Dear Rome, I miss you!

Today I have another reminiscing post for you! I've been dreaming of Rome lately, so I decided it was time to break out the pictures from when I actually went. It was so long ago I barely remember anything. I do remember the pizza though. This trip was part of a crazy spring break trip in 2012 where we went to Barcelona, Rome, Florence, Pisa, and Venice all in ten days! In the end I was able to check all those cities off the list, but I left so much behind that I wanted to see in every city, so I don't know if I would do another trip like that again.

Anyway, we started our trip off with a bang! The first day was actually Easter Sunday, and we headed over to the Vatican. Of course it was closed because of the holiday. (Huge mistake on our part. We ended up not being able to see the Vatican Museum, or the Sistine Chapel, or St Peter's Cathedral at all because it was closed the whole time we were in Rome.) But we did make our way to Saint Peters's Square where the Pope himself was blessing the crowd.

Hanging out with the Pope on Easter Sunday 

Saint Angelo's Bridge

                                                                                                                                Palazzo de Giustizia (Palace of Justice)

 Basilica de Sant Ambrossio de San Carlo

 

 Piazza di Spagna. These steps, the staircase of the Trinità dei Monti are famous for always having people sitting on them. As you can see, when we were there, there were so many people it was almost impossible to even see the stairs! 

 

At the top of the stairs is a really cute neighborhood!

Then of course, after doing normal sight-seeing things, we had to go get some gelato. We might have been more worried about eating pizza and gelato than seeing the sights....

This place has been around for at least 100 years. And it's famous- look how many people there were! 

 Enjoying gelato...need I say more?

In the same neighborhood as the gelato store is the Pantheon and the Piazza della Rotonda:

Next up, since we were always on the run (being there only two and a  half days and all):

            This is a monument to Victor Manuel, who                              Santa Maria di Loreto (L) and Santissimo Nome
            was the first King to a unified Italy                                          di Maria al Foro Traiano and Trajan Column

                                   The Capitoline Wolf                                  In front of the ruins of Saturn's Temple

Best kept secret: The best way to skip the line at the Colosseum is to go to the Forum first! The line isn't nearly as long, and you can buy tickets in a three pack for the Colosseum, Forum, and the Palatine Hill for 12 euros. The forum was the center of important political, commercial, and judicial life in ancient Rome. Now it's all ruins; they have maps and labels as to what everything is, but it gets a bit confusing! The Palatine hill was the affluent neighborhood at the time.

                                              Basilica Giulia                                                  Arch of Septimius Severus

                                     House of Vestals                                                          Ancient stadium

 Then of course, there's the Colosseum:

And we couldn't resist going shopping by the Plaza Navona. I bought a scarf because I was so cold!

 Clearly I only took pictures of the fountain with the obelisk, because it's the only interesting one...

Then we made our way to the Pincio Park where we expertly got ourselves lost!

But managed to find our way again and end up at the Plaza del Popolo. The park is on a big hill and you have to go down the hill to get to the plaza, but before we did that we were able to get a great view of the city and the plaza from on top!

Interesting facts about Piazza del Popolo: Public executions were held here until as late as the 19th century! The most common way to execute someone was to bash in their brains. They also held horse races where they tortured the animals in various ways. Lovely. 

We didn't forget to make a wish in the Trevi Fountain! 

And the part I know you have been waiting for: THE PIZZA!!! So many pizzas, so little time.

 We might have waited for at least 45 minutes at two of these restaurants because they were so popular! In the end though, it was totally worth it. DELICIOUSNESS. 

(Now that I've stopped eating dairy, I'm not sure what I would eat in Italy??)

Thanks for reminiscing with me! Keep an eye out for the final segment of this trip- Florence and Pisa!