When in Rome...

On our way to Rome from Venice we bumped into several American's on the train.  One couple from Austin had been here for 3 weeks and then 3 guys from New York who gave us some tips on Florence and Naples.  It was nice to talk to some other Americans and it helped the 4 hour train ride go by fast!

We arrived in Rome yesterday around lunch time and checked into our hotel.  Here are some pics below.

We now have a blogging station!

As soon as we got settled we headed to the Colosseum.  The Colosseum was amazing to see.  There was a lot of work going on there because the Pope is holding a ceremony there tonight for Good Friday. It was also really packed inside and around the Colosseum.

This is outside the Colosseum over looking the Roman Forum.  Do you see the people dressed up like Romans, they are everywhere and they try to get you to take pictures with them.  

Do you see the cross in the picture below?  This was part of the preparation for the Pope.

We then headed over to the Roman Forum.  I had to admit, Jason and I were so tired our first day in Rome, that I felt like we didn't enjoy it as much as we should have, but we still had a lot of fun looking around.  We also didn't do much research on the Roman Forum, so at times we had no idea what we were looking at, but we still got some pretty good pictures.

Here is a view of the Colosseum from the Roman Forum.

This is where Julius Cesar was cremated in the Roman Forum.

People still put flowers there today.

Here is a view of the streets in Rome, look how crazy they are.  You seriously just have to run across the street and hope you don't get hit because they are not stopping.

After the Roman Forum we headed back to the hotel and tried to go to dinner around 7, then we found out that they don't eat dinner till almost 9pm. We found a little Italian restaurant that was open at 7:30 and had some dinner.  On the way back to our hotel we came across and Italian grocery store and you better bet we bought some oreo's and ritz crackers!!

This morning we woke up and headed to the Vatican for our tour.  We were in a group of 10 people and had a really good tour guide.  The St. Peters Basilica and Crypt closed at noon today because of Good Friday, so we were only able to see the Vatican Museum and Sistine Chapel.  Here are a few pictures of the outside of St. Peters Basilica. You are not allowed to take pictures of the Sistine Chapel, although, I saw tons of people sneaking pictures, so I don't have any of them.  The Sistine Chapel was pretty amazing and our guide gave us so much history behind it, it made it amazing to see.

If you look in the back corner you an see a black window, this is where the Pope gives his blessing every Wednesday.  The two black windows to the right of that our the Popes sleeping headquarters.

In the center of this picture you can see a little passage way that connects the two buildings, this is the Sistine Chapel from the outside.

Below is where the Apostle St. Peter was crucified upside down.  The tall monument was shipped over here from Egypt and was actually standing in the same spot when he was crucified.  

Here is the long line we got to skip thanks to our great tour guide.

Below is a picture of the Vatican gardens.  In these gardens the Pope had his own train station and helicopter landing pad.

Can you see me and Jason's reflection?

I learned a very interesting fact today that I thought I would share with you guys.  Below is a sculpture missing his penis.

In the picture below, the sculptures penis is covered with a fig leaf. So, the interesting fact is, that a lot of nude sculptures later had their private parts covered with fig leaves due to one particular Pope who thought that showing the private parts was inappropriate. But then, another Pope said, no, they should not be covered with fig leaves and had all the fig leaves removed.  But, when the fig leaves were originally put on, the penis was removed so a lot of the sculptures in the museum were missing their penis and according to our guide, the broken penis pieces were lost forever!

Ok moving on.  The ground that we were walking on below is over 1,000 years old.

One of the long ceilings in the Vatican Museum.

The below picture was painted by Rafael, it's called The School of Athens.  He was painting this at the same time Michaelangelo was painting the Sistine Chapel.

After the Vatican Tour, we found a Burger King and had a big juicy burger.  It was amazing and I don't even like Burger King.  We then decided to visit a few other places.

Piazza Novana

Pantheon

Trevi Fountain

Spanish Steps

All in all we did a lot of walking today and saw a lot.  I have to say that Rome is my least favorite city so far.  It is just way to crazy!  We are off to Pompeii tomorrow and I should have a pretty cool post on that.  Love you guys!