Well, unfortunately, Aaron is feeling a little under the weather, so I'm typing this in a darkened B&B in Venice somewhere. (And "somewhere" is really the best way to describe where this B&B is, but more on that later.)
I'm here to talk to you about ROME!
Rome is a pretty cool place. It's pretty saturated with tourists (making it very difficult to find a non-tourist restaurant) but it's a modern city with pockets of ruins throughout. So you get off the bus stop next to some ruins. You walk down the street and end up in front of the Pantheon, stuff like that.
We stayed at this both cute and well-hidden hotel called Domus Ester that also had very old ceilings. Here is Aaron:
This hotel is also near Area Scarpa Di Largo Argentina, which, it turns out, was discovered to be the site where Caesar was killed. And archaeologists discovered this literally two weeks ago! What we were told was that it has been documented that as Caesar fell, he knocked over a specific statue and archaeologists found this statue at this site. It was seriously amazing to see, but I think what Aaron liked best were all the cats in the area. He took many pictures:
Kitten!
Another kitten!
More kittens!
Apparently, the city rounds up all the stray cats, spays or neuters them, and then puts them here. Then, to keep them at this site, they feed them daily. This makes Aaron most happy and he has decided that Rome is his most favorite of all cities for ever and ever.
Then, we had lunch at an off-the-beaten-path restaurant called Fontana di Venere, which was still touristy but also delicious. We split 1/2 liter of wine (a trend while in Italy) and some pasta dishes.
Then, we set off to see the Colosseum.. This was another instance of walking down the street, turning our heads and--Boom! There it is! We grabbed some gelato and headed toward it while some street performer played the Godfather theme song on his accordion. (I kid you not!) It was awesome.
Then we found a tour and went inside and some nice guy even offered to take our picture!
The next day, as the alarm went off in the room next to ours, we learned that the walls are very thin. VERY THIN. However, this prevented us from sleeping in too long, which was good. We looked at the weather report and it looked like this:
But it actually was more like this:
So, we went shopping and stumbled upon the Pantheon!
Finding it went like this:
Aaron: Hey! Look at that old building!
Katie: That building looks familiar...(turns her head to the left to see the barrel part of the structure)...because it is the Pantheon.
Here's what it looks like on the inside:
It's an amazing, perfect building. I will spare you the nerdy architecture stuff, but take it from me, it's perfect! Also, Raphael is buried there. (We found out too that he was quite the ladies' man, which can help you guess how he died. Yup. He had the Syphilis.)
On the way to Piazza Navona afterwards, we stumbled upon this little Leonardo DaVinci exhibit. What it looked like to us was that they had some of his original drawings and inventions. (Cool!) Instead, it turned out that some people had built some of DaVinci's inventions, but there were no original drawings, no original ANYTHING, actually. However, you could play with these inventions, so Aaron had a good time.
We saw the Fountain of the Four Rivers in Piazza Navona, created by Bernini. Look at this dude, cowering against the giant church built by his rival! Some people say he was trying to make a point about his rival's building abilities. Others say that since the fountain was built years before the church, Bernini would not have known that a church would ever be there. I prefer the fun story. (The guy's going, "Nooo! Don't fall on me!")
We threw coins in Trevi Fountain so we will return to Rome:
And saw the Spanish Steps:
The next day, we went to Vatican City. We first went into St. Peter's Basilica, and although the line to get in went around the square, we were only in line for 20 minutes!
We made it inside and saw Michaelangelo's Pieta (aka the most beautiful sculpture of all time):
We also went to the Vatican Museum, and saw Raphael's School of Athens:
We also saw the Sistine Chapel (no pictures allowed).
By this time we were hungry and I had found a place that was supposed to have good pizza so we walked...
and walked...
and walked...
across a highway...
and next to a highway...
and up a hill....
and up another hill...
until we found it! And it was delicious because by this point we were starving, but we don't think it would have been as delicious if we were not starving. But, we did try suppli while we were there, and I'm pretty confident that suppli is delicious starving or not starving. Imagine a mozzarella stick with rice and tomato sauce inside as well. I'm figuring out how to make this when I get home.
After all that walking, we were exhausted and I needed a nap. So we did that and then went SHOPPING! Aaron is very excited because for some reason, stores carry his size pants in Europe. (Yay pants!)
The next day, we went to the Roman Forum.
And saw Caesar's "tomb" (he was cremated, but people still leave flowers here for him).
It was cold and wet!
Yup, you've seen that picture before. When it's cold and wet, we take out our cameras less, so this is the only documentation of the weather. I'm so cold here!
We didn't get as much time in the Forum as we would have liked because we had to catch a train to FLORENCE!
Two notes about Rome before I go:
1. If you tour the Roman Forum, get an actual guide. The audio guide is difficult to follow. The speaker often said things like "Look to the left of the column at the ruins. Now look to the right of the column at the wall behind the ruins." I'm not so good with my lefts and rights, but if the second thing I am looking at is behind the first thing I looked at, they probably are not on opposite sides of the column. (I hope that made sense!)
2. Ignore Trip Advisor's restaurant recommendations! They only list touristy restaurants and we had much better luck when we went off on our own and popped in somewhere.
Florence is next!
Happy birthday, Aaron!!!
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