Rome, Italy

Wednesday morning, March 18th, we were up really early to catch a flight to Rome, Italy.

Paul had scheduled a airport shuttle to pick us up around 3:45am.  When we went downstairs to wait, we found out that it had come and gone without us.  Apparently we were a couple minutes too late.  Paul had been looking out the window periodically, but never saw it.

So there we were on the streets of Madrid at 4am with no way of getting to the airport.  We walked to the next block, in hopes of finding an early taxi.  Thankfully one came after only a few minutes.  Even though we were bummed about missing the shuttle and being awake that early to catch it, taking the taxi that early in the morning was just as good.  We got there soon and without problems.

We had a couple hour wait at the airport and noticed they do things a bit differently than in the States.  I don't know if I could even describe it necessarily, but it is different. :D

Soon enough we were off!  We were on our way to Italy!!

We got to enjoy the sunrise while on board the plane.  After about 2 hours we started to see the countryside of Italy.

When we landed, we thought it would take us awhile to get off the plane because we were near the back.  But they had another door at the back of the plane where they let people exit.  Cool!  And not only did we get to exit the back of the plane, but we exited onto the tarmac.  I've done that once or twice before, but it's still kind of cool.

When we got into the airport, we didn't know where to go exactly.  It seemed to be a really small airport for Rome--we found out later that this was just for RyanAir flights and Rome had another airport for all the other airlines that was a lot bigger.  Anyway, they didn't have a customs or place like that, they just had a way to exit.  I was bummed that we didn't get an Italy stamp in our passports.  :(  Too bad.  

We caught a bus from the airport to the train station in Rome.  It took quite awhile getting there and the traffic was crazy as usual.  I thought about filming it a bit because we were in the front of the bus and had a pretty good view of all the craziness, but I was a little embarrassed to do so--I wasn't sitting next to Paul and Glenn and couldn't have a good laugh with them about it.  

Once at the train station we checked our bags in to some lockers so we could explore Rome for the day without them.  Then out we went to see what we could see!

We didn't have a guide book, but we did have Paul's phone.  We used that to guide us through the maze of streets to some of the famous sights.  I took pictures along the way.  These first buildings I don't know what they are, but I thought they were beautiful.  It just amazes us how these cities have such old buildings and ruins all around.  

Then we came up to the Colosseum!  Wow it is huge and impressive!!

We walked down to near the entrance and saw how long the line was to get in for the tour.  We weren't sure how long it would take and since we only had a few hours in Rome, we decided against going inside.  I'm slightly bummed that we didn't take more pictures of us closer to it but I'm sure we'll come back to Rome one day and we'll have that opportunity.

Near the Colosseum there were more ancient Roman ruins.  We walked along and took pictures at the Roman Forum.  Again we could've taken a tour inside and roamed--haha, get it--around the ruins, but we didn't have time.  We were there to get the highlights.

We continued our walk along Via dei Forni Imperiali to see the the Ministry of Culture and Heritage.  It was a HUGE building with statues and all kinds of decorations.

We continued walking and saw more magnificent buildings.  I liked the lights on this particular building.  We just don't decorate our buildings like this in the USA.

This church was interesting to me, or more particularly the statue.  Is that a priest stepping on a peasant?  What's going on?  How strange!  Maybe it was a Catholic stepping on a pagan, showing that there was a new religion in town...I don't know exactly.  But I took a picture of it anyway.

In this same piazza, there was a Gelato shop, so of course we had to stop.  The man inside was really nice and spoke English pretty well. The weather was beautiful and gelato was perfect!  I don't remember what the boys got, but I got pear and caramel--they tasted really yummy together!

Then more walking and more ruins and more beautiful buildings and statues.

Then we came to the Pantheon!

This structure is one of the best preserved ancient Roman buildings.  It was transformed from a pagan temple to a Christian church around 608 A.D. 

Inside was buried many famous people, among such was the artist Raphael.

We were telling Glenn about this building and how old it was, in awe that it was still standing.  We pointed out certain things, and he, not wanting to be left out, pointed to a chair and said, "Look at that really old chair!"  hahaha  So of course I had to take a picture of that 'really old chair'.  

And the first king of Italy, Victor Emanuel II was also buried there.

Then just a few minutes later, we saw the famous Trevi Fountain.  They were doing some restoration work on it, so it didn't have any water in it.  We did get to walk along a little pathway to get close to the statues.  

And even though they didn't have the fountain running, we still got to throw in a coin in a small pool they had just in front.  

And here's a few last pictures of us in Rome.  We thought of Grandpa Don a lot--he served his mission in Italy and loves car.  He recently bought a new Fiat in the States, so we took our picture with this old one in Italy.

Rome is a beautiful, crazy, interesting city.  We barely scratched the surface of things to see there, but we enjoyed the weather and our walk around.  Our last picture in Rome was of this little painting on the side of a little shop.  I was excited to be in Italy!  I love Italian food--pasta, pizza and sandwiches!