The Cinque Terre was great fun, and by the way it didn't rain a drop our entire visit, but it was time to travel to Rome. Our train tickets were on the local train which stopped in too many towns, but I did get the see the top few floors of the Tower of Pisa from the train! I always book B&Bs or hotels close to the train station or metro stops so it wasn't too difficult finding our hotel in Rome.
I checked our trusty map of Rome and saw that we were within walking distance to the Trevi Fountain so we found it and I threw my coin in. While walking to the fountain, we noticed a huge house with armed guards in front of it and we later found out that it was the President's Palace. After our long day, we stopped for dinner and ate our delicious pasta in the restaurant's outdoor dining area. After a little while we realized that it was actually a very narrow street and the cars came VERY close to our table. The driver of one van stopped and asked Bob if he was enjoying the wine!
I booked our tickets to tour the Vatican and Sistine Chapel before we left home. A breakfast was included and we ate in the Vatican Gardens, which was fun, but the breakfast was terrible!
The Vatican Museum was filled with many interesting and beautiful objects. You could spend days in here if you wanted to see everything.
I think the one place everyone visits in Rome is Saint Peter's Basilica, and here we are. We heard it's the richest and grandest church on Earth, and it is beautiful and HUGE!
Michelangelo's Pietà is off to the right as you enter the Basilica, behind bullet proof glass. How could anyone carve something this beautiful from a chunk of marble, and when he was only 24 years old! Wow!
When we were walking along in the Basilica (trying to follow our guide book) we noticed this wax person under an altar. It's actually Pope John XXIII's body! When he was canonized they checked his tomb and his body was still in pretty good shape so they moved it here so everyone can see it. Amazing! I thought it was wax!
The main altar is right above Saint Peter's tomb, and it's beautiful.
The dome is right above the altar. You can take an elevator to the roof and then climb another 323 steps to the top of the dome. We skipped that part; it looked just fine from here. Anyway, Michelangelo designed the dome when he was 71 years old!
Of course, we had to try some Roman pizza. We then walked up the Spanish steps and watched people carefully fill their water bottles at the Sinking Boat Fountain at the bottom.
We headed toward the Colosseum and there were ruins everywhere along the way. I'm so glad that they weren't destroyed by bombs during WWII or otherwise removed. They were fascinating!
We did a lot of walking and the guy at the desk at our little hotel told us about delicious pizza and a famous cherry and ricotta pie that can be found in the Jewish Ghetto. It was worth the walk!
We found it, but of course the Colosseum is huge and easy to find. I knew it was going to be big but I was so impressed with its huge size.
The floor of the Colosseum was made of wood and has collapsed so it's easy to see the underground passages. They reconstructed a bit of the floor for a more accurate idea of what it looked like when the Colosseum was used. Just imagine the number of men and the hours it took to build this huge structure.
It's us, standing in the Colosseum overlooking the Arch of Constantine. It was so hot that day!
Next on our list was The Forum, Rome's birthplace, which is filled with more ruins. Even though it was very hot, we wandered through and I took too many pictures.
After the long day walking, we really enjoyed our linguini with mussels and the limoncello the waiter brought us while we waited for our check.
We decided that we wanted to visit The Pantheon so we could see the dome which served as a model for Michelangelo's dome of Saint Peter's.
This was our last day in Rome and the day before our 48th anniversary, so we decided to have a nice dinner to celebrate. We chose what the waiter said was white fish stuffed with potatoes and veggies. It was delicious and fun to watch him serve the fish. The limoncello was delicious, too, but not as good as Donatella's in The Cinque Terre.
Our tickets back to Milan were on the bullet train and Bob really enjoyed watching the train's speeds which were shown on the screen in our coach. Rome was beautiful, and we're definitely glad that we spent time there, but it's time to head back to the good old USA and plan our next trip.
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