Day 7: Rome

Day 7 of our travels was definitely one of my favorites! Parts of it were a little touristy, but Rome was definitely my favorite Italian city!

We began the morning in Florence and visited a wonderful market. There was lots of pasta, sun-dried tomatoes, lots of olive oil, mushrooms, and so much more!

And we got muffins with Nutella for breakfast!

We had an early train to Rome, and it was virtually empty, which was nice.  Perfect for last minute planning of what we were going to see when we arrived!

The ride couldn't have been any more beautiful. I know I take way too many pictures from outside train/bus/plane windows, but I just can't help it! :)

When we arrived in Rome, we definitely noticed a temperature difference... much hotter! We took the Metro from the train station, to another train station, and then we walked a mile to our hostel. It was hot and these travels to our hostels are never our favorite moments. But, we arrived miraculously and instantly loved the owner of the Eco B&B! She was so sweet and the location reminded us very much of Granada! Here is a view from our balcony.

Our hostel owner recommended that we visit Gelati y Mozzarella, a gelato place that is very popular with the locals! This was hands down my favorite gelato of our entire trip! I had a medium cup (coppetta mediana) of mixed berry, Madagascar vanilla, and nutella! It was soooooo good! Kelley also got the nutella flavor and both of us came to the surprising conclusion that the nutella flavor tasted real similar to Nutella, and it was! YUM! The mile walk to the metro was much easier this time, with gelato instead of bulky suitcases!

I don't know if I say it enough, but the Metro systems are really the way to go when there is one, and we utilized it a lot in both Barcelona and Rome! We got off at the Colosseum stop and there we were, looking at the nearly 2,000 year old landmark. THE Colosseum. So cool!

Click "read more" to see the rest of this post!

Inside the Colosseum

It was just a spectacular sight. I couldn't really get over how amazing and large it was. The pictures don't even begin to do it justice.

Right outside the Colosseum was the Arch of Constantine, which was built in 312. And for a fun fact since we are in the midst of the Olympics, this arch served as the marathon finish line in the 1960 Olympics in Rome.

More pictures from inside the Colosseum...

Kelley's sunglasses!

A view from outside the Colosseum.

Our next stop was the Roman Forum and Palatine Hill. The Roman Forum used to be an impressive plaza that housed many government buildings in the Roman Empire.

The trees almost look like they could be in a Dr. Seuss book to me! :)

This whole day was just magical. I couldn't believe what I was actually seeing. Also, I was just so lucky to be with wonderful people, Kelley and Elle.

I loved this picture since I had used a very similar version of this image in a final paper for my first college history class, in which I looked at different architecture over the course of the class!

I can't even begin to imagine what it must have looked like and felt like to be walking around here at it's peak, with many of these buildings being constructed as early as the 5th Century BCE!

Another distant view of the Colosseum.

This arch is part of the Roman Forum and called the Arch of Septimius Severus, which was dedicated in 203 CE.

I had used a very similar picture in my history paper as well, to illustrate the detail of the ceiling in the Basilica of Maxentius.

I loved this photo, since although the building is clearly not what it used to be, so much is still preserved, and I love the juxtaposition of the ancient architecture against the impermanent flowers.

Elle and I!

An overview of the forum

This picture is from the steps on the way out. Kelley and Elle were very patient with me, since although  it was 6:30 pm and the intercom came on telling everyone to leave, I just took everything in for a few minutes, probably because I was starstruck in a historical site kind of way! :)

Moving on... next we visited the Piazza Del Campidoglio, which is on the Capitoline Hill. Michelangelo actually designed the piazza in 1560.  And there were newlyweds taking pictures!

Next we headed towards the breathtakingly magnificent monument to King Victor Emmanuel II, who was the first king of unified Italy.

This is definitely quite a monument! In Italian it is called Altare della Patria (which means Alter of the Fatherland). It is an instance (one of the few haha) where I can see the similarities between Italian and Spanish.

An outdoor statue of Julius Caesar. The only reason his arm is chopped off is because I tried to crop out the guy who was posing next to the statue. You may notice how the base of the statue has the letters SPQR written on them, which is a Latin phrase that refers to the ancient Roman Republic and translates to "the Senate and the People of Rome".

Dinner time! By this point we were pretty tired, but we found this famous and amazingly delicious pizza place! It was called Pizzeria Lucci and each of us ordered a pizza and an order of gnocchi to share! Yum yum yum!  I got the roasted vegetable pizza, which had peppers, zucchini and eggplant on it!

We ended our intensely wonderful day with the Trevi Fountain and a few other plazas that we explored. We all participated in the tradition of throwing a coin over your shoulder to return again someday to Rome. Rome was my favorite city in Italy, so I would gladly return again with anyone who wanted to visit!

And that concludes this crazy, remarkable day! I can't believe this post was so long. I definitely think it is because of all of the pictures. And I only included 1/9 of my pictures from the day. CRAZY! Also, I really hope there aren't too many typos, since after I spent about 3 hours total going through photos, uploading them, and actually writing, I'm not too keen on editing. Anyway, as always, thank you for reading and I hope you are having a wonderful weekend! :)