April 1, 2010
DAY 2 Rome, Italy
Today was a day of exploring. First, we had breakfast at our hotel in the cutest breakfast nook. It had views of the mountains. It was awesome. Then we were off. Our challenge was getting into Rome from Monterotondo which ended up not being as much difficult as long. It took us about 1.5 hours to get into town, but once there we went straight to the Colosseum. It was incredible. One thing that is really amazing is that it is in the middle of Rome among all the streets and chaos. The amount of tourists was incredible and even more amazing was the amount of people who spoke English with a Canadian/American accent (tour guides included!) We went inside the Colosseum and lucky for us we had purchased Roma Passes which allowed us to bud a ridiculous amount of people and pretty much walk right in! It was awesome. The Colosseum was incredible and I can only imagine what it looked like so many years ago. After taking it all in, we grabbed a snack (panini and pizza with Trevor commenting "It's like the Italian market") and then we headed into the Palatino where we walked amongst a bunch of ruins which were really cool, though it reminded me a little bit of Egypt, in the sense that there were parts of columns lying all over and no one cared if you sat on them or touched them. They're a little more careful about preserving the artifacts, but not all of them. It was a beautiful day. The sun was out and the weather was warm. It was prefect weather for a walk. Palatino's ruins were not your typical Roman ruins. It just looked like brick buildings and walls that had been damaged. After walking around Palatino, we headed to the Roman Forum. This was more like what you would imagine Roman ruins to look like. Some of the typical columns were still standing. After a lot of walking and picture taking (even though my camera was being fussy) we decided to head for the Pantheon. Since mass was in progress we headed to the Trevi fountain to toss our coins in. This is an amazing fountain! It was huge! It is said if you toss a coin over your shoulder into the fountain, it will ensure your return to Rome. Figuring we still had time before mass ended we went to buy gelati at a place recommended by a girl on the internet who said it was the best gelati, San Crispino. It was pretty amazing and very much a Cold Stone/Marble Slab type place with incredible selection. I got chocolate meringue and honey and Trevor got lemon and banana cream. It was awesome! Then it was back to the Pantheon, a church that has an incredible ceiling. It is dome shaped with a hole/skylight in the centre. Pretty amazing. After this incredible day it was time to eat and we chose a restaurant in the square and were entertained the entire time by a clown, a live band and an opera singer. It was great. Unfortunately I didn't like the food much at this restaurant (and it was way too expensive), but no big deal. Better luck next time. We headed back to Monterotondo, and though we thought we were going to be in trouble with the buses and train, we lucked out and made it home safe and sound. I wonder what adventures await us tomorrow!
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