Roma!

*****So sorry for such a delayed post, but since we are nearing the end (2 days!) of our clinical, a lot of ends need to be tied and assignments need to be completed and final travel arrangements need to be made! I hope to have my post from this past weekend when we went to Florence up soon! 


When Italy gives you lemons, make limoncello! If there is anything I have learned since living in Italy for the past (almost) two months, it's that when things go wrong or not how you planned, you just roll with it and make a new plan! Our trip to Rome last weekend was probably one of our most highly anticipated trips, and turned out to be one of the most stressful as well.

We left Friday afternoon from Gavinana, took the bus to Pistoia, train to Florence and then connected to another train which took us to Rome. No problems here! It's all become second nature by now. We arrive in Rome, and it's raining. We were expecting this, so we pulled out our rain jackets and headed for the exit. Being the organized and well-seasoned travelers that we are, we had printed out step-by-step directions to our B&B so we knew exactly where to go and how long it would take. According to  Google maps, we take a right out of the station and our destination is about 5 minutes away. We start walking past the side of the train station where all of the homeless have taken cover, and we also discover, from the evidence of the human feces, that they use the rain gutters as their toilet...we keep plugging on. And the rain gets harder. And there is no sign of our building. We take cover to try and regain our bearings, all the while fending off the men trying to sell us umbrellas and ponchos. I plug the name of the B&Bin my iPad (this has seriously been a life-saver this trip!) and the blue dot (our current location) is right next to the green dot (our end destination). Hmmm, something is not adding up right, so I put in the actual address of the place and what do you know, the directions are for the other side of the train station! Well, let's try that then. We head the complete opposite direction (our 5 minute commute is turning into a 30 minute commute) and find the street. Near the end, a man is standing on the corner and says to Britt, "Hine?" Yes! It's the proprietor, we are now an hour past the time we said we would arrive so he came to find us. Only moments before, I had prayed, "God, please help us find this place!" And here comes our angel! And we definitely wouldn't have found it without him. The place was on the second floor of a nondescript building on a small street off of the
street the address said it was on. Phew! It was a small 3 bedroom apartment, but the rooms were clean
 and we had our own bathroom and it was close to the train station. After checking in and getting our
handful of keys (our room, apartment door, street door), we take about 30 minutes to relax and
organize a plan of attack. We are in Rome!! (and it had finally stopped raining!)

In Britt's Rick Steve's book, there was a self-guided evening walk through some of the most famous parts of Rome. What a great way to be introduced to the city! It began in the Campo de Fiori, so we headed that way, stopping for a bite to eat at "Dar Filettaro a Santa Barbara". The restaurant was located in a small piazza with lots of tables arranged 'family style'. Their claim to fame was fried cod fillet. Excited for a change from the rich Italian food, we couldn't wait. We also ordered fried zucchini and pickled mixed vegetables. Yum! The guys who ran the place were running all over cleaning tables, serving steaming plates of fish and taking orders.

From here we found our way to the start of the tour. Britt read aloud from her book the sights that we're highlighted along the way and we both worked to figure out the streets and directions from place-to-place. Starting at Campo de' Fiori, it was full of people just hanging out. On this particular night there was sports sections set up for people to join in and play. There was badminton, ping pong, and even a self-defense class!We continued to Piazza Navona, which is considered one of Rome's most picturesque piazze. It's an oval shape and was originally built as a stadium. Restaurants and vendors line the sides.  There are also two beautiful fountains, the larger more magnificent one was built by Bernini, Fontana del Quattro Fiumi. It was gorgeous. We stopped for gelato at Tre Scalini, which is famous for its rich chocolate ice cream, and then continued on. At the edge of the piazza we saw possibly the world's earliest race track! Then we went to see the Pantheon! It loomed in front of us, all lit up, looking slightly out of place with the more modern-day restaurants, shops, and hotels right next to it. We walked into the portico and just stared up, in awe. The huge bronze doors weigh 20 tons each!

