AnnaInEurope.com

Hello from Luxembourg!

On the schedule today: Rome, Italy. Possibly my favorite city we have visited thus far in our European travels.

We were there for 3 nights, and 2 full days. I barely put my camera down the entire time-everything I looked at I wanted to snap a shot. The architecture in Rome is just unreal!

Our first night we had that AMAZING dinner at Peroni, the place I told you about in “Roman Deliciousness.” We checked out the Trevi Fountain after, and had some AMAZING Nutella gelato after. Yum.

The next day, our tour of the city began on a walk to the Colosseum.

I gotta say, it was pretty amazing. We decided not to take a tour of the inside due to the 3 hour line, and we wanted to cover as much as possible that day.

We then head over to the Palace/Ancient Rome Area. We got solicited by an English-speaking man named Brent who offered to give us an hour tour for 20 bucks. Well, 20 euro (I keep being reminded that it is not the same thing)!

Anyways, we took up his offer, and I think we were all glad we did.

 

I couldn’t tell you everything about these pictures now, but I do know what Brent was telling us was beyond fascinating. The tour was well worth it, so good, in fact, we decided to sign up with him for the tour of the Vatican.

We were finished with the tour about 3 p.m., and we were all starving and sweating (HOT 80 degree weather the entire trip in Rome).  We asked Brent for a recommendation for an authentic low-key kind of place.

Brent’s recommendation was right on point, this pasta was the best I had the entire trip.

Delicious.

After our late lunch, we hit the streets again.

We started to slow down our pace and take in some of the local sight-seeing. Somehow, we even ended up doing some clothes shopping (even the boys)!

We made it back to the hotel early evening and started to get ready for dinner. That night, it was Rob and Lauren’s 2nd Wedding Anniversary, so Dan and I gave them some alone time.

Rob and Dan both took the advice of Rick Steves, and again, we had another fabulous Italian meal.

The next day, our final “full” day, we were up early to take the hour walk to the Vatican for our guided tour.

On the way, we stopped at the Pantheon.

And the Castle Sant’Angelo

And then finally, after a much longer and hotter walk than expected, the Vatican was in sight. It actually gave me goosebumps seeing it for the first time- it was pretty surreal.

We barely made it to our meeting point for the tour, and within minutes, we were entering “Vatican City” through this entrance.

And once we entered, holy moly was it crowded, and HUMID. You weren’t allowed to enter without your shoulders and knees covered (even for men), so needless to say, our long sleeves were not helping keep us cool.

After about 30 minutes of the group leader organizing and getting us ready for the tour, we were finally ready to start. He told us that in a long tour, we would walk about 8 miles, but thankfully for us, we were only taking the 4 mile, 3 1/2 hour tour. Lauren and I were a bit concerned that we would even make it that far without air conditioning( maybe we were a little dramatic).

I will let the pictures do the talking from here.

And…here is where my camera died.

Yep, I was pretty upset- guess I should have taken it easy with the 500 other pictures I already took. Or, check the battery before we left. No place to learn a hard lesson than in THE VATICAN.

Anyways, at least I have memories of the 3 hours following these pictures, I am just bummed I can’t share them with you! The experience of walking through the Vatican and Vatican City for the day is simply unforgettable. There is SO much history and art, it is hard to process it all.

Our tour guide was great, and made it very interesting for the group. He obviously could only show us a portion of what there is to see, but just that was incredible. Probably my biggest goose-bump moment (and there was more than one) was standing in the Sistine Chapel, just frozen with amazement of Michealangelo’s work.

The Vatican ,and Rome in general, was an experience I will never forget. If you ever have the opportunity to go, don’t turn it down. I hope that we will be able to make another trip there, but if not, I am so grateful I have gotten the chance to be there for those couple of days.

Have a great Monday! Until next time!