Rome 2011-Full Story

Rome had to be one of the most anticipated stops on our journey through Europe. You can't help watching shows like "Roman Holiday" or "Angels & Demons" and want to visit Rome.


Day 1: Travel to Italy

We arrived there by the "sleeper train," which was an experience in itself. It was a little rainy that day but we found our connection at the train station and made our way to our hotel... I mean monastery. I'm not even sure how we ended up deciding that we wanted to stay at a monastery in Rome, but there was just something so poetic about staying there with nuns as our hostesses overlooking Vatican City. We all agreed it was an adventure we couldn't pass up. We have never stayed anywhere that had cleaner rooms than these ones. Every detail was taken care by the nuns, including wiping up our footprints to ironing our hand-stitched pillow cases. The nuns didn't speak any English, so my broken Italian got the messages across to them. Once we were settled in our rooms we wanted to go find some gelato. Here are some pictures from that day.

A view of Vatican City and St. Peter's from our gelato shop, called Captain Cono.

Here is Jason with some gelato. We had so many flavors I don't remember if this is lemon or custard, but no matter the flavor we all enjoyed having multiple scoops. Each gelato comes in a cone and then they stick this "mini cone" in the top. We didn't know the purpose of this so we claimed it was to give samples of your gelato to someone else. So we were always sampling the different flavors that everyone got.

This is a picture of a tree at the monastery. Obviously it was a gorgeous area and the nuns took excellent care of their yard.

Day 2:

Everything Vatican We woke up and loved just having to walk a few minutes and then suddenly we were in another country: Vatican City. In case you didn't know, Vatican City is considered it's own country, making it the smallest country in the world. On Jason's bucket list he actually had the goal to visit the smallest country in the world, so he was able to cross that off. Our first stop was to visit the Vatican Museum. Here is the outside of the Vatican Museum. The stairway inside the museum. Some people don't know that the Sistine Chappel is located in the Vatican Museum, which was one of our biggest motivations to go there. We were not allowed to take pictures in the Sistine Chappel, but this is a ceiling in a room leading to the chappel. It's so interesting in European museums how the rooms are beautifully decorated before the pieces of art are even placed in the rooms. A famous original painting by Rafael Santi, found in the museum.

Here is a video of the Sistine Chapel. We weren't allowed to do much and of course the video doesn't do the chapel any justice to it's beauty. It had to be one of my favorites sites from the whole trip, actually from my whole life. Once we were done with the Vatican Museum we wanted to wander outside in St. Peter's Square. It was actually a really quiet day so we practically had the whole area to ourselves. Here are some pictures outside St. Peter's. We are standing in front of the obelisk in St. Peter's square that looks upon St. Peter's Basilica and the Pope's office. This might look familiar from "Angels & Demons." We had perfect timing because we headed inside St. Peter's Basilica just as it started raining. When we saw Notre Dame we all couldn't stop talking about the money and power that the churches have over in Europe, but you have never seen anything like St. Peter's! The amount of wood, marble, statues, and famous pieces make the entire building priceless a thousand times. It's hard to describe just how monumental it was there. Here are some pictures inside: Later that Evening after we had taken a nap and felt more rested, we set out in search of another famous Rome landmark. We took the Rome Metro to the Famous Spanish Steps, and wound our way through the streets of Rome stopping only to eat gelato and shop for some fun souvenirs. After about 30 minutes we found this....the Trevi Fountain. Supposedly when you visit the Trevi Fountain you have to toss in a coin to secure your return to Rome in the future. Here are some pictures-in-motion of us throwing our euros over our shoulders into the fountain. If you click on the picture you can see a larger view of it. Day 3:

Rome Walking Tour Our first destination on the 3rd day was to hit probably the most famous site in Rome: The Colosseum. Jason was a genius and got us a special VIP pass to the Colosseum, so instead of waiting in line for 2 hours like everyone else, we just walked right up to security and went right in. I love it when we go and see famous sites and you are allowed to touch and interact with them. At the Colosseum we were allowed to walk around and go up and down the corridors. Some were in pretty bad shape and as you can see from the pictures the ground floor is almost entirely crumbled so we couldn't go down there. It was really nice to see a large piece of Roman history and imagine all that occurred there. We spend a few hours there and then made our way outside. Outside of the Colosseum is the Roman Forums where the ancient Roman ruins continue on for several miles. We wandered through it for a few more hours just seeing everything and running around like kids on a playground.

I can't believe Jason took this picture of me drinking from this water fountain, and even more I can't believe he pursuaded me to put it on the blog. If you've heard us talk about our traveling you know that we are very strict and careful on the water that we drink. Well, Rome is a little different because all of the water out of the fountains are safe to drink. All over the city there are these small drinking fountains that aim down as if to fill up your water bottles. After a few times using them we realized that there is a small hole near the top of the faucet. When you cover the spout then the water shoots out the top making it easy to drink. It was hilarious because the first time we tried it I got a face full of water rather than a mouthful. So here I am demonstrating this lovely survival tip for Rome. Of course we had to stop for some yummy Italian pizza. There were a ton of different varieties but my favorite was the basic tomato, basil, and mozzarella. Delicious! These next pictures are of the Pantheon in Rome. Again, you might recognize it from Angels & Demons. It's a huge ancient church that is actually still in use today. My mom and I kept wondering what people did when it rained because of the oculus in the top of the roof. Apparently it didn't stop them. It was actually quite busy there but we found a seat inside to enjoy the building. This is Rafael's Tomb. And a statue of him next to the tomb. Just a couple blocks away was another fountain (the city is full of fountains): The Fountain of the Four Rivers. It was a lovely fountain that we enjoyed seeing during the daytime. Finally we wanted to go see Castle Saint Angelo (Castle of the Angel), that was again featured in Angels & Demons. It is just a straight shot from Vatican City and St. Peter's. My favorite part was walking to the building, which is basically a fort and castle, and seeing all of the statues that line the bridge over the Tibre River. This was a fun idea that Jason and I had to do in Rome. We knew we wanted to do something special in Rome and we had heard about people "locking" their love in different locations around the world. Basically it is where you get a lock and write your name and your true loves name and lock it somewhere famous so as to "lock" your love. We actually decided we wanted to do this before we went on our trip so we even found a lock that was green because it was on St. Patrick's Day! So now Jason and I can always remember the day we locked our love was March 17th, 2011. Mom and Dad looking out over the river. Here we are standing on top of Castle Saint Angelo. It was so high and had a great view of the city. The Tibre river looks pretty brown in this picture, but it wasn't that bad on the other days. It was probably because there was some rain the day before. A view of Vatican City. It's so funny to think that we are standing in Rome taking a picture of another country. The angel that stands on top of Castle Saint Angelo. One of the statues on the bridge leading to the castle. The clouds in this picture look pretty intimidating but it actually didn't rain that day. Overall we covered so much of Rome in those 3 days that we accomplished all that we wanted to. We couldn't believe how much history is contained in Rome and how many famous sites are just around the corner. It was so amazing to get to see all of these places that we've read about for so long and to see them in movies or pictures is still a thrill because we can remember how it felt when we saw them in person. We fell in love with the pizza, the gelato, the fountains, the statues, the monestary, the shop owners, the buildings, and each other all over again! Last Stop: Venice