Caput Mundi, La Citta' Eterna - ROMA!

Picking up from where I left off, we headed to Rome after 2 great days in Sorrento.  I was so excited for Courtney to see one of my favorite cities in the world and I was excited for me to be back since it's been a couple of years.  Lucky for us the weather was picture perfect gorgeous with that smell that makes you know Fall is finally here (my favorite season).

When we got off the train in Rome, the directions Google gave us to walk to the hotel had us literally walk in a giant square.  The walk was maybe 20 minutes, when in fact the hotel is maybe 5-7 minutes away from the train station...oh well we got there and when we did we saw how very cute the B&B was.  I of course broke stuff as soon as we got there when I tried to move the curtains and the whole rod fell down, but our host was quick to blame the old curtain rods and not me and exclaimed "You are on holiday, you should not be worrying about anything like this.  Go, go have fun!"  So we did.

We first headed to the Colosseum because that was the closest landmark to our hotel and were asked if we wanted to join in an english tour for both the Colosseum and the Palentine Hill/Forum.  I thought this might be a good choice for Court because we get to skip lines and hopefully get some good information. Our guide of the Colosseum was OK, I wouldn't say he was anything special.  He basically gave us a brief history and then let us explore.  The great thing about coming back to the Colosseum for me though was that there was an exhibit on gladiators and their history, the clothes they wore when fighting, the different types there were, etc.  It was actually a really cool exhibit.  We then headed out to meet our new tour guide for the Palentine Hill.  She was probably one of my most favorite tour guides ever.  She was a super bouncy Englishwoman from Liverpool (and by bouncy I mean she would give Tigger a run for his money).  She was just so excited about everything she was talking about and Courtney and I literally could not stop commenting on how cute she was, we loved her!

Ok let me take a sidebar for a minute: Our tour group was a bit odd.  We had a few Americans, but there was also this family from England that was probably the most bizarre family I've ever been in close contact with.  It was a father, mother, 2 kids about our age or a little younger with their significant others.  When we were in the Colosseum the kids were basically all over each other to the point where Courtney and I couldn't wait to get away, but of course they were all on our Palentine Hill tour as well.  Oh, they also chain smoked hand rolled ciggies the entire time and drank out of what looked like a big juicebox (well Court and I have juiceboxes like that at our apt so we assumed it was juice).  So anyways, we had a bit of break before our Palentine Hill tour and when we all came back together the 2 younger boys in the group were holding 40's of beer, everyone was chain smoking and the father would take turns smoking off his daughter's cigarettes or gulping out of the 40 or the "juicebox".  It wasn't until 10 minutes into the Palentine tour that we realized the girl was chugging red wine out of the juicebox and they were all just passing that around.  It was so BIZARRE!  I mean who gets drunk on a tour?  Really?  And what parents think that it's ok to have your kids (and sometimes you yourself) chugging beers big enough that they really should only be at college frat parties and wine out of a juicebox carton...I mean, really?? (For those of you who have seen the SNL weekend updates when they do the "REALLY??" segment, that is what I am channeling).

Ok sidebar over and we did have a great tour with Fe (short for Felicity, which she said only her mother is allowed to call her).  At the end she said she would be touring the Vatican Museums and Sistine Chapel the next morning if anyone was interested and it was perfect for Courtney.  I had already been and there was no way I wanted to go back into the mad house that is the Vatican Museums and we knew she'd love the tour guide and really should see it so of course Court jumped on it.  I was also excited to spend some alone time in Rome and just stroll around the city I've come to love so much.

After the tour we embarked on a whirlwind walking tour of Rome's sites.  WAY more than I had expected to get done in half a day.  We walked through the Forum then up the Capitoline hill to see the piazza designed by Michelangelo then to see the Vittorio Emmanuele II monument, also know as the Wedding Cake since it is a bright white behemoth completely out of place in the middle of ancient ruins.  While it isn't a favorite of the Italian people, it is still pretty darn impressive.

After that we headed up Via del Corso where all the major sites of Rome are with the exception of St. Peters.  It's actually pretty easy to do Rome in a couple days, but we did have some casualties in the foot department - I got my first real blisters since being here...sad.  Via del Corso is the main street that leads from the Wedding Cake all the way to Piazza del Popolo.  I would say maybe it's 3/4th's of a mile to a mile long.  In between these two major sites are the Trevi Fountain, Spanish Steps, Piazza Navona, and the Pantheon so we made sure to hit all of them.  The Trevi Fountain was a mad house so Courtney weaseled her way to the fountain while I stayed out and took pictures.  She did the obligatory coin toss into the fountain to ensure a return to Rome, and while I couldn't get a picture of that moment (a giant bald head got in the way) I did manage to get some good ones.

Once we got to Piazza del Popolo we were absolutely exhausted and our feet were dying.  We still had to see the Pantheon and Piazza Navona and on top of this, we had probably an hour walk back to our hotel.  So we sat and watched the sunset from the Piazza, got some gelato to reenergize, then headed to our last sights.  Piazza Navona was a tourist haven with tons of people everywhere, plus street artists and those guys selling annoying toys that I would be shocked if many people actually bought anything from them.

The Pantheon was as it always is: breathtaking.  It's one of my favorite buildings in the world so for those of you who haven't been, here is a little history.  The Pantheon was originally built under Marcus Agrippa as a temple to all of the gods of ancient Rome.  It burned down and it was rebuilt in 126 AD under Hadrian, but he left the original inscription to Marcus Agrippa on the new facade.  After almost 2,000 years the Pantheon's dome is still the largest unreinforced dome in the world.  Even though it was built as a temple to all gods (Pagan), Roman Catholics converted it into a church in the 7th century, which is probably one of the reasons why it is one of the best preserved ancient buildings in Rome.  The Pantheon is also the home of the tombs of Rafael, Vittorio Emannuele II, his wife, and his son.

Inside of the Pantheon - Rafael's tomb on the right

Oculus

After finishing our last sights we headed back to get dinner around our B&B.  We got Chinese food since our hotel was right in Chinatown and we were definitely looking forward to something different!  It was really good - we ate so fast and so much since we were exhausted and just headed back to rest up for our next big day!

...Which I will get to in another post since we are about head out on the town - a dopo!