Ciao Roma!

Our third day marked the end of our Roman excursion, but we couldn't leave without visiting a few more sites. Namely, the Roman Forum and the Colloseum. 

Tim and I have different ideas about how to pose in front of the Colloseum...

We had pre-signed up for second tour through Epic Roman Tours, a decision we do NOT regret! Again, our group was only 6 people and
It.Was.AWESOME.

This is the entire group on the way to our first stop, the Roman Forum, the heart of our tour. Here, our guide is explaining how the Roman empire expanded throughout the ages.

 After an unexpected (according to our guide) wait to get into the Forum, here's the central area...

 And this is the "newest" part, the Temple of the Vestal Virgins. I say "new," because it's only been open to the public for a relatively short amount of time.

We also learned the history of the Arch of Titus, which celebrates a, quite horrific period of time in Jewish history. I found two very surprising tidbits about the arch: 1) The Arc de Triomphe in Paris is based on this design and 2) This is one of the first pictures of a minorah and is the model for the menorah used on the emblem of Israel.

 Our next stop was the Colloseum, but the line to get in was around 1-2 hours. Fact: The ticket to the Roman Forum also gets you into the Colloseum. We didn't wait at all! Most people just go to the Colloseum first, whereas the Forum usually has no line.  And that is why a guide is important.

 Of course it wouldn't be a tourist attraction without dressed up characters...

 We spent about 45 minutes in the hot Colloseum before heading to the nearest Open110 stop to get dropped off closer to our next stop.

 Which was the Piazza Navona...

 and the Pantheon...

 By this the time we finished there, we had just enough time to run to the nearest Open110 stop and head back to the train station for our ride to Florence. Unfortunately we got the slowest-driver-EVER for the drive back.

Our train to Florence was pleasant and Tim managed to sleep for 80% of the ride, a trend that would continue for the rest of the trip. Once we got to Florence, we were off to find our hotel.

We wandered through the streets until we saw this sign...

Yep, this was the only sign for our hotel! We even had to be buzzed into the building every time we came back! Here's the first lobby...

 The entire hotel was actually located on the 1st floor (in Europe, the floor numbers start with 0, so what we call the 2nd floor is really the 1st floor), so after lugging our bags up the stairs (Tim's idea, not mine!), we were able to check in. I'm not sure why, but we got a pretty amazing room. It included a four poster bed and this beauty:

 Why, yes, that is a frescoed ceiling!

Of course, we had to hit the ground running, so we found the local bus tour and got ourselves some tickets. Somehow we managed to time it perfectly for a tour up into the Tuscan hills above Florence, to a town called Fiesole.

 On our way back down, we got off at Michelangelo Plaza to watch the sunset over the city...

It was a great way to relax and end the evening...or so we thought!

After dinner and getting back to the hotel, I jumped online to check opening times for the museums in the morning. I googled the main pages for the Uffizi galleries and discovered that, that night was the "Night at the Museums!" All of the major galleries were open until 1am and were FREE! It was 11:00 and Tim was practically asleep, but I dragged him out of bed and we booked it down to the Accademia to see David without (hopefully) hordes of tourists.  Well, we hit the jackpot! Not only did we get in free, but there was probably less than 100 people in the entire museum. If Tim hadn't been falling asleep standing up, I would have gone over to the Uffizi as well!

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"Holy Roman!"

We started Day 2 at a run. Our first stop was the 110Open, an open-top bus tour. We've found that one of the best ways to see an entire city, with limited time, is to do it by bus.

I won't include many of the photos, because we ended up spending some actual time at a few of the spots, but here are some of the places we didn't go, but got to see and learn about on the tour:

1) Vittorio Emanuele II Monument -or- Rome's Tomb of the Unknown Soldier

 2) Palazzio Venezia and the balcony (click to enlarge, it's in the center with the flags) where Mussolini gave his speeches during WWII. It's now a museum.

 3) "Tim" is the Italian cell phone carrier. :-)

 After we completed our two-hour trip around Rome, we headed into the Basilica Santa Marie di Angeli, which is located a few hundred yards from the Termini station.

 Based on the exterior, we weren't expecting much from the inside...we were wrong. It was beautiful!

Here's the dome...

 Their organ...

 They even have an astrological clock inlaid into their marble to help tell time throughout the year.

 Tim had a mini-photoshoot happening and got this shot of a rainbow behind the angel.

 After exploring the Basilica, it was time to point ourselves towards the Vatican and our afternoon tour. We had our first Roman metro experience (decent) and got lunch near the city wall. Our tour was meeting outside of the vatican wall and we wanted to make sure we had enough time to find the small cafe.

Once we met up with our tour guide and the rest of our group, it was time to head in.  I'm sure you've heard stories of people waiting hours to get in, with lines winding around the block...well not for us! We waited, maybe, two minutes and we didn't even have reservations. Go in the afternoon, it's way better! Once inside, we headed towards the courtyard, so Jimmy (our tourguide) could explain the Sistene Chapel in detail. 

 Yep, you read that right, he explained it in the courtyard. (This was our entire group...6 people!) The museum has pretty strict rules about the chapel, one of which is "no talking," and unlike other tour guides, Jimmy obeyed them. To compensate, he brought a parchment of the ceiling and we gathered in the shade to look at the details. It was fantastic!

Of course, there are other parts of the museum (to see it all, you would put in 8 miles of walking!), and we got to see some great things on our way to the Chapel.

This here is Emperor Hadrian, the first Roman Emperor to have a beard. Timmy appreciated that...

 And this is Nero's Bathtub. The tub measures 6m in diameter and is made of one of the rarest stones in the world, Egyptain Red Porphyry. Want to know how expensive this stuff is...Bill Gates is the only private collector to have a piece and he only has a paperweight. (A $1million+ paperweight, which he bought from the Vatican, who owns 98% of the world supply).

