pretty uncomfortable and the food was pretty pricey. When we ordered our food the waitor asked if we were going to start with a first course because we had all ordered off the second course menu. We only got 1 course and some bread and it was twice as much as we spent at our first dinner and no where as good. We thought it was good to have a fine dining experience once though. That was all we could handle. Like I said, we aren't fancy people.

After dinner we headed out for 1 more night of night life in Rome. On one of the little streets there were a bunch of people outside a bar in Rugby Jerseys. I guess Scotland had played Italy, so there were tons of Scottish people there. They were playing the bagpipes and having lots of fun. We watched them for a while while we ate our gelato, then continued on our walk.

We almost missed our busses again this night, but luckily we were much closer to a bus stop and we knew it would get us home. 

St. Peter's Basilica at night

St. Peters square

Rome day 2

Thursday morning we woke up and headed out to The Vatican stopping for pastries along the way. When we got there the line seemed long, so we headed to the end, hearing tour guides all the way offering a tour. Get a tour, skip the line. No wait, no line. It would have been like 40 euros a person for a tour. We decided not to and were so glad we did. We only stood in like for like 15-20 minutes. When we got in we walked through all the museum to the Sistine Chapel. I guess I expected it to be huge like all the other churches we had seen, but it was pretty little. We again had Rick Steve's guide of the Chapel which was much needed for me. I am not really an artsy person and have a hard time seeing things unless they are laid out for me. So he explained all the paintings on the ceiling, which were pretty amazing.

 From the Vatican we headed to St. Peter's Basilica. You walk through St. Peter's Square to get there. It is a huge open area with fountains surrounded by columns. This is where the Pope speaks to people. We didn't go on a day when we could hear him, but the chairs were set up for it.

 I gave up trying to take pictures inside the amazing churches. They just made it seem so much less of an amazing thing. There is now way I can get in the camera what I could see with my eyes. It was so much to take in all at once and the camera just couldn't get it all in.

We grabbed some lunch on our way to the subway. Pizza, yum, yum. 

and of course more gelato.

We rode the subway outside of town and found St. Paul's Basilica. It was outside of the city walls because Paul was a Roman citizen and could not be killed within the confines of Rome. There was a very different feel here. It wasn't so much of a touristy place and felt more sacred. One of the sayings carved on the wall said “Exaltata est ad Caelestia Regna” which translates as Exaltation is in the Celestial Kingdom. Very interesting.

 After this we found a grassy area and took a little nap. It was relaxing and the weather was nice and warm. Then we headed back in to town for some dinner and the night walk.

 This dinner was good, but not as good as the first place.

looks better than it tasted.

We all got dessert with our meal. We split them each in 3rds so we could try each. Definitely not as good as Gelato. After dinner we headed out to enjoy the night life. We saw some of the main plazas fountains and the spanish steps. Its kinda funny everywhere you go there are people trying to sell you things. So when we go to the Spanish Steps and were walking down them there was this man who walked up to me and gave me some roses. Of course my first reaction is to take them, then He turned to Blake asking for money. The little stinker. He wouldn't let me give them back or even put them down. I  eventually got him to take 2 of them back, but we paid for one of them. We enjoyed the steps for a while and took some pictures, then realized it was 11:00pm and the Subway had already stopped running. We only had 1 hour to find a bus that would take us back to the hotel, and we were a long way from the hotel.

So we ran, and ran, and stopped for Gelato and ran some more. I think we ran until 11:30 when we finally found a bus that would connect with a bus that would get us to our hotel. We got to our bus at 11:55 and they stop running at midnight. We were there just in time! My rose didn't make it though. The stem kept getting shorter and shorter as we were running. We were just glad we made it without having to pay for a cab.

Trevi fountain at night

Spanish Steps

Rome Day 1

On March 14th we left for Rome at some ridiculously early hour in the morning. We arrived in Rome and caught a bus to Termini, the main subway, train and bus station.

Rome here we come!!!(the bus)

the countryside

 Once we reached Termini we broke out the map and Rick Steve's book(thank you Flemings) and planned our day. We were all starving so the first and second things on our agenda were food and Gelato! We found a yummy snack bar on a little side street and got some pastries filled with.......Yup of course Nutella!

pastries for breakfast

 Then straight on to Gelato. You don't have to look very hard to find this stuff. It is on every corner and so yummy. Our goal was to eat it 4 times a day and try all the flavors.

