Rome!

I've finally got a chance to write about rome, so here is my take on it for those who prefer paragraphs and no ellipses.

I would have to say rome is my favorite city we have visited so far. It's an amazing mix of ancient, old and modern. We stayed right by the Colosseum, as Jim already talked about, which seems like it was dropped into the middle of a modern city. The drive in was crazy, but we managed to get to the place with no wrong turns thanks to our awesome navigator, and a little help from the GPS.

The first day Trillion and I got up early and took the incredibly busy subway to Vatican city. We had bought tickets ahead of time to the museum (which is supposedly one of the best collections in the world) and that allowed us to skip the line which spanned two city blocks. There were tons of statues of everything from animals to emperors. The coolest part was the map room. It was a huge room with big maps all along the wall. Here I am gazing at one of the many maps.

The museum ended with the Sistine chapel, which was packed with tour groups. We exited through the tour group exit that took us out by the entrance to the cupolo, which is the gigantic dome on top of st. Peter's basilica. There were over 500 stairs to climb, but it was definitely worth it as we got the most spectacular view of the city.

Walking down left us inside the basilica. I wish i had a picture that showed how big it was, but there's just no way to capture it in a photograph. We did the Vatican in less than 3 hours! leaving us plenty of time to see more of the city. After meeting up with everyone else, we walked to the Borghese gardens, kind of like the central park of Rome, except on a big hill. One the way was one of the best meals of the trip. I got a rigatoni carbonara, but trillion's pasta pesto was the best. And the portions were so big that I couldn't finish everything even though i wanted to. At the park we rented big pedal carts. It was really fun to ride them all around, and it makes for a funny picture.

The next day was the Colosseum and Roman forum. They are really old, and it's weird to think this was once home to the most powerful civilization in the world. The Colosseum was very impressive, but the forum was mostly fallen or taken apart. On our last day trillion and I went to the ruins of the nearby port of ostia antica, which was much better preserved and really neat.

In the evening we spent a lot of time at piazza Navona and the Trevi fountain. Piazza Navona is a huge square (though actually a rectangle) full of fountains, artists, and street performers. There are also tons of great looking restaurants just to the west, we ate at a couple. The Trevi fountain is weird because it is right up against a building. It was always packed. Also in that area is Pantheon, which is one of the best preserved roman buildings, mostly because it was converted to a church. It is so strange to come around the corner and right in the middle of the city is this ancient building.

We did much more in Rome, but there just isn't time to cover it all. We saw more churches, museums, piazzas, and all kinds of great food. The best was Navona Notte. The four cheese gnocchi was delicious, as was the pasta alla vodka. They also had the best chocolate mousse I have ever had. Trillion even liked it better than the tiramisu.

Time to say goodbye to Rome, until next time, that is.