While we did not end up seeing the Vatican today, we still
got to see some awesome sights! The
breakfast at the hotel was great! There
was so much to choose from, it was hard to decide what to eat. Sarah totally smuggled scrambled eggs into a
to-go container from an earlier spot so that she wouldn’t get hungry while sight-seeing.
There was everything from cereal to fresh fruit to pastries to sausage (well,
actually it was a high quality hotdog) and eggs, along with several beverage
choices. The pineapple juice was a good
choice. It was a feast! Sarah also smuggled an apple in her bag for
later use. Our first stop was San Giovesse. This is where we were told we would be able
to get our passes that we previously bought.
It took a while, but we liked the representative who took care of us. We set up reservations for the Vatican for
tomorrow at 11am. We figured out that we
can take the metro train to the Vatican and hopefully, everything will work out
for tomorrow.
Our first stop was to see the great church that is San
Giovesse. Sarah knew that she needed to
cover her shoulders because she was wearing a sun dress. What she didn’t know was that you could not
enter if your knees were showing. Sarah
stood outside while Tyler got to tour the great church. Sarah was not happy about this, but took it
in good stride.
Instead of the Vatican, we went to the Coliseum. We did not know that this place would be so
CRAZY with tourists. When we walked
there, people came up to us asking us if we wanted to join an English tour
group. They promised that we could
by-pass the lines for security and that we would have a tour guide the whole
way through. Sarah was very
apprehensive, but after different people approached us, we both decided that it
sounded legit. It ended up being an
awesome experience. Our tour guide was
hilarious and full of educational information.
He kept calling out “Team Canada,” a family of four from Vancouver as
well as a young priest who caught grief for everything the Vatican has done to
the area throughout history. It was totally worth the cost of admission! The tour ended up being over 2 hours long.
After that, we walked to the Pantheon. It was only about a 20 minute walk and the
route was full of historical buildings.
We got to walk through the ruins of ancient Rome! We weren’t sure if we would have to wait
forever for the Pantheon, but were pleased that the line was moving quite
quickly and this site is free. Ty
previously had downloaded a Rick Steves’ podcast describing the Pantheon, so we
listened to that while we walked around the site. Imagine a couple trying to navigate around crowds
of people while connected via earbuds.
We did great, which we think was quite a feat in and of itself.
Since we got the package which included free bus and metro
service, we decided to hop on the bus to see more sights. It took a while to get accustomed to the ways
in which the audio tour works, but we ended up seeing many sights that we
wouldn’t view on foot.
After that, we stopped for a cocktail by San Giovesse, and
then off to the metro to see the Spanish steps.
We thought it would be smart to navigate the metro before we head to the
Vatican tomorrow and we also heard that the Spanish steps are a sight to
see. We navigated the metro very easily
and the Spanish steps were right off the stop.
It was disappointing, however, because they were closed for
construction, but they were beautiful.
We walked around the area for a while and headed back on the metro. The metro was extremely busy by this
time. We weren’t able to fit on the
first train and barely fit on the second train.
We were completely packed into the other riders. It was pretty crazy. We could not believe that it was so
packed. We headed back toward the hotel
and stopped into a market to get preparations for dinner. Sarah found some broccoli and other vegetable
soup, and Ty got some bread, ham, salami, and cheese to make sandwiches. We got all the food along with two bottles of
wine for under 20 euro. We ended up
having dinner on our balcony looking out on the great city of Roma.
Tomorrow, we look forward to visiting the Vatican!
Awesome
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