Rome

Rome has so much...stuff. Between what seems to be hundreds of churches, thousands of ruins, and some other things in between, it was a bit overwhelming! But we survived, even with Steven cursing every 2 minutes at the crappy maps and what seemed to be millions of tourists.

We made our way to the Spanish Steps and tried to prepare ourselves for what to expect over the next 4 days...too.many.people.

Taking a deep breath, we managed to make our way down to the fountain and sort of take in the scene.

Steven refilling our water bottle - not to fear, the water was completely safe for drinking and hey, it was free.

We fought our way to the crowds to go to yet another insanely-packed place, the Trevi Fountain. Rumor has it that if you throw one coin into the fountain, you will return to Rome; two coins and you'll fall in love with an Italian; three coins and you'll marry said Italian. We only threw one coin in as we've already found love and have been fortunate to get married. Awwwww...

We read in our travel book that some guy was regularly stealing coins out of the fountain...with around 3,000 Euros being thrown in every day, we're sure he was making a nice salary.

The following day, we headed over to the Roman Forums and the Palatine Hill. At one time, the forums used to look something like this:

Hard to imagine since the Forums now look like this:

And never at a loss to gauge tourists, we could have had a picture taken with a Trojan (we passed hence having to take the picture from far away):

After lunch, we headed over to the Pantheon, the oldest standing dome structure in Italy. Originally dedicated to the Roman gods, the Italians decided to turn it into a Basilica. They didn't have enough churches already?

Next on our mile long to-see list was the gigantuan Colosseum. Truly impressive in size, it's crazy to think 50,000 spectators would be packed in this area to watch executions, amongst other events.

The following day was Sunday. Europe is tricky on Sundays - many, many places are closed so we figured we'd just walk around and see where the day would take us. There was a Pizzeria, La Montecarlo, that our hotel recommended (and it was open on Sundays) so we checked it out. Some of the best pizza ever! It was pretty packed so we were lucky to grab a table when we did.

Since the pizzeria is close to the Piazza Navona, we stopped by to check out the scene. There were quite a few artists trying to sell their paintings, we immediately thought of Stephanie's mom who is an extremely talented watercolor painter. We think she'd make a killing in this Piazza.

And we reserved our final day in Rome to focus on Vatican City, home to St. Peter's Basilica, the Sistine Chapel, and the area where the Pope resides.

Getting an early start, we rode the metro and beat the lines to enter St. Peter's Basilica in relative calmness.

Go figure the one church that actually allows flash photography and none of the pictures turned out, they are all too dark. We present to you the main website so you can view the inside for yourselves:

http://www.saintpetersbasilica.org/images.htm

We didn't realize the entrance for the Vatican was on the other side of the compound from St. Peter's so we hussled over, hoping to still get a good spot in line. Not so lucky - this was about 30 minutes:

We waited for a good hour before finally making our way into the Vatican museum and eventually to the Sistine Chapel. Again, no photos inside, so check out the website for more info/pictures:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sistine_Chapel

The artwork on the ceiling is absolutely spectacular and it was fairly amusing to see everyone craining their necks to get a good view and admire the details. Crazy to think Michelangelo spent about 4 years painting the frescoes.

We ended our stay in Rome meeting up with our friends Marco and Beth, and Beth's sister, at yet another amazing restaurant, Taverna Trilussa. It was so good to see familiar faces and catch up with great friends! Good food, great company, perfect ending to our stay in Italy.

p.s. A tip for visiting Rome - if you want to check out the Villa Borghese (or museum), make a reservation beforehand. We arrived in Rome on Friday and they were booked until the following Wednesday. We left on Monday:/