Rome

What an experience. We only had ONE day for Rome and boy did we make good use of it. Everywhere you turn there is something AMAZING to see so I was in a photographer's paradise!

We took the train into Rome and then hopped on the Metro to the Colosseo stop. You literally walk up the stairs and the massive beauty of the Colosseum stands before you. It is literally AWEsome.

We walked all through it and just took it all in (while listening to a Rick Steves audio tour of course.) To be in the place where atrocious things happened SO long ago is quite surreal. It was amazing to see how the floor of the stadium is gone and you can see all the goings on underneath. Amazing.

Outside of the Colosseum is the Arch of Constantine which also has a very interesting history. Everything there is so BIG and so OLD.

The Arch sits in between the Colosseum and the Forum (like the Forum shops in Vegas!) Walking through the Forum you really get a sense of what Rome in its age was all about. This is where everyone lived, and so much history took place. Rome was an empire for a few hundred years and to think about everything that happened right where we were walking was again...surreal.

The size of many of these ruins was astonishing. How they were able to build all of these massive structures is beyond me. A true testament to what their empire had going on at the time.

After the Forum we headed through downtown Rome to find the Pantheon. Another massive building that has the largest open air dome in the world (I think).

On our way we saw other random, MASSIVE and gorgeous buildings just situated in between the normal more modern downtown buildings. So impressive!

It was in the piazza della Rotunda (the plaza outside the Pantheon) that we saw here. Darby says she is always on the lookout for them because she sees them quite often. A old little Italian grandma looking out the window. I had to take a picture otherwise I might not have believed it myself!

We ate lunch and then caught a cab to the Vatican! WOW! What a site! This picture does NOTHING to justify just how big this place is. The blue dome is St. Peters Basilica.

We walked all the way around to the back to go in the museum. We made our way inside and walked the seemingly neverending halls to finally make our way to the Sistine Chappel. No photography allowed in that room and even though the room itself was packed with upward facing visitors they attempted to keep it as quiet as possible. We got aching necks taking in all the glory of the ceiling frescos and seeing those paintings in person that I have seen on TV and in the Movies thousands of times was very, very cool.

After the Vatican we walked around a bit, snacked on some gelato (not Cinnamon flavored but I finally found a place that had Cinnamon!) bought some beautiful oil on canvas art of the Spanish Steps (which is the first picture below) and then wandered the streets looking for a place for dinner. We found a place and I had the best risotto of my life and then we headed back towards the subway. We spotted a fun trattoria and an even cuter little car on our way so we stopped for a photo op. We also wandered by the Trevi Fountain which if it wasn't under a ton of scaffolding would have been amazing to see.

I'm not sure why I have such a weird expression on my face in that last pic!

Last but not least, a collage of all of the selfies we took on this day. Paul has a built in selfie stick so we made it to good use throughout the entire day.

Rome, we can't wait to come back and really spend some time checking out all of the amazing things you have to offer. Thank you for having a lot of stuff relatively close so we could feel like we actually accomplished a lot in such a short amount of time! ~The Wolfes

All images (with the exception of random iPhone images) taken with:
Canon 6D | 24-105mm f/4.0 lens

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