Rome - Day 2

Today was our day to "do" Rome and did we ever do it! After breakfast at the cafe across the street from our hotel, we started out on our mission to find ancient Rome. With our trusty Rick Steves on the iPad, our first glimpse of ruins came at the Museum of Rome. It was also our first view of the cats of Rome.

We continued on until we got to the Forum. It was filled with tourists as we had expected but we each felt thankful that we had not come in the summer when it is supposed to be even more crowded and hot. We had lovely weather today with it cool enough for a jacket in the morning but sunny and 70ish in the afternoon. We decided that neither of us were that interested in actually standing on line and joining the throngs within the Coliseum, so we just circled it catching views of inside through some of the arches. We had seen so many documentaries on it that we figured we could avoid my idea of hell which is following a tour guide with 30 or so people that keep asking stupid questions.

We kept wandering for a total of about 4 hours, seeing the Trevi Fountain and numbers of obelisks. We had enough of crowds so we shleped back to our hotel for a much needed nap. I love the sleep of vacations!

After our nap we set out looking for dinner. We had written down the name of restaurant we saw on a Rick Steves' TV show. We must have screwed something up because it didn't look like the one we saw but since we hadn't eaten since breakfast, we decided to eat there anyway. I got to speak my first Italian (besides grazie) by ordering de la bira (beer) and had my first real Italian pizza. It was great!

Then we made our way to the Spanish Steps, where I listened to the Van Morrison song, The Spanish Steps on my iPhone! I had been planning this for a while and was so excited to pull it off!

We walked for a total of 4 hours in the evening too. Only one minor mishap which could have been a disaster. We were at the Pantheon and for some reason, Rick thought there were some steps but instead there was a four foot drop. We only noticed the sign after Rick took the best fall of his life and didn't hurt himself!

We fortified ourselves with our first, of what I assume will be many, gelatos for the walk back to the hotel. Even with all the walking I did this summer to train for the trip, I think I might have over done it. Tomorrow will tell!