(Val) We arrived in Rome at 6:15 am. We had one other person in our cabin, but the seats pulled down and we were able to sleep. At Rome, Rob and Audrye checked out accommodations and everything was booked. That helped us decide to book an overnight train out of Rome to Bologna and then switch to a train that goes to Rimini. We can enter San Marino by bus from Rimini. We called ahead and booked a room there. We are all quite worn out after doing Rome in a day and we need showers. There were no showers at the station this morning so we just paid our E 0.70 each to freshen up in the very large, clean bathroom.
After depositing our luggage (a royal rip-off at E 6.20 each) we headed off.
(Krystal)
To the Vatican Museum. We found that there was a day pass for the Metro for E 4 so we did that and then headed off on one off the subs to the Vatican!
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We got to the Vatican stop and got off and started heading towards it! Then suddenly we found a nice little surprise! A water fountain! It was such a nice surprise! So we all had some water and then filled up our one bottle that we had with us *we forgot the other water bottles with our left luggage* and headed off to the Vatican once again!
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Then we saw a huge line of people waiting to get in to the Vatican Museum! It was a bummer, but we though we saw the end of the line and it looked like it would have been a 30 min. wait and that wasn't too bad! But when we rounded the corner we saw that the line was far longer than we had thought¡ if we had gotten in the line it would have taken us about 4 hours to just get in to the Vatican Museum so we decided to skip it *since we had seen it on our last Europe trip* and just go into St. Peter's Basilica!
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The line for St. Peter's Basilica was long, but it seemed to be always moving so it wasn't too bad; but you were in the blazing hot sun a lot of the time! And let me tell you Rome's sun is hot, and direct and sucks the life out of you! While waiting in line Mom read some stuff about St. Peter¡¦s Basilica from Rick Steves and Let's Go books!
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Then we got through the line and the check point and were in St. Peter's Basilica the largest Church in the world! It is simply indescribable! As we went through it, we read Rick Steves' book that told us a lot about the building! One interesting thing is that Peter¡¦s (the disciple) bones are supposed to be buried under the Canopy Altar, where the Pope speaks from when he is doing Mass.
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After we exited the Basilica we found a shaded area and sat down because we were all so tired from walking! We then had some sweet and spicy tuna for breakfast and moved on!
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We got back on the Subway (Metro) and went to see the Colosseum. Once again we found a spot to sit down and have some tuna fish and cheese (that was left over from Andorra) for our breakfast/lunch while Mom read to us about the Colosseum. We decided that we really didn¡¦t need to go into see the Colosseum since we remembered it from being there before! But we did have to go to the bathroom which was on the other side of the Colosseum from which we were, so we got to look in the archways and basically saw the whole Colosseum for free!
The bathrooms on the other hand were just ok! In the stalls there were black lights and then when you came out of them your eyes made everything look like an orange/yellow color until your eyes readjusted!
We also saw Constantine's Arch..it was cool..it is right beside the Colosseum!
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Then we walked up the Via Sacra to the Arch of Titus! It has a carving of the Romans carrying the Candle Stick and the Ark of the Covenant out of Jerusalem! That was really interesting! Then right after that is the forum! The ruins of Ancient Rome! It is amazing! We saw where Julius Caesar was burned after being assassinated! We saw where the senate used to meet and then we sat down beyond the west end of the Forum called Capital Hill! It was shaded there so that was really nice! Next, we walked to the Pantheon.
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(Val) The Pantheon is a huge domed building that was first built in 27 BC and rebuilt in 120 AD. The engineering that went into this dome is amazing for the time it was built and it remains Rome¡¦s best preserved monument. It is 142 ft high and from side to side. As we were all gazing up through the 30 ft across opening to the sky at the top, a huge bird glided to the center and seemed to hover a moment before it flew off. Of course there is a lot of history involved with this building, but you will have to dig that up yourself!
We stopped by Treve Fountain and The Spanish Steps as we made our way back to our luggage (to save a few Euros) and then trekked back to the fountain (with our luggage) so we could see the fountain at night with the lights. We were able to secure seats along the wall and enjoy the soothing sound of the water. Krystal and Audrye bought us huge, waffle cone gelato ice creams for our Mother and Father's Day treat. We were able to try 5 flavors in each cone. They display the gelato so beautifully here in Italy. We all enjoyed our cones and then around 8:45 the lights came on and it was a great way to end our day in Rome.
We made our way back to the Metro (subway) only to have a nice couple tell us it was closed. So we all walked to the next stop together and it was closed too. By now you can imagine we are hot and really worn out dragging all our belongings around Rome. We were trying to make our way to a different train station to catch the night train out. Well, the nice couple had a map and they helped us catch a bus and then we found the other Metro line still running and eventually made it to the train station.
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