¡Roma!
Trip Start
May 15, 2009
1
2
7
Trip End
Jun 07, 2009
Rome,
Lazio,
Italy
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Pantheon
the Trevi fountain, and lots of other Bernini fountains. My favorite was the Trevi fountain, it looked really pretty lit up at night. We went to sleep early so we could get an early start in the Vatican City.
Trevi Fountain
Getting to the Vatican was a long, hot walk. Crossing the street in Rome is no easy feat, either. You pretty much just have to walk into the traffic and keep your fingers crossed that the cars will stop! Luckily for us, there was no line to get into the Vatican Museum.
Post Office at the Vatican
We saw lots of Rafaelīs art, but I was mostly in a hurry to see the Sistine Chapel. The museum is enormous and we walked through what seemed like hundreds of rooms to get to the Capella Sistina. We finally made it there and gaped at the ceiling for awhile while the security guards were yelling at people to stop taking pictures (not very successful).
Capella Sistina
From the museum we went to St. Peterīs Basilica. We went directly down to the tombs to escape the heat and then wandered around the church.
St. Peter´s Basilica
Resting was the next thing to do on our list so we walked over to the Four Rivers fountain and cooled off.
Four Rivers Fountain
We did some people watching before hobbling back to our hostel (which was noisy!) We were ready for another hot day outside and we were excited to see the Colosseum and the Roman Forum. We decided to take a guided tour of the Colosseum so we could learn a little about it. We found out that over the top of the Colosseum they set up a huge kite to keep the sun off of the crowd. We also learned that the show was free for the people. They would ship animals over from Africa, and our guide said that they shipped so many during that time period some of the species disappeared form Africa!
Colosseum
The Roman Forum is right next to the Colosseum, and this used to be the center of Rome...where politics took place, close to where the emperors lived, etc.
View of the Forum
It is mostly just remnants of buildings now, but our guide book says we were walking on the same steps as Julius Caesar once did.
Same Steps as Caesar
Jeff was sorely disappointed because he was excited to see the Giro de Italia (bike race) come through Rome and it turns out he read the wrong date so we didnīt get to see it. We decided to have a relaxing day in our last day in Rome and we lounged around in Borguese Park, sat on the Spanish Steps, and had some world famous gelato. We found a self serve laundromat and then set out to find some delicious Italian food. We found a restaurant close to our hostel and had some risotto and ravioli. We were excited to get some rest for our trip to Cinque Terre the next day, although some rude Brazilians kept us awake...by this time we were both ready to be on our way! 
