The first day we arrived we walked to a Santa Maria church not far from our hostel. It was grand, as most churches are. We also walked down to the Colosseum and bought tickets for the next day. Later we walked down to the Vittoriano monument. It was pretty fantastic looking. Right next to it are some old ruins that we didn't ever really get the story on, too. It seemed like in Rome you couldn't turn a corner without seeing an old building or church or ruins. That night we got gelato at the same place Michelle Obama took her girls when they were in Rome (we found it online when we were looking up gelato places). It was very good gelato and the workers were very friendly (and joksters). I socialized a bit that night with some people staying in the hostel. I met a man who is from Philadelphia (family originally from southern India) who met a woman in Sweden and is now trying to get a "green card" of sorts to live there. He explained that it was taking much longer than both of them expected. He was in Italy because they had met in Europe (not Sweden) to celebrate their daughter's birthday and now he was just traveling.
The next morning we went first to the Colosseum and then to the Roman Forum. It was very hot that day and we got tired pretty quickly. The Colosseum was really cool, just to be inside it. It wasn't quite as big as I had imagined, but awesome just the same. What was neat was that you could see all the structures that were beneath the floor of the Colosseum (I'm not sure what was down there..rooms? cells?). You couldn't go down there though. Only tour groups. The Roman Forum was awesome too, probably more so in my opinion. It was basically the center of Rome. It was a very large area where long ago was where there were markets and temples and court houses and much more. There are tons of ruins. You can see various temples, including where Julius Caesar's body was burned. You follow the Forum up to Capital Hill where the City Hall in Rome sits today. Even though we were tired we walked to the Pantheon after lunch. The Pantheon is one of the best preserved buildings, and it looked completely intact to me. The walls, the floor, everything looked like it could have been built only a hundred years ago, not a thousand. Next we went to the Trevi Fountain. This was much bigger than expected, and quite beautiful. There were a ton of people there. That was basically the end of that day. We were plum tuckered out after that, not to mention hot and sweaty so we went home to shower and nap.
We had an extra day in Rome so we decided to make the next day a daytrip. We both really wanted to see Pompeii, so we decided to check it out. It took about three hours to get there. You had to first take a train to Naples and then go to a different train station to take a train to Pompeii. It's amazing how well preserved that place is. It is of course all somewhat in ruins, but it is easy to tell what was what. I had my Rick Steves audioguide playing. We only stayed about three hours. You could easily spend the whole day there. On our map there was a trail listed as the 2 hour tour or the whole day tour. We followed the 2 hour path and saw basically all of the different buildings and the important things. We missed some other houses and temples and the amphitheater, but I felt as though we got just enough of Pompeii. One thing I thought was really interesting was in the streets there were stones that were higher up so that everyday when they flooded the roads (to clean them), the pedestrians could still walk without getting wet. The number of stones also indicated whether it was a one way street, two way street, etc.. According to Rick Steves the chariots all had standard sized axles to straddle these stones. They even had a pedestrian street with stones raised even higher so chariots couldn't come through. The bathhouse was also pretty cool. We saw one of the best preserved houses, but we couldn't go inside. There were a lot of roads that were closed now that we learned used to be open to the public. We saw some taverns, and a brothel which was pretty interesting. It was a smallish building with about four rooms partitioned by stone walls and they each had a very recognizable stone bed (even a stone pillow). There were also some lewd paintings on the walls appropriate to its function. Another very interesting aspect was the plaster casts of the people of Pompeii. It's really neat in a morbid kind of way.
On our last day we took care of some business in the morning-checking out, mailing post cards (which took forever!), and buying a ticket for the bus to the airport. Then we made our way to Vatican City. I knew it was small, but when you are able to walk around the walls and see just how small it really is, it's quite amazing that it's actually it's own state. We walked into the plaza with St. Peter's, but we didn't go inside the church. The line was humongous and so was the line to the museum so we decided it wasn't important enough to us to wait. Instead we got some yummy four cheese pizza. :) We made our way to a castle of sorts and then got some tasty gelato.
That night we slept in the airport because we had an early flight the next morning. The airport we flew out of was very small since we were flying Ryanair. Only the arrivals lounge was open all night. It consisted of a fairly large room with about six metal chairs (taken by the time we arrived) and a whole lot of floor space. There was also a stand for selling bus tickets and a cafe. I had read online to stake out a spot behind the vending machines,so that's exactly what we did. The two stands and the vending machine created a nice little corner that was fairly dark and not that big. I was pleased with our selection, and it was just us back there until about midnight when it seemed like a lot more people came in. It was funny, for how many people that were there (there were quite a lot), it all of a sudden got quiet at about 12:30 and everyone just went to sleep. It was silent when I woke up around 2am. I got two good hours of sleep and then the floor was just too hard and cold. Because of this, I slept great on the airplane, was asleep before we stopped ascending.
I would like to take a short amount of time to rant about the street signs in Europe (Italy in particular). The street signs in Europe seem to rarely be on signs like we have in the U.S. They tend to be carved into the sides of buildings. However, they are not available at all intersections, and not even all big intersections where you would expect a street sign. Thus, it was particularly hard to navigate, in Rome especially. Another tiny rant: whenever anyone gives me directions and says something like, it's easy you'll see it right away. I NEVER see it right away. I spend about ten minutes wandering around where it's supposed to be and either give up, ask someone else, or maybe find it eventually. Maybe it's just me, but ask Sara because it felt like we were doing things right.
Overall I would say a solid trip to Italy. It was a good amount of time I think. I was ready to come back to Norway (Sara too) by the time it was over. Italy is a nice place, but I wouldn't ever choose to live there. If I go back, it will be to the south or to visit an Italian friend of mine.
This concludes my last major trip in my tour of Europe. There are still many, MANY places I would like to go, but I think I've got a good start. I know one thing, I am sick of feeling like a tourist. I realize that I must do many of the touristy things to experience the cities I visit, but I look forward to the day when I can just go to a country as a traveler visiting friends, instead of a broke student constantly looking at a map.
For now I will take the last fifteen days and enjoy the time I have left in the city I have come to refer to as "home," in a country that I can say I love.
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