Day 9 and 10 Rome

Day 9

We woke up early and had the best free breakfast of the trip so far. Chocolate filled crossants, yum!! Cindy and I stuffed our bags and ate as much as we could. We were supposed to spend the morning at Ostia Antica the Roman Port however the workers decided to be on strike that day so instead we went to see St. Paul's Basilica and the Catacombs. Both were amazing. The church was beautiful and we took a lot of pictures.

The Catacombs on the other hand were a bit creepy. The particular catacomb that we visited was over 11miles long with 4 different levels. Back in the day Catholicism wasn't highly regarded and so most Catholics kept their religion a secret. However they wanted to be buried because they believed that if they were buried their soul would rise to heaven. At the time though cremation was most popular burial procedure due to the cost efficiency. The catacombs became a burial place where Catholics could be buried underground secretly. The bodiess were wrapped in a white shroud like Jesus and then just buried into the walls of the tunnels and then a marble tombstone was placed in front of the body. They believe that there were over 150,000 tombs in this particular catacomb but no one knows the exact number of bodies because some families were buried together. Also only about 2,000 graves remain unopened from the original 150,000 due to grave robbers.

After the catacombs we headed to meet the rest of the group at the Vatican. We stood in line in about 90 degree blistering sunshine. Lucky us. Once inside we were able to walk around the grounds/gardens, view the Sistine Chapel, and St. Peter's Basilica. The Vatican was beautiful. The artwork that went into it's creation is absolutely amazing. I'm not sure if the pictures can even give it justice. We spent the rest of the afternoon there before heading back to the hotel with the group.

We all vegged for a bit in our rooms and attempted to cool off before busting out the maps and deciding what we wanted to do with the rest of our evening. We decided we wanted to view the sites of Rome at night. So we hopped onto the Metro and headed to the Spanish steps. There we took pictures, reanacted Rocky as we jogged up the steps and took a lot of pictures. One of the girls in the group we were with told us that every 10 years the nuns climb the steps on their knees! She didn't know why so we'll have to find out about that because there are a lot of steps. While we were there we saw fireworks that were for the Roman holiday of St. Peter and St. Paul day. Yes, it's only a holiday celebrated in Rome.

After the steps we headed over to see the Trevi Fountain and stopped for some Gelato on the way. We tossed in our coins and enjoyed the view but didn't stay too long because the square was packed. From there we walked to the Pantheon and took pictures outside of it before catching the last Metro at 11:30 and headed back to the hotel after a long day.

Day 10

We woke up the next morning and boarded the bus with the rest of the group and went to the Colosseum and the Roman Forum. We had a tour guide but we mostly ventured off to take pictures and stage some gladiator-esque fights. The Roman Forum and Palatine Hill was amazing with all the history that it held and the "road"that we were walking on was several thousand years old which was definitely one of the coolest parts. Unfortuantely though we decided not to climb the hill because it was close to 100 degrees and there was absolutely no shade and we were dying. So we ended up going on a walking tour to see the same sites as we had the night before in the daylight. Unfortunately the Pantheon was closed due to the holiday but we had fun at all the other sites. We also got to see the steps that Julius Ceasar was killed on and take pictures. We walked by the tomb of the unknown soliders and the home of Napoleon's wife.

After the walking tour we split from the group to go see St. Ignatiús' Church. It doesn't look like much from the outside and we realized we had passed it the previous night but the inside was amazing. The ceiling artwork makes the building look like it is dome shaped and actually has a dome however the roof is actually flat and there is no dome. It was amazing. We stayed there for a while just admiring the work of the artist before heading back. We ended up running into some other girls that were going to Piazzia de Peopolo so we joined them, which means Square of the People. So we enjoyed the fountains and the beautiful scenary and made it home.

That night after freshening up at the hotel we headed to Trastavere a smaller neightborhood across the Tiber River. There we enjoyed a more authentic Italian dinner of lasagna and ravioli and then stopped for gelato. We slowly explored the small shops and the area before making our way back to the river and there was a street fest along the river. We walked along that and found our way to the oldest still usable bridge in Rome. We took some pictures and right over the bridge was a resturant that was playing movies on the side of a bu ilding. So we watched for a bit before realizing that it was getting close to the last Metro stop and we needed to head back.

We ended up getting lost. Apparently the bus stop is not directly across from where it dropped us off last night so we just kept walking. We felt like a pretty big deal though when 2 boys stopped us and asked us how to get to the Pantheon and we actually knew how. We decided to skip the bus and walked straight to the Metro that was by the Colosseum and Forum which was beautiful and all lit up at night. We made the Metro got into the hotel and went to bed.