Rome

We were off the cruise ship by 8 a.m. and didn't go to sleep at our hotel until 11 p.m.  It was a long day of train stations, metro stops, beautiful buildings and lots and lots of walking!  We had one day of Rome and we tried to make the most of it. By the end we felt fully satisfied in what we saw. We skipped Vatican City but we went in St. Peter's Basilica right outside the Vatican. We also saw the Trevi Fountain, Spanish Steps, Coliseum, Pantheon, Piazza Novano, a few other churches, and a lot of other fountains. Walking around the narrow cobblestone streets was fun, it seemed like around every turn there was some ancient building, ruins, or just something cool looking. Even the "normal" everyday apartment buildings had a lot of character.

 The train station we walked to from the port. On the way we bought train tickets at a booth where they also made you purchase a map for 1 euro. The best euro we spent. That map was tattered by the end of the day. It showed train stations, metro stops and the major tourist attractions. We headed to our hotel first to drop off our bags. When we got there it was an hour before our room would be ready so we went to a church a couple streets away and watched mass.

 After locking our baggage in our hotel room we headed towards St. Peter's Basiliica, we were starving so stopped at a little pizza shop where they sold the pizza by weight.

 It was delicious, at least my pieces were. Although, I was a bit surprised when what I thought was pineapple turned out to be squash or some sort of potato. Why is it that you have to take pictures of your food in foreign places? or is that just me? Then we headed to the Pantheon. The pictures of the Pantheon are first because that's how it loaded and I'm sick of messing with photos on blogger.

 Pantheon

Inside

The top of the dome is open to the air, it was raining so they had the floor below roped off. The Dome was large & amazing. Inside there were caskets with dead popes or priests off to the side, kinda creepy to me and everyone taking pictures of them...then Bracken wanted a picture so now we have pictures of the bodies of dead Popes. Odd.

 St. Peter's Basilica. Ginormous and Beautiful

 All these old, classy buildings and then BAM! a RV.

Plaza, looking out from the steps of St. Peter's Basilica

Then we headed to the Spanish steps. Where I was really looking forward to Squalling.....?

The steps were packed with people, at the bottom was this fountain that although I do not remember the year, trust me it was ancient. There was a step up so you could step on it (see boy in red pants behind us). Something that old in America would be behind glass in an climate-controlled environment....cool that there are so many old things in Europe you can get up close.

 Turned a corner (after much walking) and there was the Colosseum!

 cool ruins by the Colosseum

 Arch of Constantine

Bracken wanted to go in the Colosseum until he found out it would cost us 30 euro to get in. We were about to leave but I convinced him he'd regret it if we didn't go in so we did.  It was impressive. Although, in hindsight, I should have spent the money on those Greek dresses and just found a picture of the Colosseum off the Internet to post here. Kidding!....kinda

View of Arch of Constantine from inside the Colosseum

 It was getting cold, the lack of jackets and lack of public bathrooms prompted us to head back to our hotel.   Our hotel was on the fourth floor of a building, each floor was a different hotel or offices. This was the walkway off the street to stairs and an old elevator. The place was cheap and simple, but clean. Clean is what I cared about.  After grabbing our jackets and using the bathroom we headed out to see a few more sights. We ditched our backpack at the hotel so all I had for pictures was my phone.

 Trevi Fountain

 A wood door from a random building. This was only half of the door, it was massive. I love detailed woodwork.

 The escalator down to the metro. LONG and there are more of them to go even deeper. It seemed much deeper than DC's metro but I could be remembering wrong.

My dinner date. We were sooo tired. Bracken likes to make faces whenever I take a picture. I had to post at least one of them.
We ate at an outdoor cafe. The pasta was good, I had spaghetti with egg and bacon. Bracken had pasta with artichokes. The rest of dinner was disappointing. We headed back to our hotel, packed up and went to bed.