Rome, Italy

When we were in Berlin, we realized that it was the city for the last century's history. In Rome, however, we realized that it was the city for history of almost every other century before that. From the ancient Roman Empire to the centre of Catholicism for the last 1600 years, Rome has it all. In Rome, there are dozens of sights and churches that, in any other city, we would be going around to see and appreciate. It sucks to be those sights in Rome though. It has way too many crucial and unique monuments and structures that these other, otherwise great, buildings and stops get overlooked and neglected. Before coming to Europe, we had seen like three buildings in our lives that are older than 1914. Then, we got accustomed to seeing hundred year old buildings all the time with the occasional five to eight hundred year old castle. So, it was almost impossible to wrap our minds around buildings and structures that have origins in the BC. We also didn't realize how much evidence there would be of ancient Rome. We expected the Colosseum and Pantheon and buildings such as those, but there are a ton of ruins scattered throughout the city that undergo constant excavation, study, and restoration. Needless to say, Rome was quite the experience. It was also cool because people come to Rome for a lot of different reasons. You have the typical tourist (like us, even though we do not like to include ourselves here), coming to Rome just to see and experience. Then you have those who come for the sole purpose of studying the archaeology and all that comes with ancient Rome. And then you also have those that come as a sort of pilgrimage. We didn't really think about the fact that, since the Vatican (housed within Rome) is the world Catholic headquarters, we should expect to see a lot of black shirts with white collars. We probably saw more priests in one day around the Vatican than we have seen or will see in our whole lives.

So, we spent two days trying to soak up all of the famous, important sights like the Colosseum, the Pantheon, and the Spanish Steps, and one day moving through the Vatican, experiencing enormity like Michaelangelo's Sistine Chapel and St. Peter's Basilica, the largest church in the world. We could have used double the time that we had, even if only to digest and process all that we had seen. We thoroughly enjoyed our time in Rome and look forward to coming back (although we did not toss a penny into the Trevi Fountain).

The Colosseum:





The Roman Forum:






The Under Restoration Pantheon:



The specacular Vittorio Emmanuelle II Monument:


The Spanish Steps:


The Trevi Fountain:


Inside the Vatican:


The largest church in the world where the popes are all buried underneath - St. Peter's Basilica:


Michaelangelo's Pieta inside St. Peter's:


The Pope's residence:


Outside the church, St. Peter's Square:



We leave Rome and head south for our last stop in Italy. Then, on to Greece in just a few short days!