Continuing on, we pass through the Piazza Colonna, which looked magical at night, and then headed for my favorite place, the Trevi Fountain!!! Just like the book said, we could hear the roar of the water before we ever saw it. We came around the corner so our first view was of all the people sitting/standing across from it, admiring. As we turned around, the sight just took my breath away. First of all, it's a lot bigger in person. Second, the water and the amazing stonework was just gorgeous. I much prefer it at night, and there were less people, too. We took lots of pictures, and I tossed in a coin wishing for a return trip to Rome someday. (In case you didn't know, the city collects all of the coins tossed into the fountain and uses the money to feed the homeless!) I finally allowed myself to be pulled away, and we completed our evening walk at the Piazza di Spagna and the Spanish Steps. While it's nothing more than an impressive staircase, the history behind it is pretty interesting, and very diverse, involving the Italians who designed it, the British who occupied it, the French who financed it, and finally the Spaniards, for whom the steps were built to honor. The
coolest view is from the top, where you have a view of the city and streets below. This marked the end of our tour, so we headed back to get a good night's sleep to rest up for the long day ahead!

We begin the next day by walking to the Piazza della Repubblica to buy our Roma Passes. This guaranteed us free admission into our first 2 museums and discounts on the others, allowed us to skip long lines, and included unlimited travel on the metro and buses (worth the €30 ten times over). We take the metro to Britt's highly anticipated site, the Colosseum! Coming out of the metro stop, we had an amazing first view. I'm telling you, all of these sighs are incredible and totally live up to the hype! We go through security, skip the long line with our passes, and plug in our ear buds to listen to a Rick Steves podcast. It was very informative and helped to give us guidance around the enormous place! From here we walked to the Arco di Constantine. This arch was erected in commemoration of Constantine's victory over Maxentius, which ultimately helped to make Christianity legal. Next, we toured the Roman forum, which was full of history and old, old, old stone structures that used to be the marketplace used by the Greeks and Etruscans of the 7th and 8th centuries. The oldest street in Rome, Via Sacra, runs through the center. It began to rain again, and we high-tailed it back to the metro to visit one of the only indoor sights of Rome, the Vatican museum. Of course, once we got the the rain had stopped. The museum was fascinating! And so huge we had no idea where to begin! But thanks again to Rick Steves, we had a self- guided tour which led us to the more popular areas, starting with.the Egyptian and Mesopotamian artifacts. And a real Mummy!! Then we continued through the various halls and rooms filled with amazing art and talent like I've never seen before. Then finally, saving the best for last, we arrive at the Sistine chapel to view Michelangelo's impressive work. It is smaller than I imagined, but much more impressive. 

From the museum, we head directly to St. Peter's Basilica. By now, I've seen my fair share of churches, duomos, and cathedrals. But this one, by far, took the cake. (Did I say that right, Dad?) We listened to yet another Rick Steves podcast and walked around the church with our jaws dragging the shiny marble floor. Directly to the right inside is Michelangelo's Pieta which is said to be one of the most moving renderings of Mary and Jesus ever created. It sits behind bulletproof glass because in 1972, a crazy person went at it and hacked off Jesus' nose and Mary's hand. Upon leaving the Basilica, we found a spot along the Piazza di San Pietro to rest our weary feet and just take it all in.  

We make our way back to Rome, and find my favorite restaurant yet, "Fraschetteria Brunetti". The place was empty when we arrived, but the (presumably) owner was very welcoming. In my book, the restaurant was said to have 11 different types of lasagna. The guy brought the menu and went through each one describing it to us. We ended up telling him to pick his favorites, one red sauce, one white sauce, and we would split both. I still have no idea which ones he ended up choosing for us, but they were equally SO GOOD! With every bite I was in awe of how delicious they both were. More people started to come in, and the music got turned up. It was a fun little place that had pieces of paper all over the walls where other fans had written accolades and praise. 

