Rome (Day 3)

Day 3 in Rome was dedicated to the Vatican City!

After waking up, we ate breakfast in the hotel again before heading over to the "Termina." We took the subway to Vatican City. With our Roma passes, we received free public transportation in Rome for 3 days. The subway was PACKED! We held tight to our bags, as we know that tourists are targeted for theft on the subway.

Once again, upon arriving at the Vatican City, we booked a tour with a tour company. Our tour was to begin at 12pm so that we'd have the morning to attend the Pope's blessing. Additionally, when the Pope visits, St. Peter's Basilica is not open until later in the day.

Once receiving our tour tickets, we walked over to St. Peter's Square. We had heard you need tickets to attend the Pope's blessing, but that was not true. Those with tickets were let in early. We arrived after all the ticket holders had entered, so we were able to walk right in. We arrived around 9:15am, so we had to wait a bit for the Pope to arrive. Had we known, we would have tried to get closer to the gates that were present throughout the Square as the Pope traveled around the Square in his "Pope Mobile." We actually couldn't see the gates with all the people, so we did not know they were there until later in the day once the Square had emptied. We thought the Pope would arrive around 11am, but he actually arrived at 10am. He toured around the Square before giving his blessing over the people. We stayed until the English portion of the blessing. Then, we left to grab a quick lunch before our tour of the Vatican museums.

We ate lunch at a little tent area right outside Vatican City. Prior to lunch, we walked the streets right outside the walls where I was able to find a beautiful rosary for my grandma.

At noon, we met up with our tour group to tour the Vatican museums and the Sistine Chapel. Both were beautiful. You cannot take pictures in the Sistine Chapel, and we were told there has been some conversations about closing it or limiting days during the week in which it is open. An average of 20,000 people pass through the chapel each day.

We toured St. Peter's Basilica on our own. It was spectacular. We also walked through the grottos beneath the chapel where many saints are buried.

Once exiting St. Peter's Basilica, we spent some more time in St. Peter's Square. We took some pictures of the magnificent space and of the Vatican City guards.

Once we were finished with our tours, we walked to Old Bridge for gelato. It was recommended to us, and it was very good!

We once again took the subway back towards our hotel and stopped at the Spanish Steps to admire the history there.

We topped off the night with dinner at Ristorante Pizzeria Colonne. We LOVED this restaurant! It was one of our favorites during the trip and most definitely our favorite in Rome.

St. Peter's Square

The Pope's "stage."

We were among that mass of people on the screen!

It was very difficult to get a picture of Pope Francis.

Blessing God's people

One more picture before leaving the blessing

The streets around Vatican City

Lunch time

The Vatican City walls are massive!

Look at that hansom man modeling his headphones before the tour.

Between the Vatican museums

Gorgeous courtyard within the Vatican City

Within the same courtyard

Amazing artwork

The hubs checking out the huge basin

The artwork on the ceilings just amazed me.

The doors of St. Peter's Basilica

Amazingly gorgeous interior.

Touching St. Peter's foot as pilgrims have done for centuries before me

Heading down into the grottos

Vatican City guards

St. Peter's Basilica from St. Peter's Square

Gelato shop

Spanish Steps

Standing on the Spanish Steps towards the top

Our delicious dinner location

Rome (Day 2)

To start our second day off in Rome, we ate breakfast at the hotel... the hotel provided a DELICIOUS breakfast!

We walked to towards the train station to purchase the Roma Pass. The Roma Pass gave us free entry to two of the big tourist locations and free public transportation within Rome for three days (does not include travel to/from the airport). 

Once we picked up our Roma Passes, we walked to the Colosseum. It was about a half hour walk from our hotel. We used the Roma Pass for our entry into the Colosseum and Palatino/Roman Forum. Upon arriving, we also booked a tour of the Colosseum from tour guides outside of the area. We paid 13 Euro per person for the tour (on top of entry, which as I said, we used our Roma Pass for). We thought it was very worth the price we paid! We received a tour of the Colosseum and the Palatino. It's very difficult to decipher what you're looking at without a tour guide. Once our tour was over, we spent about another hour walking around the Roman Forum by ourselves. Our Italy book helped guide us once the official tour was over.

Around lunch time, we headed over the picturesque II Vittoriano and ate lunch across the street. Once we finished our lunch of sandwiches and wine, we walked over to the II Vittoriano to check it out. At the beautiful building, Italy has it's own changing of the guard ceremony. It is free to enter the building, so we went in to check it out and to see the beautiful views of Rome from the building. It costs money to take the elevator to the top, so we opted not to go all the way to the roof of the building. I am sure it's a beautiful sight to see!

After quickly touring the II Vittoriano, we headed over to the Capitoline Museum, the world's oldest national museum founded in 1471. There were beautiful pieces on display at the museum!

Once again, we took a late afternoon nap and then ate dinner at La Vecchia Roma. At dinner time, we wandered the streets around our hotel for awhile until we found a restaurant we wanted to eat at. We really enjoyed the ambiance of this restaurant! Of course, we finished off the day with gelato.

The day was a bit chillier than others. It also rained much of the morning. It created much smaller crowds, which was actually kind of nice!

Our first view of the Colosseum

It's pretty amazing!

