Rome day 2

View from the dome on the top of the Vatican

St. Peter's foot being rubbed smooth

Day 2 in Roma began with a visit to the Vatican. It was spectacularly large and full of amazing sculptures. We have seen many great chapels but this one scores really high. They had the option of an audio tour that they said focused on the spiritual aspects of the cathedral and a real tour that talked more about the architecture of it. I thought it was interesting that anyone could only appreciate the building for its architecture when the spiritual side of it all was the reason that it was even built. I find it really cool to learn about other religions and why they do things. It is funny though that sometimes religions, including our own, don't even know why they are doing something. For example, people were queueing up to rub the foot of a statue of Saint Peter and when we asked the man watching the statue why, he said it's just tradition.

Inside the Vatican

After having a look at the inside we decided to make the climb up to the very top of the dome. It cost more for an elevator up so we walked the 550 stairs, just like we did at the Eiffel Tower. It was hard because the stairs kept getting steeper and smaller. The dome obviously tilts inward so the walls to our left as we climbed kept curving in on us. Well lets just say if you are an ounce overweight you couldn't get up these intense stairs. Good thing Nath and I are SO fit! Anyway, we finally got up to the top and the view was worth all the leg cramps we suffered for the next few days. View of Rome from on the top of Vatican. Like!
Next we took a break at a McDonalds for some lunch. The worker there was crazy. He was under the impression that we would have to pay to have ketchup packets with our meals. Outrageous! Well, after a ridiculously ketchup-free meal we made our way to the biggest green spot on our map.


The park was nice and big and had tourist trap bicycles for rent. Did we fall for that? Nope. We came across some Segways for rent as well and kinda did that thing like... “Do you want to?” “Oh, I don't know...Do you?” “Well, maybe but... I don't know.” Then I saw Nathan looking at them just as longingly as I was. Sold. We jumped on our Segways and enjoyed the ride. You see, we only have had three movies with us on this month long trip. One being a personal favourite, Paul Blart: Mall Cop. In this movie Kevin James is on a Segway 90% of the time. It was great to try a Segway out for ourselves. We did our best Paul Blart impression and did various synchronised routines too. They are really fun and pretty quick. We both marveled at how no one really has one. But all we would have to do is look at each other to know the reason why. Everyone looks so ridiculous on them! We couldn't watch each other ride one without laughing out loud, or LOLing, if you will. :)
Enjoy the video below of our sweet moves on the Segways-

Hundreds of locks all over the bridge

As I mentioned in the day 1 blog, Lovers often come to the Castle Saint Angelo bridge with a lock that has both persons name on it and attach the lock to the bridge and throw the keys into the water signifying their love is forever. We walked our way back toward Castle Saint Angelo looking for a lock that we could fasten to the bridge just outside of the Castle. The walk was once again fabulous. It was so fun wandering the streets of Rome at dusk. Everything is just so lovely. Just before the bridge we found a vendor selling locks. Done. We realized though that we didn't have a sharpie to write on it with. We asked someone and they were more than willing to help. He must have loved the idea of the “love locks” because he was very kind and helpful. It seemed like everyone believes in the magic of Rome. We wrote our names and the year on the lock. We found a good spot on the bridge to fasten our small lock and made a video of the occasion. It was just going dark as we fastened the lock and through the keys in the river. So romantic!
The night was still young so we headed for Trevi Fountain. This site was what I was most excited to see so when we got close Nathan covered my eyes and took me all the way to the front of it. I opened my eyes and there it was. So lovely! We threw a coin in which is said to mean that you will come back to Rome. I hope so I absolutely loved it! By the end of day 2, Rome had been our favourite place to visit. Oh how I wish things could end there but alas there is a little bit more...

Nathan with roses in his backpack at the Trevi Fountain

We loitered around the city a bit after seeing the Fountain because everything just looks cooler at night. Well because of our meandering we decided to just take a later train than we had planned. Well when we got the the train station at about 11, the place was deserted. Just one man sitting at what we thought was our platform. We asked him about the trains and he said, “Fini.” I don't know very much Italian but I know what that means...Done! Over! Final!... or in our case, You are DOOMED!
We had missed the last train out of Rome. We were staying outside of Rome to save a little money so walking was out of the question. Nathan quickly came up with a good plan: take the metro as far North as we can (because we knew that was the general direction we would want), then take a cab and pray we had enough money on us to pay the cab driver. So we headed off for the metro, but soon found out our tickets that last for 108 minutes had just barely run out so we would have to purchase another ticket... yeah that wasn't going to happen. I won't post on the internet about breaking the law. You can fill in the details... Next we were on a metro heading north.

We only had 50 Euros with us so we were nervous about the cost of a taxi. We got off the metro as far north as we could then asked the man in the ticket office about taxis. He gave us a look that was very somber and said “Expensive!” At this point we had come to face the fact that we may have to give up our first born son to a taxi driver just to get home. There was a taxi waiting just outside the station. When we asked him how much to get back to our “hotel,” he said 20 Euros! We asked again just in case, but sure enough it cost only 20 to get back. Miracle! We got back fine and life is good. Heading to Venice the very next day.

Rome day 1

 

Inside the Colosseum

We took the train into Rome our first morning. It only cost 1€ and it was about a 30 min ride. Bargain! (I know I say 'bargain' a lot and one might be thinking that our trip has been cheaper than we thought. This is not so sadly. With the expensive tolls and massive amounts of European chocolate required we are just about on target.) We got onto the train not sure when to get off to get to our first stop, the Colosseum! I waited as Nathan walked along the train listening for someone speaking English. He couldn't hear anyone speaking it but he did hear something tell him to talk to a certain woman. He took a chance, and asked her if she knew English. She did! She began telling him how to get there when other people began to join in, trying to help. Most didn't speak English so she translated them for Nathan. After turning some woman down who offered to have us follow her around Rome, we followed one of their directions and made it to the Colosseum. It was right next to the underground. It was amazing!

