Roma

Once we arrived in Rome at 9am we needed to find where our apartment was located.  We took one bus, which was correct but we had no idea what stop to get off at.  Rome’s bus system is not as good as Innsbruck and they do not tell you what stop they are stopping at.  We ended up asking an Italian woman and we had passed our stop by only 1 stop, which was good we asked at that time.  Then once we got to the street we needed to turn down we did not know which way to go.  This friendly lady stopped because she knew we were lost and asked if we needed help and she pointed us in the correct direction.  It was so nice knowing people were willing to help us.  We weren’t able to get into the apartment until almost 12, but we got breakfast and hung out at a bar below the apartment until we got the keys to the apartment.

We dropped off our stuff and then headed straight to the Vatican.  We got a cab there because we were not sure what bus to take and the cab was not that expensive.  In the end, though, we would have been able to walk from our apartment.  Right when we got out of the cab a man walked up to us asking if we wanted a tour of the Vatican.  At first, I was skeptical, but he was willing to give us a group discount and a student discount.  It ended up being 37 euro each for us to skip the line, have a guided tour, see the Sistine Chapel and St. Peter’s Basilica.  I was extremely happy for this because it was about 95 degrees outside and miserable.  The Sistine Chapel was amazing and breathtaking.  We were unable to take pictures inside and people were shhhhhhhing the entire time we were in there.  It was hard to take it all in at once; I could have stayed in there for hours.  After that we saw the Basilica and spent about an hour in there.  It was humungous and there was so much to see.  I took so many pictures inside it isn’t even funny.

After seeing the Vatican we went to get some lunch/dinner, which I called Linner.  We went to a real Italian restaurant and I finally got the Italian pizza I had been wanting.  It was an amazing meal!  We walked back to the apartment after that and saw a few more small sights.  We all chilled out for a bit and then we decided to go downstairs to that bar to get a few drinks.  We felt like we needed to give them our business since they were so nice for letting us use their Wi-Fi earlier that morning before they were even open.  We played cards and had a drink or two and then hit the hay pretty early because we were going to see the Colosseum right when it opened the next day at 8:30.

The Colosseum was amazing!  There were not as many people there because we got there right after it opened and it was not a weekend day, thank goodness.  Carly, Pella, Alex and I went there and Jess and Brittany went to get breakfast since they both had already been.  We spent about an hour in there trying to take it all in, but it doesn’t really hit you until later. 

After the Colosseum we went to catch the hop-on-hop-off bus we booked.  We wanted to use it as transportation around the city and we ended up doing the entire loop that took about 2 hours at first to see as much as we could.  We got off after the loop to get some lunch and then hopped back on to get to the Trevi Fountain.  We went to see the Fountain and then we headed back to our apartment to get ready for dinner and we wanted to rest before walking around at night.

We ate dinner at the bar downstairs from our apartment because their food looked amazing and it was decently priced.  After dinner we wanted to see Rome at night, so we went back to the Trevi Fountain and then went to see the Pantheon and the Spanish steps.  Walking around Rome at night was great!  We stumbled upon a market near the Tiber River right near our apartment in the Trastevere area.  I was in love with Rome and do want to return to see much more than the tourist sites.

The next day was our last day in Rome and we met up with our friend Stanley we met at MCI who goes to school in Canada.  We needed to say our goodbye’s to him because we would not be seeing him back in Innsbruck as he was traveling around Europe.  It was so sad to say goodbye to him, but we had a nice lunch and a great goodbye.  We went back to the apartment to pack our things after lunch and then we got a taxi to the airport to take off to Athens, Greece.

More to come on Greece!! J