Roma

Rome…where do I begin!? Such a beautiful city with history around every corner. People in our group have complained about the bigger cities being dirty, crowded,and overrun by tourist. Despite those things, there is something about Rome that is magical. 

We left Salerno around lunch time and caught a train into the center of town. We arrived just in time for an afternoon thunderstorm. As we pulled into the station we heard the thunder begin to roll and see lightning in the distance. A couple of our friends were coming into the same train station just a bit later, so we waited around for them to arrive. Almost as soon as we met up with them to walk to our hotel, the bottom dropped out and it began to pour. We ended up finding a McDonald's in the train station and waiting for the rain to let up. About thirty minutes later it wasn't raining very hard so we decided to start the trek to the hotel. We couldn't find the street we were supposed to walk down and it began to rain harder as we walked so we decided to catch a taxi. The taxi man wasn't very nice (partially because I did not have the exact address, but thanks to our handy dandy prepaid Italian cell, we were able to call Dr. Belzer and find out what it was) but he got us closer to where we were going. The road was closed part of the way so we had to walk a little to get to the hotel. We got kind of wet, but not as wet as the rest of our group. They came into a different train station and they thought the hotel was close by so they decided to walk, then it started to downpour so not only did they get wet, all of their stuff was soaked as well. That night we walked to the Colosseum and had dinner at a little pizzeria with the rest of our group. 

The next morning Steph and I got up and did some exploring before we met up with Camilla for lunch that afternoon. We walked and walked and then walked some more. We visited the Altare della Patria, a monument signifying the unification of Italy, the Pantheon, and several churches, all before lunch. 

We met up with Camilla and she took us all around town, to the Piazza Popolo, the Spanish Steps, and the Trevi Fountain. We had a delicious lunch buffet with veggies and light pastas then topped it off with strawberry tiramisu from a local place called Pompi. SO DELICIOUS! She was a great tour guide. It was fun to walk around with someone who knew the town and hear different things she had to say about Rome! 

We were exhausted from walking everywhere so we went back to the hotel and napped for a bit. That night we met up with Jessie and had a huge Chinese dinner down the street from our hotel. After that we went shopping a little bit, wandered around and took Jessie to see the Trevi Fountain and Spanish Steps. We were all so exhausted that we ended up back at the hotel pretty early and just hung out in our room for a while before bed.

The next morning we ate breakfast at the most overpriced American breakfast place. We have been getting 1.5 liters of water for 2 euros and this place was charging 5 euros for them. A cappuccino was 7 euros. 7 EUROS! Crazy. We didn't realize it was so expensive until we sat down, so we couldn't really get up and leave. Steph and I split french toast so it ended up not being too bad. After that, Steph, Jessie and I went to the Colosseum before heading to the train station. It was incredible to see the enormity of the Colosseum from the inside and out. 

Even though we got wet, we walked way too much and my feet hurt more than I could have imagined, it was HOT, it was crowded and dirty, I loved our whirlwind tour of Rome. 

I'm making progress almost caught up. Now I just have to catch you up on our trip to Verona and Venice. It's too late tonight, but I will do my best to get another one up tomorrow! 

Until next time, Ciao!