This was the one place Nathan was really excited to see, you may even call it his Eiffel Tower :) First thing we did was go souvenir crazy. There are so many vendors selling little things around all the big tourist spots. We bought a bracelet for me, it has a picture of the Colosseum and says I heart Roma! We also got a magnet of the Colosseum for 2€, and 10 postcards for 1€! I know what you are thinking... Bargain! :)

The line was so long to get in if you just want to walk around it. We wanted the audio tour so we skipped the hour long line and payed 5 Euros more to listen to the audio. Worth it to pay the money just to skip the line, or queue, as some people might say. :) The inside was just amazing! The stadium was really well thought out. They had numbered sections to sit in just like we do now. It is crazy to see this place in real life and think about how many people were killed here in the craziest ways. Death by hippo! Dang!

Laying on an ancient Roman pillar

Right next to the Colosseum is a section of ancient Rome that has been preserved. We were able to walk around this pretty massive section of Rome that has always just been there. It had these cool Roman looking trees, thousands of carved stones, pieces of old columns and things just lying about. It was so interesting to be somewhere truly ancient!

Panthenon

We got lost, yet again, trying to get out of ancient Rome. When we finally made it out we decided the Metro was useless, they were no where near any tourist spots, so we walked! I am so glad we did. We walked by some of the coolest things. We didn't always know what the places were called, only that they were amazing. The whole city is just adorable and old. We went into the Panthenon. It was this cool circular church that has a huge hole in the ceiling. I wonder what they do when it rains?

Fountain and Obelisk

We then made it to a square that had thousands of artist painting and selling their artwork. There was of course a huge fountain and obleisk in the center. I think every important building or place in Rome has a fountain and oblesisk in front. Here we stopped for some gelato. The man outside his shop claimed that he had the best gelati in the universe. Well who can pass that up?! It was really really good, but we soon found out how outrageous his claim was because we stumbled upon hundreds of other gelati shops soon after.


One of our favorite parts of the day was walking down this tiny street. It had lots of really cool specialty shops on the cute cobblestone road. We felt like locals just out for a walk. The buildings were so tall on either side it was almost claustraphobic. It was pretty fun. We took that road to Castle Saint Angelo. It's a really interesting building, almost just like one big castle tower. On the bridge leading to it we saw the locks that Micol was telling us about in Como. She said that a movie started the tradition that young couples come to the bridge with a lock. They write their names on both sides of the lock and lock it to the bridge wall and throw the key into the river symboling that they will be together forever. I am a bit of a romantic so I wanted to come back at sunset the next day and do it because we didn't have time to do it now. We were on our way to the Vatican!

Locks on the bridge

 We walked over to the Vatican and just stood in the square in front of it that of course had a fountain and oblisk. Love those things. We just looked at the outside because of another forever long line to get inside. We decided to go in first thing the next day. Walking around Rome all day made us all tuckered out so we headed for the train station. We rode back having finished our first day in the Eternal City!

Au revoir France, Ciao Itay!

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The beach!!

We made our way to Marseille the next day. It was supposed to take 5 hours but instead took 8! Traffic was pretty bad. Luckily Nathan had bought me a movie to watch in the car. Baby Mama! I love that movie and I am quite excited to own it now... in french. Haha! It of course has the english version too :)

We made it to Marseille, a french city by the sea. We got there so late we couldn't go to the beach. We just headed straight for the hotel, kind of, we got lost along the way. The G.P.S. we have is good for getting us to a general area but a specific point is near impossible for it. This was my first hostel experience. It was really small and the bathrooms were shared and down the hall. Good times.

We woke up bright and early and headed down to the beach for a bit. There were a lot of surfers out on the waves. It renewed my desire to become a pro surfer. One day.... 

Super fancy casino in Monte Carlo

On our drive we stopped off in Monte Carlo/ Monaco! It was so cool. The whole city is just dripping with money. The cars, the buildings, and the people are all very fancy. We ate at a pretty nice place for lunch. Little did we know we would get charged for drinking water! Ridiculous!  We also drove the formula one race circuit while making squealing car noises.

We drove again that day continuing to make our way to Como, Italy. I met Nathans second cousin, Will and Wills girlfriend Micol at the family holiday in Knowle Manor. Micol is Italian and lives in Como, Italy. We made our way there to spend a night with Micol and her mother. We arrived later than we thought, as usual! Micol's mother, Stefania, made us a traditional Italian meal. It was delicious! They were absolutely wonderful hosts! Micol helped us decide how to get down to Rome, our next stop. The trains were really expensive so we decided to drive. They helped us find a good route through Florence! We spent the night at their house and the next morning Micol took us around Lake Como. There were lots of mansions and other neat houses along the shore. We even saw George Clooney's house on that drive. We went back to their house for lunch before taking off. Stefania made us a tasty pasta. I have to get that recipe! It was all so very good. We were sad to go. They were such great company.

Lake Como

The drive to Rome took quite a long time. It was supposed to take 5 hours but took 8 again. Oh dear! We arrived at our next hotel... turned out to be a campsite and we were in a shed that had just enough room for a bed. Haha! That's what we get for paying 30 Eros a night. :) It was not so bad in the end. We just needed a place to rest our little heads while spending the next two days exploring ROMA!

Stefania, Me, Micol

Stefania, Nathan, Micol