Inside the Colosseum

Had to get a picture of Patrick in the Colosseum

What was underneath the "stage floor"

"Spectating"

Back outside the Colosseum, waiting for our tour of Palatine Hill (Palatino) to begin

Had to get a picture of the two of us together

Some of the emperor's ruins on Palatine Hill

More of the Emperor's ruins

On top of the hill, overlooking the Roman Forum

On top of Palatine Hill, overlooking some of Rome

The botanical gardens on the hill

Beautiful flowers

Patrick, taking a walking break, overlooking the city

Ruins within the Roman Forum

The ruins were incredible

Beautiful

Rome is still slowly digging up the ruins

Lunch time!

Awesome view

II Vittoriano 

A nice family took our picture

On the stairs of the II Vittoriano 

Changing of the Guard

Overlooking Rome from the II Vittoriano 

Statue within the II Vittoriano... It looked like he wanted a kiss

Capitoline Museum

Capitoline Museum

Dinner time!

We really liked this restaurant

Gelato!

ITALY - Rome (Day 1)

Alright, so I've received a few requests to blog about our Italy adventures, so I thought I'd whip back out the old blog address.

We recently took a trip to Italy. We left on Sunday May 11 from Minneapolis, returned two weeks later on Sunday, May 25. We booked our first three nights in Rome along with our round trip flights. Other than that, we booked our hotel nights as we went along. It gave us flexibility in the amount time we wanted to spend in each city and when we wanted to travel.

We arrived in Rome around 9:30am on Monday morning. We took a bus from the airport to the train terminal and then walked to the hotel, where we checked in. We thought we would take the train once we arrived at the airport, but upon arriving, we found it was much cheaper to ride the bus to the terminal. We paid about 5 Euro each for the bus vs. about 15 Euro each for the train. It was about a 50 minute bus ride vs. a 1/2 hour train ride. For our nights in Rome, we stayed at Hotel Massimo D'azeglio. It was a great hotel in a fabulous location. It was near the train terminal, and the walk to the Colosseum, Roman Forum, Palatino, Capitoline Museums, and the Trevi Fountain was more than manageable!

After checking out our hotel room (which I really liked - very "Italian"), we walked over to Pizza da Michele, a restaurant we read about in our book. We had slices of pizza. They were pretty good. The recommended restaurant definitely didn't make our top list though.

Side note: We would have been so lost without or travel book! We borrowed a Lonely Planet Italy travel book from one of Patrick's coworkers. The book has maps, travel tips, sight seeing advice, great restaurants, etc.

After eating, we made the quick walk to the Trevi Fountain. It was a gorgeously sunny day, and the fountain is beautiful! We took some pictures, both threw our coins in the fountain, and then purchased some gelato from a nearby restaurant. We enjoyed the fountain from some steps while eating our gelato.

Before heading back to the hotel, we did a walking tour, following the map in our Italy travel book. The tour stops included:

• Largo di Torre Argentina, a busy square set around the ruins of 4 Republic-era temples and the site of Julius Caesar's assassination in 44 BC
• Elefantino
• Chiesa di Santa Maria Sopra Minerva, Rome's only Gothic church
• Pantheon, ancient Rome's best-preserved monument and the largest unreinforced concrete dome ever built, now a church
• Piazza Navona, central Rome's showpiece square

At 4:30pm we headed back to the hotel after our walking tour to take a quick nap. Around 7pm, we walked around near our hotel to find a restaurant to have dinner. We ate at Restorante Pizzaria Tudini Galoriele and Tomoko. Both Patrick and I ate pizza and had some wine outside along the street. The restaurant had very cute tables and umbrellas outside of the restaurant. 

After dinner, we both got gelato - you will sense a theme on our trip, lots of pizza, pasta, wine, and gelato. The food and wine was SO GOOD!!!!

Our first meal in Italy... Pizza da Michele

Trevi Fountain 

Enjoying gelato at the Trevi Fountain

Trevi Fountain

Largo di Torre Argentina

Elefantino

Chiesa di Santa Maria

Inside Chiesa di Santa Maria

Outside the Pantheon (on the back side)

Pantheon

The dome of the Pantheon from the inside

Inside the Pantheon

At Piazza Navona

Dinner at Restorante Pizzaria Tudini Galoriele and Tomoko

Our hotel in Rome

Enjoying gelato in the lobby of our hotel to finish off our first night

Videos

Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming

Lower Falls at the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone Wyoming

Falls in Glacier NP Montana

Virginia Falls in Glacier NP Montana

Running Eagle Falls in Glacier NP Montana

Sol Duc Falls at Olympic NP Washington



Extreme northwest of Washington

Deer in Olympic NP Washington

Watchman Tower at Crater Lake NP in Oregon

Down on Crater Lake

The ocean at Redwood NP in California

Tall Trees Trail in Redwood NP California

Seals at Pier 39 in San Francisco

On the boat tour in San Francisco

Our bike ride across the Golden Gate Bridge

Vernal Falls at Yosemite NP in California

The top of Nevada Falls at Yosemite NP

Silly monkey at the San Diego Zoo

The Bellagio Fountain Water Show in Las Vegas

The light show on Fremont Street in Las Vegas

Angels Landing in Zion NP Utah

Hidden Canyon in Zion NP Utah

Grand Canyon NP in Arizona

White Sands National Monument

Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico