On our train ride to Rome Katie and I decided to make a playlist on my iPad while eating chocolate, four words....best train ride ever!
After arriving in Rome, we had to take a tram and a bus to our hostel. It was called Peter Pan Hostel. At the time I didn't think anything of it but later realized the Americans got jipped on that deal. By the time we got checked into our hostel and everything there was only one place relatively close that was still open serving food. I ordered vegetables and this is what I got....
I think it technically is vegetables but it was somewhat warm, somewhat cold and was drowning in oil. Oh well, I figured the trip could only go up from there.
The next day we got up early and headed to Vatican City, which if you didn't know is technically its own separate country from Italy and therefore the smallest country in the world. I didn't know that, but it's kind of neat to be able to say I've been to the smallest country in the world. Vatican City is basically a bunch of museums all grouped into one and it took us like two hours to get through them all (which is actually really fast, usually takes people a lot longer).
Below is just a picture of one of the sculptures that went through the "castration period" when the Roman Catholic Church found it inappropriate to have sculptures and paintings revealing private areas. This resulted in a lot of the statues looking like to this.
This is a sculpture Katie and I were joking about. I said I was the lion and she was the horse.
Then this was the tennis court Thea and I were joking was the Pope's private tennis court.
Tara and I were also joking this was the bowl I ate my cereal in the morning out of. I don't know if you can really tell how big it was, but it was huge.
Ahh... the little things we use to entertain us in museums. :)
Then there was also a mummy museum with things like this picture and also other sculptures and engraved stones.
After all the museums you basically end up walking into the Sistine Chapel. I'm not going to lie I didn't know much about the Sistine before I went there but Ann (another lady on the trip with us) let me use her headphones and listen to an auto-guided explanation, and we just sat there for about 30 minutes just taking it all in. It was beyond amazing. I loved being able to listen to the auto and go along with the guide as he pointed out all the secret meaning and things people would never know without background information. There are no cameras allowed in the Sistine Chapel but I couldn't help but use the reverse camera on my iPhone to snap one. It was just incredible, there are no words.
If you look close the squared picture in the middle is the famous one of God giving Adam the spark of life.
After the Sistine Chapel we decided to climb the 551 stairs to the top of Saint Peter's Basilica to get the best view of Rome. It was an amazing view and definitely worth the stair climb, I'm not sure it was worth the five Euro they charged me to walk up the stairs however. Ha!
Just some pictures from the top of the Saint Peter's Basilica.
Inside Saint Peter's Basilica. This place was huge. Just to give you a little idea, do you see those letter in the gold strip across the wall? Each of those letter is six feet tall! I was literally in shock when I found that out. Katie is six feet tall and I kept picturing her up there and kept thinking to myself, "There's no way!" It's incredible how big that place is.
The front view of Saint Peter's Basilica.
As the day went on Katie and I split up from the other girls and headed to the Pantheon and then had some wine and gelato. While we were wandering we found a nice little bar called the Drunken Ship, so we stopped in for a glass of wine while we waited for the other girls to show up. That's when we met Fabio the bartender and after talking a little told him we would come back the next night to visit him.
After supper with the other girls we headed on a self-guided night tour that took us a bunch of places but of course my favorite......the Trevi Fountain! Of course we all made wishes and threw coins in, and I can't say what my wish was for but so far I think things are going in the right direction. :)
After the Trevi, our tour took us to the Spanish Steps. Katie and I did what we tend to do at any staircase we encounter....ran up them. It wasn't easy with the shoes I was wearing but we made it and it was a fantastic view.
The next day Katie and I left early in the morning again for the Colosseum. We got there in the perfect amount of time when it was nice outside but not too many tourists were there yet. We didn't go inside but we walked all around it and stared in amazement that we actually got to see the thing we have been seeing in textbooks and on postcards since we were little.
Katie and I outside the Colosseum.
After the Colosseum we wondered up to the church that was built around the holy stairs where Jesus Christ climbed to meet his fate decided by Pontius Pilot. Because the stairs are holy no one is allowed to step on them. If you want to climb them you have to climb them on your knees, which Katie and I both did. I can't even explain how I felt while climbing those stairs. They weren't smooth, marble, concrete or anything like that. They were hard, wooden, uneven steps that hurt really bad to climb, but in all honestly every time I thought to myself, "Ouch this hurts," I immediately followed that thought up with, "Do you realize the pain you're feeling is only a small small fraction of the pain Jesus suffered through for you?" It truly was a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
On our way wandering back to the hostel we ran into the ancient ruins. I'll admit we didn't stay and look very long but it was crazy to think how old some of those rocks and structures were.
On our last night in Rome Katie and I ended up finding a great, cheap hotel right next to the train station, and we were finally able to take good shower and get ready so we decided we would go visit Fabio at the Drunken Ship. While we were there we met a ton of fellow Americans, some from Boston, Denver, and Minneapolis. It was a great way to end a fantastic trip to Rome.
Next stop....Barcelona, Spain!
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