Sorry these are all sporadic and I'm way behind, it's just it's been hard to blog since Juice and Noah have been here, but luckily I wrote a bunch of notes so I remember to blog about everything.
So Sunday morning, we headed off to Rome! Chelsea and I got on our train and had to move around a bit because there were assigned seats, but I'm a goof and didn't write mine down. All I needed was my reference number, I didn't need a ticket, so it was a little obnoxious.
We finally arrived and had a little trouble finding our hostel, but it turns out that it was literally a 4 minute walk from the train station. It turns out that a lot of Ithakids were in Rome at the same time and everyone was staying at the same hostel. IC takes on Rome! We dropped our bags off and checked in and then grabbed a taxi to the Colosseum. We only had 2 days in Rome so to make sure we saw everything we wanted, we booked tours.
We got a little bit turned around trying to meet up for our tour, but we made it right on time! The tour was a little over an hour and I learned so many interesting things that I would never have known. The whole concept of the Colosseum blows my mind, but it was nice to learn little details about it, such as, it wasn't all white! There was a lot of very colorful decorations that covered the entire structure. We also learned about the elevators that would release the animals into the arena, as well as VIP seating and whatnot. Our tour guide was a little difficult to understans because she got some of her english words confused, but it was definitely worth it.
After our tour, we decided to grab some food at a little restaurant right next to the Colosseum. I mean, literally right next to it, we could have thrown a rock and hit it. Our food was pretty good and the waiters were in love with Chelsea so that made for a bit of an awkward meal because neither of us wanted to ask for the check.
We then headed back to the hostel after walking around for a bit and decided we definitely needed a nap. Traveling is exhausting and we were going to tour Vatican City the next day. Our short cat nap turned into a 2 hour out cold snooze. Our alarms didn't go off for some reason. When we woke up, it was around 8pm and we decided we could definitely go for some gelato. We went on a hunt and for some reason, our area didn't have ANY gelato places. How does an area of Italy not have a gelato place within a stone's throw? We opted for some hot fudge sundaes from McDonald's instead. We then headed back and just relaxed and turned in early since we would have to be up the next morning for our tour.
Our tour of the Vatican was one of the best tours I have ever been on in my life. Our tour guide was such a lovely woman. She studied abroad in Rome, went back to the states to finish her degree and then came right back and now she lives there permanently. She is also an actress so she was very animated and kept the tour interesting. It was almost 3 hours long and we saw parts of the Vatican, countless art rooms, The Sisteen Chapel and St. Peter's Basilica. The art rooms were incredible and the Sisteen Chapel is just mindblowing. We learned about so many hidden things that Michaelangelo hid within each part and even a disorder he had after painting it. It is said that because of the way he painted it, his eye muscles would randomly roll back into his head for the next few years. St. Peter's is one of the most beautiful places I have ever been in. I was in awe by how incredibly huge the place is. It's a law that you cannot build any church larger than the Basilica. And after you find out the little facts about how truly massive it is, it blows your mind.
After our tour, we ran into some of the #flat29 crew outside the Basilica. We chatted with them briefly and then set off to explore. We did a little shopping and had some lunch outside. We really lucked out with the weather. It was so beautiful! I opted for a pizza and a beer. Absolutely delicious. After some more shopping, we got some gelato and then had quite a bit of time to kill before our train. We wandered around and took in the sights. It is CRAZY how popular mopeds are. I know people associate mopeds with Italy, but they are literally EVERYWHERE. They do not even remotely follow any rules of the road and just weave in and out and do what they want.
Rome was a completely different city than Venice but absolutely wonderful in a different way. While Venice was breathtakingly beautiful, Rome was full of history and iconic landmarks that I've only read about in history books and now I get to say I was there!
The Pieta!
The structure (about 12 stories high) can fit inside the dome (about 40 stories high) and those gold letters are about 7 feet tall!
The Swiss Army that protects the city have to be from Switzerland as well as "appealing to the eye."
Next we were off to Florence!
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