Day 1 in Rome!

All Aud can say is.... "Just Spectacular!" The intertwining of old and ancient buildings on such a grand scale is simply amazing. Of course Lex is used to all of this... But not Aud. I am very lucky to have Lex as such a great tour guide. I am simply in awe of her knowledge. On our first day we decided to just walk around and get the feel of Rome.

In our first 15 minutes out of the hotel we did purchase t- shirts because our luggage did not arrive this morning. We then continued down to the Colosseum where we stood and looked at all the people... And of course the Colosseum! Aud was amazed at how huge it was! Lex had to remind her that this was only the first stop of the day! Aud had a tough time with her illness with the aftermath of staying up for over 30 hours to get to Rome so we did not commit to Colosseum and Forum tickets this first day. So, we walked and stopped at three forums on the way to the Vittorio Emanuele Monument (a.k.a. The Wedding Cake). The forum of Nerva, the forum of Augustus, and the forum of Trajan. Lex was of course super at explaining the history of these three forums!!

The Wedding Cake was really exciting because Lex had noted that one could not typically enter it in the past. We got lucky. Not only did we go up and walk around inside but they now have an elevator that goes to the top in order to see a panoramic view of Rome. Quite spectacular! We had done quite a bit of walking and it was only noon at this point! The church of Santa Maria in Aracoeli was breathtaking. It was next to the Wedding Cake so Aud thought we would make a quick stop... We were there for an hour just looking and taking pictures.

Then we walked part way down the back side of the Capitoline Hill to look out over the Roman Forum and sit down on some steps for a little bit of rest, before heading back across the Capitoline and towards the Pantheon. On the way there we stopped for our first gelato. We also got to see the cat sanctuary at Largo Argentina. The cats were all busy sleeping in the afternoon heat, tucked behind temple fragments in the shade.

The Pantheon was as interesting as I had hoped it would be! The entire day was spent among these ancient ruins and it made Aud practically speechless! We spent quite some time inside the Pantheon again taking pictures and soaking in the spectacular architecture. We will be going back to the Pantheon to see the light come in from the oculus from a different angle.

We continued our journey from the Pantheon to the Trevi fountain via the column of Antoninus Pius. The Trevi fountain was beautiful. Aud has a hard time imagining how all of these could have been created ever so long ago. We were so tired after all of our walking and sightseeing that we went back to our hotel at about 4 for a siesta. We were up for dinner and went for some Italian pizza!! Yum! Aud thought it was better than the Italian pizza in the North End in Boston! :) on our walk home we figured we had walked off so many calories that day that we indulged in another gelato!

Totals for the day: 14,066 step (7.17 miles) and roughly 500 pictures taken!




At the Colosseum!



At the Forum of Trajan.











The Wedding Cake.


WATER! They have nice public water.




Top of the Wedding Cake.











Santa Maria in Aracoeli



Il Bambino




Rest stop overlooking the Forum.




They certainly like to sell!!



Cat sanctuary.



The Elephant for Ellen!



The Pantheon.



Trevi fountain was amazing.



I could not believe they were trying to sell bobble-head Popes!



Love the graffiti!



Notice the new shirts we're sportin'!



We were very tired at dinner!