Day two in ROME!

The second day we were in Rome we went on a full day tour of the city.  Our private tour guide's name was Daniele (it was actually a boy).  By this time, we were completely exhausted, but had a nine hour tour ahead of us, so we sucked it up and enjoyed the amazing city of Rome.

The first place Daniele took us was to Janiculum Hill, one of the highest points over the city of Rome.  It was a great place to start because we were able to see almost everything that we were going to be touring!  They had a really cool statue, A Monument to Garibaldi. The monument consists of a bronze statue portraying the hero riding a horse; on each side are engraved the allegorical figures of Europe and America and bas-relieves which commemorate the landing in Marsala, the resistance of Boiada, the defence of Rome and the group of liberty. 

The first place to check off our Rome bucket list was The Pantheon.  It was amazing!  Daniele said it was a "temple consecrated to all the Gods". It has been used all throughout its history, and since the 7th century, the Pantheon has been used as a Roman Catholic church dedicated to "St. Mary and the Martyrs" but informally known as "Santa Maria della Rotonda.

The square where we're sitting in front of the Pantheon is called Piazza della Rotonda.  They had a ton of these cute little cafes around the square, and it was funny to see the waiter's face when we asked for hot chocolate instead of coffee. :)

Haha, quite possibly my favorite picture of Sean from the entire day.

The inside of The Pantheon was beautiful.  The entire building had a circular shape,with a central opening (oculus) to the sky. It's been about two thousand years since it was built, and the Pantheon's dome is still the world's largest unreinforced concrete dome.

 Next, we saw my favorite place of the day; The Trevi Fountain.  Daniele told us it is the largest Baroque fountain in the city, and one of the most famous fountains in the world.

 Oh my goodness, it was absolutely breathtaking. 

 It was PACKED!

It was actually really hard to get a picture with no one else in it.  A lot of people were kind of freaking me out before we left for Europe, telling us how dangerous it was and how careful we need to be. Honestly, it really wasn't too bad, but at The Trevi Fountain there were SO many people there... and it was probably the only place where I felt a little unsafe.  I had a death grip on my purse the entire time!  This creepy little Italian guy kept harassing me, and badgering me about him taking a picture of us (so we could pay him for it of course).  He probably asked me about 10 times.  Finally Sean yelled at him, "Dude!  She said no!  I know you understand THAT much English.  Leave her alone!"  Creepster.

 Sean took some sweet panoramic views with his phone.

I asked Sean to smile, and this is what I got...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fWksgOsH3c&feature=youtu.be

Legend has it, that if you toss a coin into the Trevi Fountatin, then you will one day return to Rome.  So just like the door in the Vatican, I feel like I couldn't risk these types of things. :)

We went to the Capuchian Crypt next. It was cool, but honestly a little creepy.  It was basically a series of chapels mosaicked with bones of long-dead monks.  Apparently they were really bored, and didn't know what do do with all their skeletons of all the dead monks.

 One of Sean's favorite things to do is to sneak pictures where cameras are banned.  So all of these pictures are pictures that Sean snuck.

Next stop: The Spanish Steps!

 The Spanish Steps (the Italains call them the Scalinata della Trinità dei Monti) are basically a massive amount of steps between the Piazza di Spagna and Piazza Trinità dei Monti, dominated by the Trinita dei Monti church at the top. The Scalinata is the widest staircase in Europe.  Daniele told us, it's basically just a ton of steps leading up to a cool looking church, haha.

 I'm pretty sure Sean was trying to jump in the fountain...I'm not really sure though.

After we saw the beautiful Spanish Steps, Daniele took us to this really cool market where they sold everything you can think of!  I took just a few pictures, it was just a glimpse of some of the things they had in their booths.

 The fresh fruit they had was AMAZING.  Sean was in heaven!

There were so many fresh flowers, ahhhh I was loving it!!!

The best part about the market was the little pizza place Daniele told us to go to.  It was the best pizza I've ever had in my life, and I don't even really like pizza.  It was called Forno campo De Fiori.  They had probably about 10 different kinds of pizza, but the best part was they had a fresh one coming out every 3 minutes!  Oh, and another amazing bonus, it was dirt cheap.  They would give your 4-5 massive slices for less than 2 euros (about $2.60 in US dollars) It was ridiculous, we loved it!

 

I may have gained 10 pounds just eating that pizza, I couldn't help myself.  It was delicious!

After lunch, Daniele took us to see The Altare della Patria, also known as the Monumento Nazionale a Vittorio Emanuele II.  It's a monument built in honor of Victor Emmanuel, the first king of a unified Italy. The monument holds the tomb of an unknown solider with an eternal flame, built under the statue of Italy after Wold War I. 

 Daniele told us that the monument was controversial since its construction destroyed a large area of the Capitoline Hill with a Medieval  neighborhood for its sake. The monument itself is often regarded as pompous and too large, but it sure looked pretty to us!

Next, we went to the Catacombs of Rome.

 The Catacombs of Rome are ancient catacombs, underground burial places underneath the city of Rome. They began in the 2nd century AD, in response to overcrowding and shortage of land. Many scholars have written that catacombs came about to help persecuted Christians to bury their dead secretly. The soft volcanic tough rock under Rome is highly suitable for tunneling, as it is softer when first exposed to air, hardening afterwards. Many have miles of tunnels, in up to four layers.

