Last stop on the trip was Roma (Rome)! My favorite things in this city were of course all the ancient ruins and Vatican City. The Colosseum and ruins of the roman forum were so amazing. It's so cool and surreal to see something so old.....something you have read about in history books and seen in movies. We went on a tour with a small group and our tour guide was amazing. The Vatican was incredible too. We went on a tour with the same tour guide, which was great. One of my favorite things was seeing the Sistine Chapel. Our tour guide was able to get us into the chapel an hour earlier than the general public. This meant that instead of seeing the chapel in a room FULL of people, shoulder to shoulder....we got to see the chapel with only about 15 people in there. Not only could we walk around and see the ceiling all we wanted, but we could also see the floor. Normally, you can't see the floor with all the people in the chapel. It was AMAZING. Our guide went through and explained each painting on the ceiling and gave a lot of background on Michelangelo. Very interesting! We also enjoyed drinking the Pope's water....from all the free water fountains around the Vatican. The receptionist at our tour guide's office told us that the water from the public fountains in Rome was tested and found to be better water quality than Evian! Our hotel wasn't centrally located...but was very close to Vatican city, which was nice when we spent a day there. We also visited the catacombs where many Christian martyrs and popes were buried. I loved seeing that. Overall, Rome was great. As a city, it wasn't my favorite, but the Vatican and Ancient Ruins were incredible sites...definitely some of my favorite we saw.
The food was great in Rome too. Two of our favorite restaurants there were Osteria da Mario, a homey little mom & pop joint, where we dined out on a cute little Roman square. Here we had some great pasta and probably the BEST bruschetta of the whole trip. I still drool thinking about that bruschetta...and it is my goal to duplicate it someday! Our other fav restaurant here was Mimi & Coco. Such a romantic atmosphere with great ambiance. Everything we got there was sooo good. Karen got eggplant parmesan, if I remember correctly...which was the best ever!
Rome was a great end to our trip and we got to the airport and on our plane without a hitch! We were sad to say goodbye to Italy, but looking forward to saying hello to our soft, comfy bed. :-) We feel blessed to have been able to go on such a wonderful trip and had so much fun with Ryan's parents as our travel companions!! It was definitely a trip to remember.
Mimi & Coco....yum!
Catacombs of St. Callisto
The Pantheon. It has the most preserved interior of the ancient ruins. It was incredibly in tact.
A roman square just outside of the Pantheon.
The Vatican Museum
St. Peter's Basilica
View from the top of St. Peter's Basilica Dome.
The Colosseum. So amazing. My one regret is that we didn't go back at night to get another shot of it then.
The Trevi fountain... at night.
Roman forum ruins!
Roman sunset with the Basilica in the background.
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