European Journey Part 2- Rome

Audrey left yesterday afternoon and arrived home safely late last night (this morning Copenhagen time). I can only imagine how much sleeping she will do today. Esben is gone with the National Team, so I have the place to myself. I have a ton of laundry I need to do, as well as clean my dirty room. I'm slowly getting that done.
Now, on the the fun vacation part...........

We took an early flight out of Krakow to get to Rome nice and early. Esben has told me about the flights where people clap when the plain lands. I really thought he was joking, but when we touched down in Rome, the Wizz Air flight cheered as if the home team scored a touchdown. It was pretty weird. I'm pretty excited when we land safely too, but the pilot is doing his job. It kind of reminded me of the commercial where Peyton Manning went around and cheered random job people. It was like maybe 8am when we got to the airport and since we only had carry on luggage, we walked right out and waited for the shuttle bus to get us to a Metro Line. It took us about 2 hours from the time we landed to the time we got to our B&B near Vatican City. We did a much better job this time of finding our place and were greeted with a wonderful buongiorno from an elderly couple that was in the building. We made our way up to the 6th floor and met Lourdes, our keeper for the week.

After getting stuff dropped off, we headed in to Rome in order to check out the National Museum and the Baths of Diocletian before heading to Termini (the main train station) to maybe get some help on our Rome-Munich train tickets that had not arrived before our journey.

Discus Thrower Statue

The Museum is literally across the street and on a corner from the station, but of course we missed it. We ended up walking way up to a park near the Villa Borghese through a beautiful park. We stopped for a bit at a fountain and stuck our feet in as most of the people were doing to cool off on the incredibly hot day. From there, we got to the Modern Art Museum and realized that was not the National Museum. The whole time we were looking at the wrong place on our Rome map. Oh well, we got to see a nice park. From there we walked back through the Piazza del Popolo to the Spanish Steps and got on the Metro back to Termini. We located the Museum much easier this time and strolled around. It was a super neat place with a lot of cool statues and busts of the famous. From there, we went to Termini and waited in line to get help. We needed to book new tickets and then we would get a refund for them. Unfortunately, our train was booked, so we could not do that. We returned to our room, and I called the Bahn website I ordered from. This guy was very helpful telling me the could not resend them since they were sent by mail and they have a money value, all things I already knew. He put me in contact with the City Night Line, who operates the train, but I would have to call in the morning. Since I had a reservation and the confirmation with me, we should be okay.

Monday morning came and we ate our breakfast and had some coffee with Lourdes before I phones the City Night Line. I talked to Sandra who was beyond helpful and told me to forward the confirmation e-mail and she would get it to the hands of the staff on the train and if we are unable to get a new ticket printed, we should be fine with the confirmation. we immediately zipped to an internet point and did that. From there, we did what I was most excited about--the Ruins! We went to the Colosseum, the Roman Forum, and Palatine

Inside the Colosseum

Hill. It was so freaking cool. You walk right out of the Metro station to the entrance to the Colosseum. It was unbelievable to think you are standing in something people stood in and cheered in 2000 years ago. I truly loved it and thought it was the coolest thing ever. Right across the road is the Roman Forum and Palatine Hill.  The Roman Forum was basically the town center of ancient Rome, where the Senate used to be housed. It is basically just a ton of ruins and some cool arches from thousands of years ago. The stuff is all hard to describe and I cannot remember what each little thing was without looking it up, but I was just fascinated by it. From there we

walked up to Palatine Hill. There, we got to see the spot where the throne would have been, and the huts of Romulus, again, more just super old stuff. I loved that day so much. My camera died that day and I didn't bring my charger because I just assumed that since Audrey and I both had the same brand of cameras, her charger would work, but I was way wrong. I'm happy I was able to get some good pictures of all that stuff though.

Tuesday, we just kind of wandered Rome and saw all sorts of stuff, since we would use Wednesday in Vatican City. We got to see the Castel Saint Angelo, the Trevi Fountain and the Pantheon, as well as the Piazza Navona and the Spanish Steps again. The Pantheon is freaking awesome because its an architectural marvel from 2000 years ago, since the height of the dome and the diameter are

Outside the Panteon

equal, making it a huge sphere. The only light is from the huge hole in the top of the dome. It has lasted forever and it sits lower than street level, which shows how much the city streets have risen the past 2000 years. Tuesday night we went back into Rome and got a pretty nice dinner. I was wearing my Gold Diggers polo and was asked by our waiter if I played rugby and then asked if I was a professional American Football player. I felt so cool, but couldn't lie. From there, we walked across the street and got gelato, and I got "recognized" again, as I was asked if I am a professional. Audrey hated that so much, mainly because it made me feel like I'm important.

At Dinner

Wednesday we went to Vatican City and peeped the Vatican Museum and Saint Peter's Basilica. We got the museum around 1:30 I guess, and there was zero line. If you show up at like 9 am, it's SUPER packed because all the tour groups are there. It was a neat place to walk around, and you could spend so much time there, but the tour groups make it rather difficult and borderline unbearable. They all herd up and take pictures on the same thing at the same time and you have to weave around all of them. We basically zoomed through a really neat hallway, just so we could pass some groups to get to the Sistine Chapel before them. Before that, I made us take a detour to see Raphael's The School of Athens painting. It is fantastic. In our guide book, we read that Raphael was working on his

paintings at the Vatican the same time Michaelangelo was working on the Sistine Chapel. Raphael took a break to see what Michaelangelo was up to, and when we saw the Chapel, he was basically like damn, the stuff I'm doing looks like finger painting, so he beefed up his work and added Michaelangelo to his painting. We got to the Sistine Chapel and sat there for at least 30 minutes taking everything in. Wow, it was amazing. From there, we waited in line to climb the 550 step to the top of the dome of St. Peter's Basilica. It was a bit daunting as the path winded and got extremely skinny, and Audrey had a mini claustrophobia attack. We got up there and spent 5 minutes outside and immediately went back down. Inside, St. Peter's is HUGE, but it really doesn't feel like it. It was designed to minimize how large it felt. We caught an evening mass in Latin in the Basilica and headed home to pack for Thursday.

We got to see a lot of the cool stuff in Rome, and it was a really great time and cool city. I'm sure I'm forgetting something, but we took in so much. I'll get in to our last morning in Rome and our remaining day in Italy in my next post!