Gelateria #1

 We walked as we ate and headed to the Coliseum. I had heard that it wasn't worth it to go in, so I was skeptical, but we had bought the Roma Pass and it was included, so in we went. We downloaded Rick Steves guided tour onto mine and Blake's phone and it was awesome. The architecture of the Coliseum was amazing and to hear about what they used it for was interesting, morbid but interesting. I have a hard time with violence, especially as a sport. Killing for fun and other people's entertainment seems so wrong to me. This was what it was used for though. It was a big sports arena. There were even all these little hallways underneath they could use to let animals out through trap doors in the ground of the arena. So crazy!

Outside the Coliseum

 It seems like so many things change through the generations, especially technology. I think one thing that remains similar is the "natural man's" desire to see people killed. I think this is so tragic but look at the world today. People love watching the news, reading articles, watching movies etc. So many of these things are filled with stories of murders, violence, killing. If you look back in the days of these Roman soldiers. They would come to the coliseum and watch people fight to the death. It was their entertainment. I guess these are the kind of people it would take to kill Christ. I wonder how different we are now. At least what people watch now is in movies and pretend instead of people actually killing eachother. I still think either way is so wrong.

Inside the Coliseum(halls under the Arena)

Looking across from one side to the other

View of Roman Forum from Coliseum

Another view of passageways under arena

Outside the Coliseum

Eric at the Roman Forum

 After we left the Coliseum we headed to the Roman Forum. Again we had Rick Steve's as a guide. It is still crazy to me how these people built things so big with none of the big machines we have now. They just had people, slaves.

 Wherever you walk in Rome there are fountains and water. You can actually drink it and fill up water bottles. There is even a little hole in the spout so you can cover the main spout and it will squirt out the whole like a drinking fountain. Genius!

 These three arches were half of a big building that was like a courthouse. The 3 little things on top would have arched over the main hallway and connected to another 3 arches to mirror the ones seen here. It was massive!

 Walking through all these areas of huge historical importance made me wish I had paid more attention in History. We were there on March 14th, which is the day before the Ides of March. The temple of Caesar was here and people would go in and put flowers in it. Very interesting.

 Something that surprised us about Rome was that it was kind of tropical. There were palm trees and when we were walking around what used to be a palace they had orange trees. Eric may have picked some for him and Blake to eat.

view of Roman Forum

 After the furum we took a little walking tour and went over capital hill to the Pantheon. The Pantheon was built in 126 AD and is still the worlds largest unreinforced concrete dome. The height to the center of the dome and the diameter of the interior circle are the same. Again these architects amazed me.

Roman Forum

More Roman Forum

 We got some lunch and another Gelato on our walk to the Pantheon. Don't remember what we all ate for lunch, but at least one of us got pizza. It was so good and different. The way they give it to you to go is like a little pizza sandwich. Kind of like 2 rectangle pieces of pizza stacked with the cheese sides together and wrapped in paper. Yummy!

The Pantheon and 2nd Gelato

 From the Pantheon we headed to Trevi fountain. You know the one where if you throw in all your money all your dreams, hopes and wishes will come true. J/k Some people say that if you throw 3 coins over your left shoulder you will find true love. Eric tried it out, so we are still waiting:) It was a pretty fountain, but SOOOO busy. Definitely someplace we held on tight to our bags(we still had all our stuff because we hadn't been to our hotel yet).

 After checking in to our hotel we headed back out for dinner and some Gelato, then to bed. Our hotel was a little ways outside the city, and more like a little camping village that had little rooms. Our room was perfect for us. It had 3 little beds, 2 down low and one like a top bunk with a desk underneath. I slept on the one up high. It was pretty little for the men:) All we needed was a cheap place to sleep and shower.

We found the perfect place to eat. It seemed like a nicer restaurant, it was outside of town a little ways, the prices were great and the food was AMAZING!!!! One of Eric's friends sent us a whole writeup of what to do and see and eat. So we followed her advice and Eric got Ragu on some potato type noodle things. Blake got Arrabiata sauce on some noodles and I got noodles with Carbanara and it was awesome. I need to learn how to make that. My mouth waters just thinking about it.      

Ragu on potato noodles

Carbanara on Spaghetti noodles

Arrabiata on  noodles

Blake fell in love with this jacket and got it as a souvinir

More gelato

Crying because it is so good!

The bus back to the hotel

We got home and were completely exhausted. We were go, go, going from about 3:00am, until 9:30. We slept good that night!