Rome Day 3
Trip Start
May 14, 2008
1
16
17
Trip End
May 30, 2008
Rome,
Italy
Thursday, May 29, 2008
The sky was overcast and it rained on and off all morning into the afternoon. The temperature dropped considerably from the past couple of days. The sun came out in the afternoon and it turned into a beautiful day.
We started the day by taking the Metro to the southwest side of Rome and then we walked north and then back to our hostel. As our first stop of the day we went in seach of a secret keyhole at the top of Aventine Hill. We heard from a couple sources that you go to the top of Aventine Hill and find a large blue door that was the door of the Priory Knights of Malta. You look through the keyhole and see a secret garden with trees framing a mystery sight. You can ask us if you want to know what it was so we don't give the secret away to those that don't want to know.
From there we walked north and walked through the Campo de Fioro which is an outdoor market with mainly food stalls. We then walked through the Piazza Navona which is another square. We then went back to the Vatican City in search of a Bible. The one souvenir I wanted to get in Italy was a Bible from the Vatican City. Not a Bible from a souvenir shop outside of the Vatican City. We didn't find out yesterday but there was a bookstore there that I wanted to check out but we didn't have time yesterday. But when we got back today they had changed the security around due to a lot of cars that were being police escorted from the Vatican. So in order to get to the bookstore we would have had to have waited in line again to get into St. Peter's Basilica just to walk through to get to the bookstore. It wasn't worth the wait. You would think it would be easy to get a Bible at the Vatican but we never saw one. If you want a cross, rosary, or a picture of Mary or Jesus there are a lot of those.
We then wandered a bit and accidentally walked right off of the map. So we were a little lost for awhile. But we were able to have a conversation mainly in Italian to ask for directions and we got back on track.
Then we grabbed lunch and went to the Piazza del Poppola. And from there we went to the Ara Pacis which is a tribute to peace built by the Senate during the reign of Augustus. Next to the Ara Pacis was the Mausoleum of Augustus. Greg liked both of these because he studied them in school this past semester.
After that there really wasn't much else left to see in Rome. So we wandered the streets, did some shopping, and sat by the Trevi Fountain for awhile.
Now it's time to pack up and get ready for the trip home tomorrow. It's been a good trip. We have seen a lot of great sights, transitioned successfully from one culture to the next, and found our way in countries in which we didn't speak the language.
Check back in a day or two for some picture updates.
