All Roads Lead to Roma...

After a few days of recovery from Paris, we were off again. This time, Rome. The Eternal City.

We woke up early on Friday to be at the train by 8:45 to catch the fast train to Rome. We met our guide for the weekend, Freya, at the train station and she is amazing. She is from Australia and moved to Italy 8 years ago, met her husband here and has been married for two years now. We boarded the train and I must say, the fast train is much nicer than the slow regional ones. We had a table to work at/sleep on and everything. The train only took 1.5 hours and we were in ROME! We first took the bus to our hotel area and walked to the Hotel Navona. The hotel was really nice and the boys go the new suites! We went to get lunch in Campo dei Fiori (really cool square) and then met Freya for our walking tour. She is a tank of knowledge; I was really impressed. We went to the Piazza Novana, back to Campo dei Fiori (where all the specialty shops used to be in ancient Rome, I learned), the Pantheon and the Trevi Fountain. The Trevi Fountain proved to be quite the photo shoot and coin-throwing marathon. We had the evening free and decided to first eat dinner at the Dal Paino, a local Roman pizzeria that Sarah Crutchfield suggested us go. It was AMAZING. After dinner, we went out to an Irish Pub and called it a night.

On Saturday, we met outside the hotel for our day at the Vatican. It is so cool that Vatican city is it's own country inside the city of Rome. Kind of trippy, actually. We walked there and started with the Vatican Museums. We saw some amazing and historical sculptures and art, also learning about papal history and politics. The Medici family of Florence even had a few Popes! We then ate lunch and went to St. Peter's Basilica. St. Peter's is HUGE and so beautiful. I saw Pope John Paul II's crypt and beautiful frescos and sculptures. It was definitely worth the long and winding line! Again, we had the afternoon and evening free. After a much-needed nap, Moriah, Brandon and I went to dinner at Dal Paino again (haha). This time, we got calzones. It was the best calzone I've ever had--ham, cheese, egg and mushrooms. It was a risky order, but SO GOOD! After that, Brandon had a secret place he wanted to show us. We met up with Robert and Parker and started walking toward the Coliseum. It was even more amazing than I thought it would be, especially at night. We then decided randomly to go to the top of this hill to see if we could get a good look at the city from above. This decision changed everything. I won't go into detail because a majority of the night was quite spiritual. But I'll just say this: our night included a Franciscan Monastery, the "Friar's Pub," a private reflection garden and the most moving testimony I've ever heard. It was one of those nights that you wake up the next morning and wonder if it really happened. That kind of stuff doesn't happen to me...and it did. We did end up going to Brandon's spot much later that night. It was a tiny keyhole in a random place in Rome with a perfect alignment to St. Peter's Basilica (thank you, Dr. Pitcock). I couldn't think of a more perfect ending to our night in Rome. 

On Sunday, we got up, checked out of the hotel and went on our last guided tour with Freya. We went tot he Coliseum and it was so interesting! It was kind of weird to imagine people fighting to the detah there, right were you are standing. Then we went to the Roman Forum and Capitoline Hill, where they organized government, law and political speech in ancient Rome. For a political junkie like me, this was a definite highlight. On our free time for lunch, a few of us went to Giolitti, with the most amazing gelato I've ever had! Shout out to Dr. Pitcock and Amberle for that one! After that, we made our way to the train station for the quick trip back home to Florence.