Rome - Day 6

We ended our tour of Europe with a bang... this morning was spent at the Vatican visiting the gardens and the museum. The gardens were lovely and a great way to spend the time that otherwise would have been spent waiting in line for the museum. I really wish that we'd been able to see the gardens on our own and not with a group because I would have been able to take lots more pics, but I think I did ok with what we were given ;)

The exit to the Vatican museum (I shot this on our way in thinking that it was the entrance):

From Rome - Day 6

A neat shot of St. Peter's Basilica from the gardens:

From Rome - Day 6

From Rome - Day 6

There weren't many flowers in bloom, but I'm stoked that I caught a few... this rose bud was so delicate and pretty :)

From Rome - Day 6

And then we were off to the museum... Here are a couple of misc shots that I liked while I was going through them:

From Rome - Day 6

This ceiling was INSANE... this picture doesn't really give you an idea of how long it was, but it was long and the detail was intense:

From Rome - Day 6

Although the angle is a bit funky, here's a shot of Raphael's The School of Athens (JC says it's his favorite Raphael work because it's like the Sgt. Pepper cover but with philosophers):

From Rome - Day 6

And here's a shot of yet another "forbidden" image:

From Rome - Day 6

Afterwards, we went to the Borghese Gallery which forces you put your cameras in the cloak room... soooo... no pictures. Here's the link about it though:

http://www.galleriaborghese.it/borghese/en/edefault.htm

Since it's our last night here, we decided to have a somewhat nicer dinner out:

From Rome - Day 6

I had a really great caprese appetizer and pesto pasta while JC enjoyed his mussel and curry appetizer and then pasta loaded with sea creatures :)

From Rome - Day 6

Last but not least, our last gelato in Italy :(.... stracciatella for me and coconut for JC:

From Rome - Day 6

Hopefully Ugo will be able to satisfy our gelato craving once we're back home... I might go through withdrawals ;)

And that's it! Tomorrow we fly from Rome to London. We'll spend one night in London and then we're back on a plane to LA. We may or may not do another post though, so keep an eye out and we'll see how it goes.

Lauren

Rome - Day 5

Also known as: The day we stood 2 feet away from Pope Benedict XVI

About a month ago we requested tickets to sit in for the Papal Audience while we were here. If the Pope is in Rome, he gives a weekly speech on Wednesdays out in front of St. Peter's Basilica. So, we got our tickets yesterday, got up super early (by our vacation standards), and went up to the Vatican... and our seats were perfect, but first, here is a shot of all the people who came:

From Rome - Day 5

Then, they bring the Pope in and drive him through the crowds on the Pope-mobile:

From Rome - Day 5

Since we planned our seats strategically, he drove right up the aisle we were next to:

From Rome - Day 5

And no joke, he looked right at me:

From Rome - Day 5

He gave a talk about his recent visit to the UK... here's a link to the speech if you're interested:

http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/audiences/2010/documents/hf_ben-xvi_aud_20100922_en.html

From Rome - Day 5

I'm gonna be honest, I didn't understand a lick of his speech in English... I did much better with the Spanish version, but even then I only understood about a quarter of it.

And then they pick him up in the Pope-mobile and take him away again:

From Rome - Day 5

We spent the rest of the day walking, eating pesto pasta, and then we visited the Basilica St. Clemente. The relevance of this church is that it's multi layered.... church upon church upon church. We couldn't take our cameras (and we had dumped them in the hotel anyway), but the top layer is an 1100s church which was built on top of a 4th century church which was built on top of a 1st century Republican Roman Pagan temple. Here's some more info about it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basilica_di_San_Clemente

Now, we're sitting in our hotel room, watching Italian MTV, eating chocolate, and drinking wine:

From Rome - Day 5

We have an early morning tomorrow (heading back to the Vatican to check out the gardens, museum, and the Sistine Chapel)... so we're actually taking it easy tonight (unlike yesterday) ;)

One day in Rome left!

Lauren & JC

Rome - Day 4

In our last blog post, I stupidly made a bold statement that day 4 was going to be our more low key day... as it turns out, we walked 30,592 steps (11.10 miles). I *think* this is the most walking we've done in one day during the entire trip... so much for taking it easy.

Basically, we walked so much because we tried to hit several of the miscellaneous items that we hadn't seen yet. Since the Piazza de Venezia was closed last time we were there, we went to climb it and take pictures:

From Rome - Day 4

This flame burns as long as Rome is in existence:

From Rome - Day 4

A cool shot of the Piazza from the top:

From Rome - Day 4

Then, since Vanessa requested it, we HAD to stop by our favorite gelato place again to take some pics ;)... (it doesn't hurt that it's basically around the block from the Piazza de Venezia):

From Rome - Day 4

The best part was that the woman behind the counter has let us try nearly every flavor in there... without us even asking!

From Rome - Day 4

So far, we've tried dark chocolate, stracciatella (chocolate chip... my favorite), and the one below... this one is similar to stracciatella but it also had almonds in it as well:

From Rome - Day 4

It was about the time for us to pick up our tickets for the papal audience, so we went back to the Trevi Fountain (for the third time) to pick them up:

From Rome - Day 4

While we were wandering around after that, we stumbled across the Pantheon. We had planned on leaving the Pantheon for day 5 because we've discovered that there are clothing requirements to get into the churches in Italy and the Pantheon is currently a church. Since we weren't planning on visiting any churches this day, we both wore shorts (you can't be showing your shoulders or your knees), but we decided to pop in and check to see what the dress code was so that we could be prepared... as it turns out, there's no dress code and visiting the Pantheon is 100% FREE.... our type of tourist attraction! So we knocked that off our list:

From Rome - Day 4

It was pretty amazing in there:

