Day 2 in Rome was filled with history! After breakfast we headed over to the Colosseum around 10am to have a tour. Getting off the bus and seeing the Colosseum for the first time was literally breathtaking. The Colosseum is HUGE, and just so epic in itself. You should have seen how long the lines were, it was insane! It would have probably taken way over 2 hours to get through them, luckily we had an organized group tour with API so we skipped the massive line! wooo.
We all were given weird walkie talkie things so we could always hear what our tourguide was saying. She took us all around the Colosseum, starting on the top floor, she explained about the history of the gladiators and how thousands of animals use to be killed in the Colosseum, and it was a major attraction in Rome etc etc. (totally made me want to watch the movie Gladiator) haha. Then we headed to the bottom floor to get a better view of the ground level of the Colosseum. I knew the Colosseum was massive, but seeing it in person is a completely different story.
After we walked through the Colosseum for about an hour we headed to the Roman Forum. This is basically a big place where there are a lot of ruins from where the administrative buildings, like government and such of Rome use to be. There are large pillars, rocks, remains of buildings scattered in this large area. Walking through the Roman Forum was awesome, especially since the weather was AMAZING, and sort of hot, it was 25C so I was walking around in my tanktop and sunglasses soaking up the beautiful beautiful sun :)
After our tour was over around 1pmish we had the rest of the day to ourselves, to explore the ancient city of Rome. We were dropped off at Piazza Venezia, where Momument Emmanuel is, which is also HUGE. It looks like a large building with massive white pillars in the front, and a big statue of a guy on a horse. After checking that out we decided to get some lunch at a restaurant near the Piazza.
Myself, Darcey, Holly, Phil and Garrett all got pasta... obviously (when in Rome..). This restaurant had HUGE portions of pasta, which we arent use to because in Spain and generally the rest of Europe (unlike North America) we eat small portions of food. So we were stuff after eating this pasta.... sooo fulllll. But the pasta was amazing and so fresh and delicious. 
Then we all ventured to find the Pantheon, and we navigated through he streets of Rome pretty well i might add. we had a map, and my tour book (which Wendy Schwarz was so kind to give me, thank you!!! we used it a lot). We found the Pantheon and checked it out, once again, another MASSIVE structure, with cool architecture and a big ass hole in the roof. After browsing around the Pantheon we went to get Gelato (once again, when in rome...). We went to this place right by the Pantheon called Alla Paradise or somethign like that, anywasy AMAZING PLACE. they have over 50 kinds of gelato everything from mars bar to champagne flavour. AND! it's cheap! only 2.50euros for 3 flavours. and they're generous with how much they give you. So i got stratacella?spelling?, kinder egg flavour, and coffee crunch. SOO GOOD.
While devouring our gelato we walked through random streets trying to head towards the Vatican. We saw beautiful buildings, whether they were churches, apartments or govt buildings everything is so old and beautiful in Rome.
The roads are all cobblestone and very twisty. We crossed the river and checked out the Castle D'Angelo, which is a beautiful old castle (not sure what it was for...), continued up the river towards the Vatican. We walked through St. Peters Square, and found the wind stones from Angels and Demon (where one of the cardinals gets killed and he represents Wind). see picture below:
Then we walked back over the river and found the Spanish Steps. It was beautiful to see at night and lots of people, but they werent anything too special, just another famous tourist spot. There are also all the designer stores in this area e.g. Gucci, D&G, Dior, Chanel, Prada etc...
Then we came back to the hotel, and had a quick siesta because we were all so tired from walking all day. After getting up Holly, Darcey and I went to a restaurant around the corner from our hotel to eat some dinner. Though, we werent very hungry as we were still full from the lunch we had 6 hours before! So Holly had a piece of bruchetta, Darcey had a big salad, and i had some pizza, but i could not finish all my pizza.
We ended up meeting up with Holly's friend who's in API as well but doing her exchange in Rome. So she took us to the Travestere area again to a bar. She introduced us to her friend who opened a bar tab and said we could order whatever we wanted, as many times as we wanted.... dont have to tell me twice! So we had free drinks all night long. We made friends with the bartenders so they kept making us the most delicious drinks ive ever had. They were like fruit smoothies, with real pieces of fruit in them, like kiwis, strawberries, orange slices, etc etc. SOOOO GOOD. We were planning on leaving the bar around 12midnight, becasue we wanted to get up super early the next morning to go to the Vatican, but we didnt end up leaving until 2am! whoops.
We got back to our hotel using the night bus successful, it was really easy to use. The best thing about the bus system in Rome is that the locals dont pay for the buses, so you just hop on. :) yay for saving money.
Onto day 3....
No comments:
Post a Comment