I have always wanted to go to Rome. It has been on the top
of my list ever since my tenth grade history teacher showed us photos of his
travels there, and then especially when I took a college elective course in ancient
archaeology. Rome has the Colosseum. It has some of the most ancient histories,
old archaeological finds, and is one of the oldest continually occupied
cities in Europe. It is the Eternal City.
Rome was our first stop in our travels. We checked in to our
hotel, and even though we were jet-lagged and in need of a nap, we had to
muscle through and stay awake until nightfall so we could try to correct our
time clock. We decided to walk to the Colosseum and Palatine Hill, since it was
so close to our hotel. Seeing the Colosseum in person for the first time was
amazing. It is so BIG, and it is hard to fathom how old it is. We heard buying
tickets at the Palatine is the best because you avoid the long line at the
Colosseum, so we went straight there. The ticket combines Palatine Hill and the
Colosseum, good for two days. Since we were already near the entrance of the
Palatine, we did that first. Cameron and I absolutely loved it. We were thrown
into one of the most ancient areas of the city, which was our biggest draw to
Rome in the first place.
We were originally going to see the inside of the Colosseum
the same day, but after walking around the Palatine, we were toast. We walked
to a small street side café and had pasta, then went straight to our hotel. As
soon as we hit the bed, we were out at seven o’clock. I remember Cameron and I
waking up at midnight, and we were both thinking we had completely messed up the plan, but luckily enough we went back to sleep and woke up at the
normal time.
Day Two: We walked straight to the Colosseum at opening. No
line, hardly any people, and practically the whole Colosseum to ourselves.
Complete win! If you’re planning to visit, there is no other way to do this
(enjoyably). I had the best time taking photos because there were hardly any
people crowding the views, and the sun rising over the wall of the Colosseum
made beautiful light for the camera.
The next stop was Vatican City. We took the subway over
there, and even though it was still morning, the lines were already super long.
A guy on the street was selling company tours and we decided to take it,
because group tours can skip the line, and then you have someone guiding you
around and telling you some of the facts. Overall, the tour was not that great.
She actually kind of rushed us through the museum, and we didn’t get a whole
lot of explanations, but it was worth it to skip the line and navigate through to the Sistine Chapel. Even during the off season, parts of the museum
were so crowded it was like herding cattle. The Sistine Chapel was… incredible.
I couldn’t take any photos, but staring up at Michelangelo’s famous ceiling
masterpiece was a bit surreal. We walked around St. Peter’s Basilica, which was
pretty awesome. Crazy to think Saint Peter, one of the twelve apostles of
Jesus, is buried there.
After the Vatican, we saw a bunch of other sites – The Spanish
Steps, Trevi Fountain, Altare della Patria, and the Imperial Fora.
On the third day we saw the Pantheon and had lunch in Piazza
Navona, then headed over to the
Villa Borghese. We had packed the entire city of Rome in just two and a half
days, seeing several sites twice over. We were ready for our next town, but
Rome was such an amazing start to our trip. We got to check off so many awesome
places from our list.
More photos after the jump...