From Rome - Day 4

From Rome - Day 4

Our last stop (we practically crawled through it because our feet hurt so much), was the Capitolini Museum... a very impressive collection of sculptures and such. I thought this was cool... these are bits and pieces of a statue of Constantine. It was once a solid statue, but now it's all busted, but the sizes of the individual parts are crazy big and it's hard to imagine how big the statue once was:

From Rome - Day 4

And this one is the story of how Rome was founded... Romulus and Remus with their new found wolf mother. This one is 2,500 YEARS OLD... I can't even wrap my head around that:

From Rome - Day 4

And the best part was that the museum had an amazing view of the Forum at night and there were no people in it:

From Rome - Day 4

So, 11 miles later, that's it for day 4... I'll be posting day 5 shortly :)

Lauren & JC

Rome - Day 3

Or what's known as: Archeology day in Rome

Since there's so much to do in Rome and so little time, JC and I decided that we wanted to see 2 things: the Vatican and the Colosseum... and the rest would just be gravy. We saw part of the Vatican the day before so we decided to see the Colosseum (and the surrounding area) yesterday. I just have to say... it was really freakin' awesome. Seeing so much history is just mind blowing.

We ended up taking a tour of the Colosseum and the Palatine Hill so that we could have a better idea of everything going on there and it was definitely worth it... in fact, our tour guide for Palatine Hill was so good that we're thinking of calling him up for another tour elsewhere. But back to pictures... here are some cool shots of the Colosseum:

From Rome - Day 3

From Rome - Day 3

From Rome - Day 3

By the way, some of you may have seen on the news that the faked setting the Colosseum on fire this past weekend... yes we were in Rome when they did it, but no, we didn't see it :(. We didn't even know it was going on at the time, but here's a link all about it:

http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?section=news/bizarre&id=7677687

Next up was Palatine Hill and the Roman Forum... I have tons of pictures that will hit facebook later, but here's a cool shot of the overview:

From Rome - Day 3

I also really liked this shot when I saw it in camera, so I figured I'd include it. The clouds here are amazing and I've been loving taking pictures of them:

From Rome - Day 3

Then, of all things, we ran into our friends Julian and Dawn while we were roaming around the Forum. We knew they were in Rome, but we hadn't made plans yet and we didn't stage this at all.... seriously, how do you run into someone in a city like Rome, when you're half way across the country, and there are a bazillion attractions to see?? It was pretty amazing.... so we ended up deciding to meet for dinner that night:

From Rome - Day 3

We ended up having a great time and spent the evening exploring Rome by night... we ended up back at the Trevi Fountain for some awesome night shots:

From Rome - Day 3

From Rome - Day 3

So that was Day 3... I'm writing this the morning of Day 4 and we're taking it a bit easier right now because we've been doing so much and we have some early days coming up. We're about to head out the door though, so we'll see what cool stuff we find today :)

Lauren & JC

Rome - Days 1 & 2

Ok, I'm going to be 100% honest here… we spent our first day in Rome not liking it much. It was raining, the crowds were ridiculously crazy, our first meal was nowhere near as good as everything else we experienced, and our hotel room sucked. We made the best of it though and got out on foot and roamed around. I was dying to see the Trevi Fountain, so we headed over there:

From Rome - 1 & 2

From Rome - 1 & 2

After that, since the Spanish steps were relatively close, we found those… the crowds were basically a turn off, but here's a pic of the Spanish steps covered in people:

From Rome - 1 & 2

The rest of the day, we walked… I have a bunch of pictures, but nothing really special. Here's a cool shot of the capitol hill at night though:

From Rome - 1 & 2

That night, w found the most amazing gelato we've had so far… it was so amazing that we went back tonight and I wouldn't be surprised if we go back a couple more times before we leave ;). This is when Rome started to look up for us… The gelato was amazing, we complained about our hotel room and got upgraded, and we started finding areas of the city that were out of the touristy path.

Day 2, we got on the big red bus for a second ride (the first one was in the rain the day before) and got to see all sorts of cool stuff..

The Colosseum!

From Rome - 1 & 2

Capitol Hill during the day:

From Rome - 1 & 2

St. Peter's Square:

From Rome - 1 & 2

After that, we were a little unsure of what to do (to be honest, we were overwhelmed), so we walked over to the Vatican to see if we could get in to see anything.

From Rome - 1 & 2

The line to St. Peter's Basilica wasn't very long, so we decided to go for it and as it turns out, it was AMAZING. I couldn't believe that they let me take pictures inside, but they did and I was a happy camper. I'll spare you all the shots, but here's a cool shot of the inside:

From Rome - 1 & 2

And of Michelangelo's Pieta:

From Rome - 1 & 2

We also sat in for a bit of Sunday service. After that, JC decided to pose with one of the guys from the Swiss Guard:

From Rome - 1 & 2

We went down to the crypt to visit John Paul II and St. Peter (no pictures inside the crypt though) and then climbed to the top of the basilica. The view up top was amazing:

From Rome - 1 & 2

Unfortunately, this if the only picture I got before it started pouring. For fear of my camera, I stopped taking pictures, but we waited it out and managed to get a few as it was nearly done raining:

From Rome - 1 & 2

From Rome - 1 & 2

At this point, we were starving, so we went off the beaten path and went to a less touristy area… we used our guidebook to find one of the most recommended pizza places in Rome and had a fantastic dinner:

From Rome - 1 & 2

After another stop for gelato at our favorite gelato place, we took some night pics and then headed back to our hotel:

From Rome - 1 & 2

24,325 steps (8.83 miles) later, we're done for the night. Tomorrow, we're going to try to hit the Colosseum and the archeological sites :)

Lauren & JC