 After our tour (Sorry, due to copyright laws, photos are not allowed in the Sistene Chapel...Fugi Films paid for its restoration and got all of the copyrights to it), we headed to St. Peter's Bisilica. Here is Michelangelo's "Pieta."

 Tim was more interested in taking artistic shots...

  We left the Basilica and headed out, only to find oursleves some Swiss Guards.

 I mailed some postcards from the Vatican City post office...

 And we gazed over at the giant photo of Pope John Paul II, who just went through his beatification the week prior. There were posters and flags all over Rome with photos of him and some of his quotes. Our tour guide said something along the lines of "Can you imagine how Pope Benedict feels about seeing photos JPII everywhere?" So true...

 We got a picture in St. Peter's Square (click to enlarge and you'll also see our photobomber...)

 We were getting pretty hungry, so we headed back to Piazza Barberini and The Hard Rock for dinner. Afterwards, Tim wanted to check out the Pantheon. On our way, we got a nice surpise, in the form of a parade of Ferraris!  Literally, a police-escorted parade of Ferraris.

It was no surprise the Pantheon was closed, but we stuck around and spent around 45 minutes taking pictures of the building and the square and just enjoyed the Roman evening.

Side Note: If you ever go to Rome, book a Vatican Tour with Jimmy at Epic Rome Tours. He blew our minds with his art and history knowledge and made it, not only informative, but an absolute blast. His Irish accent also helped!

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When in Rome...

That title should probably say "When in Florence..." because that's where we are, but I'm going to do some back posting to catch up. You may be wondering why I'm choosing to spend any time blogging when I could be exploring? The answer is pretty simple: 1) Our (AMAZING) hotel has free wifi, 2) it's a Sunday evening in a country that favors limited work hours, and 3) the weather isn't too great right now (i.e. rain and wind with spots of sun).

To back it up, we landed in Rome on Thursday in the mid-morning. Our flight from Seattle - JFK - Rome was turbulent and uncomfortable, but we both managed to sleep and/or deal with it. (One ::big:: issue was the lack of entertainment. I didn't realize how normal it was to have a tv in the seat back until we had to try and watch it from overhead TVs in the center of the plane...)

We did get a great look at the Italian coastline as we landed!

Once we got through customs (what a breeze!) and into the train station, we caught the Leonardo Express to the Rome Termini station. Our hotel was maybe a two-minute walk from the terminal.

Quick Story: We had opted to make our train reservations once we got into Italy to avoid spending a lot of extra money to have the tickets UPS'd to the US. I had read that this was a pretty common thing to do and didn't think about it again. I did, however, want to make our reservations ASAP. As soon as we got to Termini, we started the search for the reservation desk. For some reason, the direct train from the airport goes into the most-out-of-the-way-platform-EVER! It took us a good 30 minutes to figure out where we could do the reservations. Part of the issue was that we were looking for the Eurail Aid Office and not the main ticket counter...turns out they're one-in-the-same. Anywho, we waited 20 minutes in the line to make our overnnight reservations from Venice to Paris, only to be told "Sorry, train full" for three different days. We were exhausted, sweaty, irritated and a gamut of other emotions and I seriously almost started crying. Thankfully, Tim kept his cool and we had thought to bring computer along to upload pictures. We headed to our hotel, started searching booking sites and managed to make reservations for a hotel in Milan and a flight from Milan to Paris within 30 minutes. Plus, we managed to do it all for less than what the overnight train was going to cost if we had even tried to book full-price tickets. WIN! Tim later commented on how amazing it was that all of that could be done so easily these days.

Here's an inside view of our hotel (Hotel Palladium Palace) in Rome:

 Gotta love how a "double" is really two twin beds stuck together...with separate bedding.

We took an obligatory nap (seriously the BEST way to cure jet lag...Tim and I adjusted to the time zone without any problems) and then headed for the Spanish Steps. On our way we passed the Santa Maria Maggiore...

 Crossed through the Piazza Barberini and the Triton Fountain (we would see this many times during our trip)...

 And we found ourselves at the Spanish Steps...

 It was a beautiful and relaxing place to watch the sun go down over Rome with the rest of the tourists and some locals.

 After a bit, we headed south to the famous Trevi Fountain or Fontana di Trevi, as the Roman say...

 After needling my way down to the water's edge and tossing a euro in, a woman kindly offered to take our photo...

 That evening we ate our first Italian meal at Il Chianti. Pruciutto with melon and pizza is a great way to end the day!

Once we got back to the hotel we started researching for day #2, but when I looked over, I couldn't help but laugh and take a few pictures...

This will end up being a common theme every evening.

Ciao!

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Baking FAIL (and a win!)

Every once in a while, all of the stars align and we have the ingredients for chocolate chip cookies. And when that happens, we like to take advantage of it! This makes it twice as disappointing when it turns into a giant FAIL.

Why so smirky?

Yep, that would be the ENTIRE egg in the mixing bowl. I even dropped it in WHILE the mixer was running, to make sure it really ::got:: in there. 

Now you may be thinking, "But Arianna, it doesn't look like you were that far along in the process. Why not start over?" And I would say "We totally started over. Absolutely nothing was going to stop us from enjoying delicious, chewy chocolate chip cookies." HA! Except that we, as evidenced below, can ruin any recipe. 

Want a crispy-flying-cookie-saucer of doom?

On a happier note, I did get a big WIN later in week. In trying to be more self-sustaining (and all-around awesome), I made my very own biscuits! From scratch!

And, yes, you do need a butcher's knife to make rolls. I'm almost certain I read that somewhere...

 These suckers turned out delicious!

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