Europe 2007

Day 17:(cont) Arrive in Rome

One the way into Rome we stopped at an Auto grill that was basically a full service cafeteria with really fresh food. Colleen spoke a lot about the Romans and how they evolved. The Roman Empire once occupied land from England to Russia. She had many tidbits and interesting facts. It was great to learn a little about the counties we were visiting. Once in Rome we walked up six flights of stairs got settled and met up for a three hour tour of Rome. Our guide was a local guide named Luca who we met just outside of the Colosseum. It's the largest arena of it's kind but there where 100's of them throughout the Roman Empire. At the time Gladiator and animal fights were at there prime. They have since dug up bones from bears and lions and many other animals. The Gladiators were slaves who fought two times a year and trained the rest. Many of their bones were found along with paintings which helped historians get an idea of the type of men they were.

The photos above make me laugh every time I see them. The white haired man pictured in all of the photos decided he could join our group tour and not be noticed. This happened a few times on the Rick Steves' tour but this guy will go down in infamy. Mind you this was almost the last day of our trip and we had been with everyone for almost 14 days so he stuck out like a sour thumb and we got our kicks off of him. We tried to capture many people posing beside him.

The photo of the Colosseum on the left shows a ton of holes in the side of it. That's because the entire structure had once been covered in marble. It was removed to be used in other places. It was first plundered by the mid-evil Barbarians, but many others took pieces including the Pope.

The photo up to the left was the floor of the Colosseum where the animals were kept in mazes and released for fights. The photo in the middle is the Roman Forum and the photo up to the right displays my fascination for foreign men in uniform. (Jason would like to clarify that Shannon is doing this Tabblo)

I personally loved Rome. I fell in love with it and I wasn't expecting to. It's as if time has stood still and we got to take a peak into the past. The Roman Forum was my favorite. It is the original city of Rome and was initially uncovered in 1870 and they continue to dig it out today. There have been many ruins and artifacts discovered. The Tiber River at some point flooded the original Roman city and it eventually turned into a cow pasture. Julius Cesear is buried in the Roman Forum among others. Many of the ruins in the forum are well over two thousand years old.

Every time the city digs to build something it's common to uncover more ruins. It's amazing to see the difference in ground levels between the new and the old city. Luca then took us to the Pantheon. It was built in 125 A.D. and has an open hole in the roof and water flows through it when it rains, it purpose was for telling time. The floor sinks in towards the middle to create a natural drain. It has been used as a church and as a tomb—the painter Raphael lays there. It had also been used as a marble quarry—currently it's half decorated and half of it's bare as to show when it had not been treasured by all. We found that many places in Europe have tried to leave behind much of the history in the buildings rather than renovating them.

We stopped for dinner at a little restaurant in Piazza Novarro—we were hoping for some gnocchi but they ended up not having it. We got something else and shared a few bottles of wine with the table. At 6 euros a pop you can't beat it and every bottle we had on our trip was yummy! After dinner Colleen our guide took us on a evening stroll. She was a little tipsy and very entertaining! She bought a bullhorn from a street pedaler and used it as we walked. She tried to tell us some stuff about the history of Rome but quickly suggested gelato after our stop at the Trevi fountain. At the fountain Jason and I threw a coin over our shoulder to make sure we come back to Rome—as the legend goes!

Day 18: Wake up in Rome

Our earliest wake up time of the trip was for a group reservation at the Vatican. Once there we met up with another local tour guide named Valintino who started us off with the Vatican Museum.

While we were at St. Peter's Basilica there was a mass going on in Latin (the official language of Vatican City) which was an amazing experience. I felt our local guide overloaded us with information but it gave us time to explore and look at all of the art. It's rare to be able to take photos in many churches in Europe so you are missing a lot of what we saw. St Peter's though is created entirely of materials that will not age with time. All of the paintings and what look like frescoes on the ceiling are actually mosaics. All of these materials are a symbol of the church lasting forever. It was wonderful to have pictures to bring home of such a beautiful place.

Prior to St. Peter's we went in the Sistine Chapel which is much smaller than I thought if would be but the longer you gaze up at the ceiling the more overwhelming the fresco's that Michelangelo created become. I couldn't imagine doing what he did. Unfortunately we weren't able to take photographs. We then decided to climb yet another dome. The view of Vatican city were interesting as we could see the city in its entirety.

After the dome we went back to the Roman Forum and the Palatine Hills. We spent a lot of time imagining what life was like in ancient Rome for the emperors living on Palatine Hill, which overlooks the Forum on one side and Circus Maximus on the other. We then sat for a while in a few areas just observing Rome and it's people.

We made one more stop at the Coliseum because it was so beautiful outside. We needed to make sure we got our Rome money shot and you can see it below. After that we rushed back to the hotel to meet up with the group for our last group dinner. It was sad because we had met some great people but we also were excited to move on the next portion of our trip. Germany and Ein beer bitte!

The group dinner was at Hostaria Romana and it was so much fun. The waiters were having a ton of fun and the food and wine were tasty. Our waiter sat down and kissed me right when Jay was coming back to the table and then I took a photo with him.

After dinner we said our goodbyes and shared a few favorite moments of the trip. It was a good wrap up to a great trip with a great group of people.

Day 19: Wake up in Rome

We slept in a bit and left our luggage at the hotel. We then took the metro to Basilica di San Giovanni in Laterano. I was ask to leave because my shoulders weren't covered (boo). We also went to the Spanish Steps and watched a bunch of scam artists do their thing. Don't take anything from anyone in Rome. We had our last Italian lunch of the trip in what we thought was a local spot but it ended up being a tourist trap. From there we went to pick up our bags and headed to the airport for Munich.