Francesca and Frederica at the B&B stuffed us full this morning. Sweet pastries, yoghurt (that’s Italian for yogurt), cappuccino, and waffles with Nutella. I'm ashamed that I did not think of waffles with Nutella myself.
Francesca's husband took us to the metro stop. He doesn't speak a lick of English and we know four Italian words, so we said two words total: "ciao" and "grazie" for the entire 10 minute trip.
Our first stop was the Trastevere neighborhood.
Our friend Kate lived in that neighborhood during her semester in Rome and said it was a must-see. We spent about an hour being lost and wandering the streets, then Scott got his bearings and we found the church we were looking for.
Santa Maria de Tresteverre was a nice cathedral in the middle of a very old, very cool little neighborhood. The plaza in front of the church was really pretty. The interior of the church was awesome.
We didn't expect to see such amazing artwork in such a small church. The frescoes were gold; it looked similar to St. Mark's in Venice. The best part of the church was the wedding that we watched.
If I were that bride, I would have been very angry if a bunch of goofy tourists were barging into the church and gawking at my wedding, but everyone else was doing it and when in Rome....
We ate lunch at a cute little restaurant that Kate recommended. Super yummy!
One of the best meals of the trip. Ponte Sisto was the name of it. Homemade pasta and bread!
Next we took the train to the Pantheon neighborhood. En route to the Pantheon we stopped by a set of ruins in the middle of the city.
They have an official name, but everyone calls them the cat sanctuary because a bunch of feral cats roam all over the place. Someone makes sure they're vaccinated and taken care of.
Next was the Pantheon, a church built by the ancient Romans and continually used for 1,400 years.
Those Romans knew how to build a building! The dome was the inspiration for the Vatican, the Duomo in Florence, and the U.S. Capitol.
In fact, Michelangelo and Brunessci studied the Pantheon before they designed their domes. The Pantheon truly is one of the wonders of the world and it was so cool to see it.
We found Santini's tomb, but this was not the right tomb (again, if you don't know what I'm talking about you really need to see Angels and Demons).
Next we went to Piazza Novona to look at local artists peddling their wares. It was fun to look at, but we didn't buy anything. Some of those artists stuuuuuunk!
The next few hours were kind of a bust. We wanted to rent bikes and do a tour like we did in Munich. We walked and walked only to learn the tour we wanted to do was $60. EACH. So then we decided to see the Coliseum. We got all the way over there only to learn it closed in 30 minutes...it was starting to rain anyway, but we took some good pictures.
We kind of wanted a change of pace and taste, and we had some really great Italian food in Germany, so we decided to have German food in Italy. The food was good, not as good as it was in Germany of course, and actually, Hoffbrau Haus in Vegas is better, but this was still mighty tasty.
We took a short Metro ride to the Vatican because we wanted to get some good pictures while it was lit up at night. In the movies, it's so pretty at night. Well, Angels & Demons greatly misled us. It was just not as spectacular as we expected and hoped for.
To avoid the traveling pitfalls of the night before, Francesca very sweetly told us she would pick us up at the Metro stop nearest her house. When we got there, we hung out with her family. We didn’t understand much of what they said, but it was fun anyway.
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