Of course, cameras were banned here too (out of respect) so Sean had to snap some secret pics. It's kind of creepy, I know...but still interesting.

The Colosseum. 

Seriously, does this place even need an introduction?  It was insane, I felt like I was in the Gladiator movie, speaking of the Gladiator...

http://youtu.be/FtnC9HDUiYU

I dared Sean to bust out his favorite line from the movie, and he did it!

Can you believe this was built in 70 AD, and is still around?!  It's located right in the center of Rome, and we saw a bunch of times driving through the city.  Daniele said it considered one of the greatest works of Roman architchture  and engineering. It's still the largest amphitheatre in the world.

I'm still amazed at what great pictures our phone takes.  

We loved every minute of it.

Sean was getting a little worn out...

Some of the fallen columns, they had a ton of this kind of stuff all throughout Rome.  Daniele said Rome wants to be able to still show people what it the architecture looked like, and it allows people to really get up close and see how amazing it really is.

The outside was just as amazing as the inside.  It turns out we had only purchased advanced tickets to see the outside, and Daniele kept saying we probably didn't even need to see the inside.  But, I'm SO GLAD we went in.  You can't go all the way to Rome, and not go inside of the Colosseum?!

There was a great view of the Arch of Constantine from the Colosseum, this is one of my favorite pictures from the trip.

The Arch of Constantine, Arco di Costantino,  was one of my favorite arches that we saw in Rome, was right between the Colosseum and the Palatine Hill. It was built by the Roman Senate to commemorate Constantine's victory over Maxentius in 312. Crazy!

 Sean kept seeing Nuns all over Rome, and really (for some reason) wanted to get a picture with them.  I actually captured him asking them, which was a pretty funny sequence of events.

 He finally got one!  I'm sure they were thinking in their heads...stupid Americans.  Haha!

 Look how close it is to the Colosseum!

Can you see me?!  I'm that little spec between the arches.

 Palatine Hill!  Daniele said this is one of the most famous hills in Rome.  I know this isn't a great picture of it, but we were running out of time!

Daniele told us the old story of the Palatine Hill.  It was the location of the cave, known as the Lupercal, where Romulus and Remus were found by the she-wolf that kept them alive. According to the legend, the shepherd Faustulus found the infants, and with his wife raised the children. When they were older, the boys killed their great-uncle (who seized the throne from their grandfather), and they both decided to build a new city of their own on the banks of the River Tiber. Suddenly, they had a violent argument with each other and in the end Romulus killed his twin brother Remus. This is how "Rome" got its name - from Romulus.

If you remember the statue from our first stop on Janiculum Hill, you can see on the statue the she-wolf suckling the twins, Romulus and Remus.

Sorry, it's kind of hard to see.  Look right underneath the soldiers, the she-wolf blends in with the stone. You can see her feeding the twins.  Like the Vatican, Rome has a lot of symbolism and you can see this picture of the she-wolf and the twins all over Rome.

 Last, but definitely not least Daniele took us to the Roman Forum. The Roman Forum is a rectangular plaza surrounded by the ruins of several important ancient government buildings at the center of the city of Rome. Citizens of the ancient city referred to this space, originally a marketplace, as the Forum Magnum, or simply the Forum.

Many of the oldest and most important structures of the ancient city were located on or near the Forum. Some of these buildings still surviving were built as early as 7th century BC.  

So much history, it's crazy. 

After seeing the Forum, we walked through the little back ally, and it led us straight around to...

 

 Capitoline Hill!  The Capitoline contains few ancient ground-level ruins, as they are almost entirely covered up by Medieval and Renaissance palaces (now housing the Capitoline Hill) that surround a piazza, a significant urban plan designed by Michelangelo.  In the middle of the piazza, is the original equestrian statue of the emperor Marcus Aurelius.

 Loving the red carpet leading up the steps.

Sean was very excited about taking this picture, as he is excited about taking ALL pictures.

 This is Daniele, our amazing tour guide.  He drove us around all day in a sweet Mercedes minivan, haha.  He was so knowledgeable about the city, and of all the history.  Like Valerie the day before, I was so glad we decided to do the private tour.  I would definitely recommend them.

 Our first day in Rome was our anniversary, and our second day in Rome was my birthday (don't even get me started).  We went to a nice restaurant recommended to us by Daniele for my Bday, and it turned out being delicious.  Every time I asked for ice for my drink the waiter would always look at me like an idiot, and this one was no exception.  He actually brought me ice shavings in a bowl, haha.  When in Rome!

 Valerie recommended to us that we go back to the Vatican at night, when it was all lit up and when it was less crowded.  I am so glad we did!  It was breathtaking.

Amazing.

On our walk back to our hotel, we tried our first gelato.  Everyone we had talked to that had been to Europe raved about how delicious the gelato was...we honestly both kind of felt like it was overrated.  It wasn't bad by any means, but I would never say that it was anything special.  Marginal, at best.

We got another picture with the Swiss guards!
 This one turned out a lot better.

What an amazing day we had!  We saw so much in 9 hours, it was unbelievable.  Not a bad way to spend my 27th birthday.  I'm so grateful that we were able to spend so much time in Rome.  It was such an amazing city, I hope we get to go back one day.