A BLOG CHRONICLING MY SEMESTER AND TRAVELS ABROAD

Thank you so much for visiting my blog. I hope that this will be an excellent way for me to keep all of my friends and family up to date on my semester abroad in Rome. Please feel free to post any comments you would like, or shoot me an e-mail and I will try to respond as soon as possible. Also, if you click on each of the photographs below, it will display them at their full size.

Saturday, February 3, 2007

Sean and Shad: Day 1

I woke up today and went a picked Monica up to go meet my cousins Sean and Shad at Termini Station. They came down from Bologna (actually Bossana, where my cousin Sean has been working) to spend a couple days in Rome. We got a little lost trying to find their hotel, which was only about 2 blocks away from Termini Station as sad as that sounds. First we hit up Trevi Fountain and the Pantheon and they are still completely amazing. Out of everything I have seen here in Rome I am still most awe-struck by the Pantheon. After that we stopped by Pizza Buono to pick up a slice for lunch. We went through Area Sacra (the cat sanctuary), it is still really weird seeing all the cats in the old ruins by the way, and then found our way to the Monument of Vittorio Emmanuelle.

Here is Monica and Shad at the beginning of our tour.

Here is Sean and Shad in front of the Trevi Fountain.

The Pantheon. My Favorite.

Here is Sean and Shad inside the Pantheon.

Me and my cousins outside of the Pantheon.

Another shot of the Monument of Vittorio Emmanuelle. I still couldn't get the whole thing in one shot.

When we started climbing the stairs up towards the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier (on the Monument of Vittorio Emmanuelle) we saw that the entire left side of the Monument had been opened up (as it was all blocked off during our first visit to the monument). We eventually headed up in that direction and spent a few minutes just enjoying the view from that side of the monument. We had a great view of the Coliseum in the distance as well as a lot of the ruins from the Roman Forum in the area.

This is one of the shots from the left side of the Monument. You can see the Coliseum in the distance.

Sean and Shad found the Coliseum.

After we were done taking in the amazing view from the Monument, we walked up the street to see the Coliseum. It was a beautiful day out and I think the Coliseum gets even more amazing every time that you see it. We hung around for a while and took quite a few pictures before we headed into the Roman Forum area and spent the next 20 minutes walking through the ruins.

The Coliseum.

Sean and Shad in front of the Coliseum.

The Coliseum.

Some ruins in the Roman Forum.

More ruins in the Roman Forum.

After this we thought it would be a brilliant idea to go check out the Vatican…which is pretty much about half-way across the entire city of Rome. By the time we got there Monica’s feet were killing her and my legs were pretty worn out. We stopped off at a little bar right outside St. Peters Square where Sean and Shad had their first taste of gelato (little did we know this would be the first 3 gelato stops we would make in the next 24 hours).

Here is Monica and I next to the Tiber river about four blocks from the Vatican. We were all pretty exhausted at this point but we had to keep on going.

Re-energized we headed to the Vatican. This was the first time I had actually seen the inside of the Basilica and it was like nothing I’d ever seen before. Not only was the size daunting, the detail and perfection of everything inside made it seem unreal. I know the photos I took can’t really do it justice so if you are reading this just know that you will have to come to Rome and experience it for yourself someday. We ended up getting into the Vatican museum for free for some reason and spent about 45 minutes walking through it and checking out all of the different treasures. We really wanted to see the Sistine Chapel and the catacombs but unfortunately both had closed for the day shortly after we had arrived. So after wandering around the Basilica for a little while longer we decided to take a little break before grabbing some food.

This is what St. Peter's Square looks like from the steps of the Basilica.

The inside of the Basilica was amazing. The size alone is enough to make you weak in the knees from looking at it. Not to mention the detail and how well everything inside has been preserved.

This was right in front of the altar in the Basilica.

This might give you some idea of just how big it actually is inside.

A couple of hours later we met near Area Sacra and found a restaurant to eat at right outside of Campo dei Fiori called Grappolo d'oro Zampanò. Dinner was great and after we had already gotten our check, the waiter brought us our first taste of Limoncello…and it was incredibly strong. None of us could finish it.

After dinner we met up with my roommates Case and Kurt and went to Blue Ice for our second helping of gelato for the day. Blue Ice is still one of my favorite gelato places in Rome. Afterwards we went to Abbey Theatre and had a couple rounds of Guinness and just sat around and talked for a while before calling it a night.

Ahhh, Guinness.

1 comment:

Annikakes said...

Drinking Guinness - you make me so proud!