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Rome Day 1

The train from Florence to Rome was uneventful.  We made it to the hotel, dropped our luggage and wandered off.  Our first stop was the Trevi Fountain.  It was crazy busy but as beautiful as I remember.  We took our required picture and moved on.  


We arrived at the Pantheon and were sad to see that tickets were required on the weekends and they didn’t have any left.  Thinking we would not be able to go inside, a lady came up to us offering to let us join her tour group heading inside in a few minutes for a reasonable price.  We’re still not sure how legit it was, but we got inside and had a hilarious tour guide (we think from the UK) and were able to see the beauty of the church inside this amazing former Roman temple.  Perhaps the strangest thing about this church is the eye in the middle of the dome that is open to the sky.  It was sprinkling at that time and the rain came through into the church.  It remains the world’s largest unreinforced concrete dome, only slightly larger than the dome at St Peter’s Basilica.





Since it was close by, we wandered over to the Piazza Navona.  It was a large rectangular piazza with shops and a beautiful fountain in the middle.  


We returned to the hotel to grab a bite to eat and meet up with tour guide for the Vatican museums.  She met us at the hotel and we took the metro to Vatican City.  Upon entering it was wonderful to have her all to ourselves and she guided us through the stunning Vatican museums, including the Sistine Chapel.  I may have geeked out a little too much on the Renaissance art, including many works from Michelangelo and Raphael, and her walking us through how their art evolved.  I didn’t take many pictures as they just don’t do the place justice and I was too distracted listening to all the fascinating details of the Vatican’s history and the art collections. 

At the end of tour she left us to explore on our own.  We ended up outside the museums in a little garden as the sunset behind St Peter’s.  There was something so wonderful being there at night.  


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