Day 6: Our first day in Roma

...we finally arrived at Roma Termini.

It was like a large airport.  There were a ton of people, stores, restaurants and it was kind of hard to find our way out of there.  We took a cab to our hotel called Hotel Barberini.  Its our least favorite of the three, but it is still ok.  The room is about as big as the room in Venice but the bathroom is much bigger.  The air didn't come on until June 15th in Venice but it did work in both Florence and Rome.  The room in Rome was pretty ugly.  The comforter, curtains and even the walls all have matching material with a horrific pattern all over them.

We decided to go do our own bit of exploring of Rome despite having our full day tour the next day.  We ended up coming across the president of Italy's home.  Its the equivalent of the White House for us.  We didn't realize that until the guard we asked for directions told us that's where we were.  We were pretty impressed.

The president's home

We did some more exploring and came across some amazing buildings/ruins.  We didn't exactly know what we were looking at.  I had my Italy book with me and we found out what we were looking at and then found it in the book.  There was a massive monument erected in the early 1900's in honor of the first King of Italy, Emmanuel II.

King Emmanuel II monument

This building is absolutely massive.  Statues decorate the top of the building and courtyard.  There are many steps leading to the top as well.  They have a memorial for an unknown soldier at the top of the first set of stairs that has soldiers guarding it.  The gate was closed that day, so we weren't able to go in.  The locals have called the building "the wedding cake" or the "typewriter" because its so big and gaudy.  But it really is beautiful.  Especially now because a year ago it was cleaned - before it was black and dirty.

We were going to wait to see the Colosseum until the next day but we couldn't help ourselves.  It took us by surprise because we were so close to it.  We started walking down a street towards it and all of a sudden we saw it!  This building was truly monumental.  It was exactly what we pictured.  We took some pictures of us in front of it and then some of us touching it!  We were so impressed!

When we saw the Colosseum in the distance

It was huge!!!

We had to put our bare feet on the steps of the Colosseum

One of my favorite pictures of the trip

Before we walked down to see these buildings we walked down the streets and were so impressed by the prices of certain items compared to what we had seen in other towns.  We came across one store that had the Italian beer we found we both like, called Moretti, for only 2Euro.  However, I found that I liked a different one called Peroni better.  We found some gifts for the nieces and nephews for 1Euro each and they were really neat.  They are little miniature models of buildings and statues that we've seen here in Rome.  We also found some awesome artists along the way down the road.  There was this one guy making unique paintings using spray paint.  Then we found a guy selling some really nice water-color paintings.  We ended up getting three because we really wanted to get some actual art pictures while in Italy.  However, upon examining the painting, we think it could possibly have been printed but its hard to tell.  So we're just going to go with them being the real-deal.

Apparently this guy didn't know half of his butt was hanging out...  This is the artist that used spray paint

This is what most of the streets looked like...many vendors.  Mostly selling the same thing. 

We have found really neat places to eat along the way too.  They call everything a bar or pizzeria around here.  Everyone sells pizza.  There's also a lot of gelato around too.  Another thing about Rome and Florence is there are a TON of scooters!!  They are absolutely everywhere and they are all crazy.  There's also such a variety of people here.  You walk around and hear people talking in all sorts of languages.  Mostly Italian but there are others too because this is such a tourist infested city.  There seemed to be a lot more Americans in Florence than in Venice and in Rome it seemed to be the easiest to communicate with the locals because they all speak pretty good English (for the most part).

After sitting and staring at the Colosseum we finally decided to head back.

Oh I forgot to mention seeing the Trevi Fountain.  This was the second thing we saw (after seeing the president's house).  This is one of the most famous fountains in the world.  Its been in several movies like "Le Dulci Vita," and "Roman Holiday."  It was built in the 1700's and is actually water from the only aqueduct that was reconstructed after the fall of Rome and the destruction of all the aqueducts by the Germans.

The Trevi Fountain

 It is a whimsical rendition of mythical sea creatures amid cascades of splashing water.  Legend has it that you can ensure your return to Rome by tossing a coin into the fountain.  Of course, Nate and I threw some in.

Our evening came to an end and we had called the front desk for a wake-up call at 7:45 a.m.  We had to meet our tour guide in the lobby of our hotel at 9:00 a.m.  We got a call at 6 something and it only beeped and there was no one on the other line.  So I called back and told them our wake up call was suppose to be at 7:45.  So the man apologized and Nate and I went back to sleep.  The next thing we know, I'm waking up and I ask Nate what time it is and his watch says 8:40!!  We were soooo mad!  We both needed showers and we were planning on having breakfast.  Nate called down to the front desk and expressed his anger and asked what the heck happened.  They apologized and weren't sure.  We ended up getting down there in time (without showers or breakfast) but we were not happy campers.