We continued on to Orvieta and all got off the coach not sure of where we were and where to go. We all boarded a cable car which took us up to the top of a large hill that the town sat on. We looked around for a while, saw the duomo, and continued back down the hill to keep on our path to Rome.
We arrived in Rome that night with free time to go find dinner. Our hotel was located in the Chinatown district so it took a while to find a place where we could have Italian food. The food was so-so so we decided to try our chances on gelato. We found a place that was having a sale where their largest cup of gelato was only 1.5 euros! The flavors weren't the best we'd had but it was nice for a cheaper dessert.
The next day we started off early walking to the metro with our tour guide for a long day of walking. We visited Vatican City first which was crazy to see how the security worked between Rome and the sacred city. We saw the Vatican Museum which was full of paintings of Raphael and Michelangelo. The Sistine Chapel was amazing in person. Pictures weren't allowed but I don't think it would be able to show what you could see in person anyway.
After leaving Vatican City we went and grabbed a quick lunch before heading to our tour of the colosseum. The tour was great. A lot of the arena was left to be imagined but the scale alone of it was really impressive. There were also skulls of animals that were used in the fights found in the excavation of the building, as well as stone capitals with the inscriptions left on them. It had been built in 9 years which is incredible.
We walked down the road where we entered the Roman Forum which was basically the common place of the city. The archeologists are struggling with the excavation of this site since there are so many important buildings built on top of other important ones they are not sure which to uncover and which need to be left. The tour guide explained to us that Rome has to be very careful about future building plans. Recently they made plans to build a train station where all of the trains meet but a problem they ran into was there are very important artifacts under the site and they had to make the decision to cancel the train station and leave the artifacts for future generations to have. The way she described it is trying to move forward while protecting and remembering the past which was a neat thing to think about.
Visiting the pantheon was amazing to see how massive the building was in person. The giant oculus in the center of the ceiling was almost mesmerizing. It was also crazy to see the burial place of Raphael after seeing all of his amazing works earlier that day.
That night we walked to the Trevi Fountain and threw our coins in before splitting for a nice dinner where we had limoncello and then went for gelato. We found a delicious gelateria that had the best gelato I'd had yet. The owner explained that he made all of the favors with real ingredients and not flavoring. It was clear that he took his store very seriously and was not satisfied unless his customer was as well. I tried the pistachio with dark chocolate and it was the best gelato I had tried yet.
The next day we woke early and went down to breakfast. Halfway through breakfast Les ran in saying we needed to leave early to make our way to our destination for the morning, because the trains were going on strike at the time we planned to board. We ran to the station which was packed full of people trying to make the train before they shut down. We piled in on top of each other trying not get lost in the crowds. I couldn't reach a handrail so I relied on a taller world tour member to hold on to. We finally reached the edge of the train station where we caught a bus for a twenty minute ride out to Tivoli.
In Tivoli we visited Villa Desti, where the gardens are known as the garden of 1000 fountains. Fountains lined the entire place. The sound of water was everywhere and it was beautiful. We sketched a bit and had lunch before catching the bus back and heading to the Spanish steps.
That day we walked around looking in local stores including a quick stop in the Ferrari store. We had a really good dinner that night before heading back to the hotel. Chen my friend on the trip was turning 23 at midnight so a group of us decided to take him out to a nearby club for some birthday dancing and celebration.
The next morning we woke up early and started to load our things onto the coach a few people at a time when Monica came running in saying something was stolen off of the coach and a few of the boys took off after the thief. Rod ran out to find out his bag that had been in the front seat of the coach was gone. We spent an hour visiting the police station and trying to get ahold of people to help replace what we had lost. That morning we all were feeling very disappointed and shared thoughts of "If only I'd been paying more attention maybe I could have...." It has definitely made us all more aware of the security of our things before continuing onto Pompeii for a quick visit.
Pompeii was amazing see since it is so well preserved. They have paintings and frescoes covering their walls and gorgeous mosaic floors because the entire city was buried in poisonous rubble. The roads and most walls were completely in tact. you could even see the chariot wheel indents made over time in the stone pavers. The guide explained it was covered in 4 to 7 meters of rubble after the explosion of the nearby volcano. They had even found the bodies of people who had died in the explosions and were able to make plaster casts of their bodies. It was insane to see how much he casts showed. It was terrible see the expressions on the faces of the people who died excruciating deaths of suffocation. It is neat to have such a well preserved piece of the Roman history.
We left Pompeii ready for a four hour long drive to the ferry where we boarded for an overnight trip to Greece.
Who was the Columbus man?
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