When in Rome.

Now that my break is one week over (not halfway, not halfway until Saturday. Yes, I’m keeping track of every single day), and now that I have a bit of internet for once, I can add a few blogs to let y’all know what I’ve been up to for the past week. It’s been exciting! And will probably take a few different blogs.

So we (Sarah and I) started off our break on a night train to Rome. Didn’t want to waste any time by waiting until Saturday to travel! And we had a reservation, like we needed, so we get onto the train ready to grab our seats. Turns out we had reserved the wrong date.. It was confusing, ok? There were two dates since it was an overnight train. That’s our excuse. So we ended up trying to sleep on the floor by one of the doors. Which was just fine actually, had some room to spread out and it was pretty quiet, considering. Until like 3 a.m. when a huge group of Italians got on the train and decided the area we were in was the best part of the train to be in. Needless to say, we didn’t get much sleep after that. Especially since they stole all of our leg room. Some of the stereotypes about Italians, being loud and boisterous, are alas true.

Hall of maps inside the Vatican

But then we made it to Rome around 9 ready (somewhat) to start a sightseeing-packed day. Once we finally found our hostel and dropped our stuff off, we headed out to Vatican City. It was really really cool, in case you doubted it for some reason. We got hassled by about five different recruiters for tour guides before giving in and taking a tour. Bright side, we got to skip long lines and take a pretty personal tour, only five of us on it, and got more information than we would have otherwise. Downside, we paid a little extra and practically sprinted through the Vatican.. But if anyone wants to go visit, go with Discover Rome tours, we took them the next day for the Colosseum and they were GREAT and do a Vatican tour too. Even though we were rushed, we still got to see all the amazing things. Like the Sistine Chapel with it’s completely famous Michaelangelo paintings.

Altar in St. Peter's Basilica

Our tour ended in St. Peter’s Basilica where we had all the time we wanted to wander around. After studying the Reformation and Luther’s stance against this church, since it was the cause for all the indulgences, it was interesting to see what made those indulgences worth the scandal. Might not be worth the scandal, but the church was absolutely gorgeous. And full of history, obviously. And of course, outside the Vatican were all the colorfully, goofily (is that a word? It is now..) dressed Swiss guard.

If we had come back the next day at noon (Sunday) we could’ve seen the Pope! Which would’ve been awesome. But then again, there was so much more of Rome that we wanted to see, since we only had two days. Saturday night we saw the Pantheon and ate an Italian pasta dinner outside, then trekked to the Trevi fountain to see it at night and to the Colosseum to see it all lit up. Both were absolutely gorgeous.

Sarah and the Colosseum

So the first day was mostly our Vatican day, but Sunday was our ancient Roman history day. We started off with the Colosseum, which is where we found the Discover Rome tour which was great. We even learned that they probably didn’t throw the Christians to the lions, that that was only recorded way after the events. But the rest of the Colosseum was in no way a letdown.

After allowing us time to walk around the Colosseum ourselves, we met up with the tour group again for the second part, the Roman Forum. Which actually turned out to not be not through the Roman Forum, but rather through ancient palace ruins on top of the hill above the Roman Forum as well as information about the Forum. I had had no idea that all that cool stuff was there, I was just expecting a few columns and stuff from the Forum. Instead, we got to see the first “private entertainment system,” the emperor/king/whatever-he-was-called’s private battle arena. And Mussolini’s palace (which is now just a museum of artifacts, but still, the outside has his symbol and everything). And then we got to go out on our own to the Forum. And the Forum itself, like the courtyard, was just ruins of pillars, a few still standing. But surrounding it were old temples transformed into churches, and the first voting building, and practically the oldest street in the world. All of which fascinated me.

Roman Forum

Trevi fountain

After the tour, we got pasta again, saw the Trevi fountain again to make our wishes, and then headed to the Spanish steps. Which were kinda disappointing, not gonna lie. There were tons of people, like I expected, but they were literally just steps, no architecture or anything. But we can say we were there! Which is true of all of Rome now! Thing is, it never sank in while we were there that we were in Rome. It was very strange, because we had been looking forward to it for so long. And the pictures are amazing, and so we can look back on it and be amazed with ourselves for being there. Hopefully it’ll sink in soon! On the other hand, Venice was much better. So see the next blog for our adventures there!