We begin to walk back to our B&B, doing some shopping along the way. I have to say, Rome is amazing, but you've never seen it until you experience it at night. Everything is lit up and the huge tour groups are gone. Definitely the way to go. We even walked back by the Colosseum to get a view of it at night. We got another good night's sleep, and headed out the next morning to finish our exploration of Rome. We had to check out by 10:30am, but were allowed to leave our bags until we were ready to actually leave Rome. So nice! We started at the National Museum, which was pretty close by, and saw some amazing Roman sculpture, frescos, and mosaics. From here we went back to the Pantheon, to view it from the inside. It has simple decor, but still breathtaking. It is an oval structure, and the very top has an "eye" that is open to the outside. This is the only light source of the building. Next, we had coffee at Tazza d' Oro Casa del Caffe, which is one of Rome's top coffee shops and dates back to the days when they were licensed  to roast coffee beans. We ordered granita di caffe con panna, or coffee slush with cream, a local treat. Then we walked back by the Trevi fountain to view it during the day. It was much, much busier and vendors were in full swing. I definitely prefer it at night. 

Our last goal of the day before heading back to get our stuff and leave, was to grab an early dinner at an Irish pub. We attempted to find our way back here by bus. We saw on the bus line a route to P. Cavour. Perfect! We were looking for Via Cavour. So we get on the bus and hop off at the stop. We are in a pretty little area, with a gorgeous, huge building in front of us. One problem, we have no idea where we are. We could not locate this building, nor any streets nearby on our maps near or around Via Cavour. Finally, Britt discovers that Piazza Cavour is different than Via Cavour and is located on the complete opposite side of Rome, across the Tiber river...oh joy...so now we have to find a bus going in the other direction to take us to Via Nazionale, where our restaurant is. Once we figured out which bus was headed that way, we counted how many stops it would be so we knew exactly when to get off. We found the restaurant, and had a delicious final meal in Rome. 

We make our way back to the hostel, grab our loot, and head to the train station. We hop on and settle in to a nice, relaxing 2 hour ride to Florence, where we will catch the next train to Pistoia to catch our bus back to Gavinana (it's the same thing every week...half of our day is spent just traveling!) We get to Florence only to find that our train to Pistoia has been CANCELED! But no worries, we planned for these things and had a buffer of one earlier train and one later train. There was an even earlier train that we could catch that was 30 minutes late so we waited for that one. Well as 30 minutes turned in to 40 minutes, the board suddenly flashed that this train was canceled too! It's ok, it's ok, we still have two possibilies to get us back to Pistoia in time to catch our bus. To make a long story short, both of these trains got canceled as well. That's FOUR trains canceled! Along with several others going to various destinations. I think there ended up being a bad storm in the area. So we find yet another train going to Pistoia, however, this train gets in too late and will cause us to miss our bus, the last bus, to Gavinana. Well we start calling and texting our friends in Gavinana and Pistoia. Another problem, Britt's phone is out of minutes. Well that's fine, I have plenty of minutes. But wait! My phone is about to die!! (Seriously, everything that could go wrong, was going wrong) So Britt says well she'll just go buy more at the Tabacchi in the train station. They don't sell the minutes for our type of phones. So now we search all over the station looking for an outlet to plug in my phone. There is none, so we walk across the street to a cafe and I charge it there for 5 minutes because we have to rush back and catch our train. Fortunately, this train arrives and we get on no problem and I can charge my phone on the train. All of our connections in Pistoia and Gavinana fall through. EVERYONE is out of town! So we either go back to Florence and find a place to stay or get a taxi. We find a nice man who agrees to drive us up the mountian for €60. (We don't care, just get us home!) And finally, we arrive in Gavinana, ironically around the same time our bus would have usually gotten there. WHAT a weekend....we will be so glad to have our own cars! Anyway, we loved Rome and had a great time. Like I said at the beginning of this LOOONG post, you just have to take what you get and roll with it. 

Ciao tutti!



PS - here is what will be happening in the next few days. We finish our clinical on Friday. Saturday bright and early we head to Pompei (please pray for good weather as it is supposed to rain all day!). Sunday we take a train to Rome and fly to Athens, Greece! (again, please pray for safe travels and that we make all of our necessary connections with trains and planes!). We will spend next week in Greece, going to Mykonos on Monday and Tuesday (please pray that the ferry runs, they are known to be unreliable), taking a 2-day tour to Delphi and Meteora over Wednesday and Thursday, Friday we will explore Athens, and Saturday morning we fly HOME!!!!!!!!!! Please keep us in your prayers for all aspects of the next few days!!! We love you all and can't wait to see you!