Trevi Fountain
Pantheon... damn you, scaffolding!!!
Luckily, we had my mom with us this time around and she led us around the back of the Pantheon, which was actually quite interesting. Soon we were off to Piazza Navona. We meandered, checking out the artists who were displaying and selling their work and the Fountain of Four Rivers (accompanied by an Egyptian obelisk).
Piazza Navona
Tired and hot from our long walk, we searched out a restaurant - we narrowed it down between two restaurants right next to each other, both of which boasted umbrellas with wonderful misty-ness. We ended up choosing Ristorante Panzirone and had a fabulous meal. Our waiter was fun and attentive and the food was delicious. Definitely a good eating experience :)
Our favorite restaurant!
The following morning, we found our way to the Colosseum and took a short guided tour through it (mostly to skip the long line). It was only 10:00 am but the sun was going strong. The tour was nothing special, we ended up ditching it early to meander the Forum before our 1:00 pm tour of the Vatican. Going inside the Colosseum was cool though - last time I was in Rome, I attempted to get inside multiple times but couldn't due to crazy closing hours.
The Colosseum
Trying to see the Forum didn't happen, though, since we tried to go in the exit and then ultimately couldn't find the entrance... so we had lunch! We met up with our tour just before 1 and began our three-hour Vatican excursion. It was hot, sticky, and more hot. The Vatican museums are pretty interesting, but not on a day like Saturday - we just wanted to be out of the heat. We eventually got to the Sistine Chapel - definitely pretty cool, but being in a room full of hot tourists slowly shuffling around was not high on our list of things to do. We went in, looked around, and left (and ditched our tour). After some water and a little rest, we walked around the walls of the Vatican in search of St. Peter's Square. The basilica was quite impressive and we walked around for a little bit in the welcome air conditioning.
St. Peter's Basilica
Dome of St. Peter's, from the inside
We saw my favorite statue, La Pieta by Michelangelo, as well as some creepy dead popes (who knew their bodies were on display??). Soon after, we went back to the hotel to make ourselves not gross for dinner at our favorite restaurant, Ristorante Panzirone (perhaps a picture isn't necessary...) We requested our favorite waiter, Alessandro, and had another fabulous meal :)
The following day, we made our way to Tivoli to see Villa d'Este. We took a train from a slightly sketchy secondary train station in Rome and about an hour later, we arrived in Tivoli. We walked for about 25 minutes in the hot sun and eventually found our way to the Villa. Once there, we meandered through the awesome gardens of Villa d'Este, a villa built by a cardinal in the 1500s. Throughout the grounds there are fountains and statues of Roman gods and goddesses - it had a cool vibe.
Fountain at Villa d'Este
When we were done walking around, we grabbed some food from the restaurant at the villa and walked back to the train station in hopes of getting an earlier train back to Rome. Unfortunately, our 25 minute walk was in vain as the next train was not for another two and a half hours. To kill time, we walked around the grounds of another villa nearby, but the heat was too much and we decided to chill out at a restaurant and rehydrate. Eventually we got on the train back to Rome - with the heat, we were cranky and tired. We learned a lesson: never go back to Tivoli. Perhaps it was a combination of the empty/closed town (Europeans take their Sundays very seriously), the excessive heat and dehydration, and the unfriendly Italians, but Tivoli did not make a good impression.
That evening, we had dinner at our hotel so we could completely relax. No more walking, standing, planning - just eating good food. It's definitely safe to say that we slept well that night, but that sleep was cut short when we woke up early in preparation for our excursion to Pompeii. We were herded onto a bus for the day and were given an itinerary of stops including rest stops, Naples, lunch at a restaurant (not of our choice) and a coral jewelry shop. These stops proved to be too structured and a complete waste of time for us - lesson learned: no more bus tours. Pompeii, however, was quite awesome (at least once we ditched our tour... we apparently have a tendency to do that). Our tour guide was slow moving and fluent in English and Spanish - so, lucky us, we got about 10 Spanish-speaking tourists with us. So we not only had to wait through a relatively uninteresting explanation in English, but we also had to wait while our tour guide did the same spiel in Spanish. We got through about two sights in Pompeii in 45 minutes (of a 2-hour tour) with the group and then couldn't take it anymore, so we left to meander on our own (awesome idea!). Pompeii is VERY cool and definitely too big to effectively see in the time we had. The ancient frescoes and villas were incredible and it was an awesome experience to walk around the city and inside the buildings that thrived so long ago. I definitely intend to go back at some point in my life to fully explore the city.
Ancient frescoes!
Inside one of the ancient villas
Amphitheater
The city of Pompeii with Mount Vesuvius, the deadly volcano, in the background
So overall Rome was definitely a fun experience... and a hot one. The heat made it a bit harder to fully enjoy, but I had a good time and now I have some good plans for my next trip to Italy - Amalfi Coast and Pompeii again! The trip has now come to an end - one last blog post to come!
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