Rome (Roma) was amazing! You could stay a week in Rome and still not be able to see everything. However, we did hit the highlights in two days.
But before I jump into all of that, I don't think you quite appreciate how much walking we've done up to this point. My feet were literally bleeding because of how much we had traveled. It was getting hard to notice anything on our tours because every step led to excruciating pain. So my first order of business was to find new shoes with better padding. I bought a sweet pair of Zebra print shoes from a street vendor for about $6 American money. Then, I went and bought a $23 set of Dr. Scholl's inserts for my sweet, new shoes. Then, I went to a pharmacy and bought bandages and cushions for my bleeding calluses (I won't post these pictures, I promise). After all of this, it feels like I'm walking on clouds; pretty sure I almost started crying from the relief.
Our first order of business was to see the Vatican after we checked into our hostel. Since it was a Sunday, we figured there would be somewhat of a larger crowd than normal. We got to Vatican City pretty early for this reason, but had no clue what we were about to experience. Neither Chadly nor myself are practicing or familiar with the Catholic religion, so you can only imagine our shock when we arrived at the Vatican to find out that coincidentally we chose to tour the Vatican during the Pentecost Festival. I'm not talking about, "Oh, it's Easter Sunday so we should go to church." kind of crowd; I'm talking, "Holy Crap, U2 is playing a free concert!" kind of crowd. I could go on and on about the festival but regardless, we got blessed by the Pope (who is pretty much a rockstar), toured the Vatican, and saw the grave of Pope John Paul II.
On the second day, we went to see all of the buildings and monuments of Rome. This included the Colosseum, Pantheon, Trevi Fountain and Sistine Chapel. One of the smartest things we did this entire trip was make a reservation to see the Colosseum; this saved us at least 5 hours of waiting in line. We also didn't have to wait in line to see the Sistine Chapel because we arrived right before they were about to close (remember that if you visit Rome, and remember you can't tour the Sistine Chapel on a Sunday). We pretty much ran through the entire Vatican Museum just to get to the chapel before they closed. This was another "No Photo!!" monument, so naturally...
The last night we went out with some people that were in the room next to ours; I think they were from Michigan. One of the things that we wanted to do on this trip was go to a European rave. Between the both of us, we only had one glow stick to share, so we weren't very prepared. However, we ended up at a 5 story club full of fellow ravers; loads of glow sticks and techno music. I don't really know what we expected, but we can now say we've been to a European rave. It’s like they say, "When in Rome, do as the Romans do!"
I would love to go back to Rome some day when I had more time to see everything. There is so much history, monuments, and art that you really need longer than two days to appreciate everything.
Three coins in the fountain worked for me. I got married four months after tossing my coins in!
ReplyDeleteI can only imagine your feet. I know what they look like under normal circumstances.