When in Rome...do as the Romans do

We made it safely to Rome Friday night, just in time to get settled into our hotel and take a quick walk around to find some good Roman food for dinner.   After wandering around for a bit, we came across a hoppin' pizzeria.  We walked in and were greeted by the busily bustling hosts and sat down at a table close to the door.  I won't go on and on about this meal, but it was pretty tasty!  I had a pizza with eggplant (sounds good, doesn't it Jack and Gavin?) but I also got to try Becky's spaghetti carbonara (an egg pasta with pancetta), her dad's prosciutto and mushroom pizza and her mom's pasta as well.  Needless to say we all slept well that night.

The next morning, Becky took the train to the airport to pick up her sister, Katie.  Katie was going to join us on our Italian road trip for a week during her spring break.  While we were waiting for their return, Becky's dad, Justin and I took a walk around Rome and stumbled across a lot of Roman ruins.

We also accidentally stumbled upon the Colosseum (we were supposed to save this for the following day - oops!).  Boy, were we surprised when we made that left turn and were greeted with this view:

Katie's flight was a few hours late, so it was early afternoon when we finally got everyone together and headed out for the official Rome tour.  By that time, we were ready for some lunch and gelato!  Gelato is Italian ice cream.  It tastes similar to the ice cream you have at home, except it comes in tons of flavors (like lemon, Nutella, pistachio, cherry, dark chocolate, white chocolate, banana, chocolate orange, kiwi, raspberry, white chocolate mousse, coffee, hazelnut...sorry, I'm getting a little caught up in the gelato excitement!).  I wanted to try all of them, but I think I eventually settled on having just a little taste of everyone else's.  Becky let me share some of her hazelnut gelato and it was delicious!

We ate our gelato while sitting along the Trevi Fountain, one of the largest fountains in all of Rome!  A popular tradition for everyone who visits the Trevi Fountain is to throw a coin into the pool.  Doing so will ensure that you will some day return to Rome - but you have to throw the coin over your shoulder!  Otherwise, you're just making a donation to the fountain cleaners.  Here is a small part of the fountain:

Our stomachs full of gelato, we made our way toward Vatican City.  The name "Vatican City" is actually a little misleading because it is actually a country.  That's right, it's a country inside of a city!  Vatican City is the smallest country in the world and is home to the Catholic pope as well as St. Peter's Basilica and the Sistine Chapel.  Here is a picture of the inside of St. Peter's:

As a tourist, the city is basically one big museum.  We walked through St. Peter's and saw the Sistine Chapel (which is home to one of the most famous and widely-recognized paintings in the Western world, "The Creation of Adam".  We weren't able to take pictures in the Sistine chapel, but you can learn about this famous painting at Wikipedia).  I did, however, manage to get this picture of one of the hallways in the museum.  The ceilings were very intricately painted, as you can see if you look closely.  It must have taken a lot of people a long time just to decorate this place!

Dusk was closing in as we left Vatican City so we decided to make our way back to the Colosseum so we could see it at night.  The long walk was well worth it to get a view like this, wouldn't you say?

The following day, we all went down to see the Colosseum during the day.  This place is huuuuuuge!  It was originally built for gladiator fights and sea battle shows (they actually flooded the place so they could have real boats float around in there!).  About 50,000 ancient Romans would pack this place to see these events.  What's even more impressive is that this enormous building was built almost 2,000 years ago!  Just to give you a little perspective, the United States has only officially existed as a free country for a little over 200 years!  Here is a picture of Justin and I inside the Colosseum.

Surrounding the Colosseum are the ruins of an active city center.  The ancient Romans had their markets and governmental buildings in this area.  All that's left today are the old pillars and deteriorating walls of these once remarkable buildings.

The sun had begun to set by the time we finished walking around the ruins, so we had to cram ourselves into the tiny car again (this time with 5 people) and make the drive home to Siena.

What an adventure this was to see some the same buildings (or ruins of the buildings) where the ancient Romans lived, worked and ate.  It's hard to imagine all of these old structures surviving so long.  I wonder how it will look in another 2,000 years?  Will people in the year 4010 still be visiting the Colosseum and Sistine Chapel by the millions every year?  I sure hope so because it would be very tragic indeed to lose these historic artifacts.

Well, enough about Italy already, right?  Next marker on the map puts us in another country altogether - France!  So until then, this is Flat Stanley saying, "Ciao Amici!"