Ancient Rome and the Vatican

We've covered alot of ground in our first 24 hours! Yesterday, as you can see from the pictures, we met up with Emily and Mike and went straight for the Colosseum. Planning ahead has paid off for us well so far, as we were able to skip the long line for tickets by buying a Roma Pass. The pass gives us three days of unlimited public transportation, plus free admission to any two of several sites around Rome.

The odd thing about the Colosseum is that it is exactly what you would expect. It was very cool inside, but after about 10-15 minutes of roaming about, you really feel as though you've seen it all. That's not to say we didn't enjoy it, but it certainly didn't impress us the way the Pantheon did.

We arrived at the Pantheon at dusk, just as the interior lights were beginning to come on. What a beautiful place it is! From the outside (besides the colonnade at the entrance) it is very boring - just a boxy old brick building. But inside, every inch is covered in beautiful black, white, and red marble. We spent about an hour inside, marveling at the sights (including Raphael's tomb), then got some dinner from a ristorante in a nearby alley.

The food was a good as we had imagined it would be. The wine was also, unfortunately! Emily and I tried to avoid drinking it, but couldn't help ourselves, and soon our jetlag overcame us. We were back in our room and asleep by 9:00 pm!

We're still not quite adjusted to our new time zone yet, but we were able to get up and out on the town by 9:00 this morning, after a tasty breakfast in the hotel's cafe. We met Emily and Mike at their hotel, then went to the Vatican Museum. Our guided tour took us through roughly half of the galleries and we saw some very famous works of art, including Raphael's frescoes of Constantine and the philosophers of ancient Greece. The tour finished with the Sistine Chapel, which fully deserves all the praise it receives!

We took a short walk under the Basilica to see the tombs of past popes, including John Paul II, St. Gregory the Great, and St. Peter. Then we went into the Basilica itself. Wow! The building truly is large enough that you could fit our entire neighborhood inside of it. And everything is built on a scale to accommodate it, like the three times life size marble statues. So you didn't really feel as though you were in a huge church, but instead that you had been miniaturized.

We've now returned to our hotel room for a siesta. This evening we plan on strolling from the Spanish Steps to Trevi Fountain. I'll load more pictures tonight!

Pictures, part I

Here's the first round of photos!

Here we are on the plane, with no idea what we're in for:


This picture was taken while sitting on our bed:


Thumbs up for the Colosseum:


Emily Bogus, Flavia Domitilla Major, and Emily Bogus:


There's a hole in my Flavian Amphitheatre and it goes right through:


The Pantheon was beautiful:


Chris by the fountain in front of the Pantheon:


Emily in a cool alleyway:


And the four of us at dinner:

Take-offs and Landings, Ups and Downs.

Whew! We just made it to Rome and are blogging from our hotel room. Getting here was not easy. Our flight from Salt Lake was delayed by about an hour, so we pulled into Atlanta ten minutes before our international flight was due to leave. Unfortunately, that plane was on the opposite side of the airport. And, oh yeah, the Atlanta airport is the largest in the world.

We were running down the corridors, booking it up escalators, and lugging our backpacks from concourse to concourse. We ran up to the boarding desk just as they closed the door. They absolutely refused to let us board. 30 seconds earlier and we would have been on our way.

You'd better believe there was a fight.

Anyways, when all was said and done, we were put on an AirFrance flight to Paris with a connection to Rome that was leaving immediately. Isn't it interesting how blessings come in disguise? It turned out that the AirFrance flight was only half-booked, so we had the opportunity to stretch out a bit. And not only was the food exceedingly good (for an airplane, of course), but all the little extras were complimentary (not at all the case on the Delta flight). So we each had a glass of champagne and watched the movie of our choice (Emily = Sex and the City, Christopher = La Dolce Vida). Sleep was hard to come by after the stressful time in Atlanta, so our short time in Paris was not an eventful one. But soon enough we were back on our last plane to Rome.

Rome is beautiful beyond description. The people, the buildings, the language... Our heads were spinning as we climbed the steps up from the subway to see the Colosseum. A short walk and we were at our hotel - Royal House, directly across the street from the Colosseum. There will be some pics posted soon - we have a completely unobstructed view of it from our bed.

The room is fantastic. A huge tiled bathroom, hardwood floors, wooden-beam ceiling, and the friendliest staff we've ever dealt with in any of our travels. Now it's just time to wash up, clear our heads of the jet lag, and we're off to see the Eternal City!

Anticipation!

Emily and I could barely stand to wait today. We did all our last minute things, cleaned up the house and unplugged everything. Although we packed our bags days in advance, tonight we unpacked and re-packed just to double check everything. And, of course, we were sure to spend every last minute playing with Madeleine. She's sleeping in our bed between us now.

In an effort to reduce jet lag, we kept ourselves awake as late as possible. I'm writing this at 12:30... shows you what kind of night owls we are! Our alarm is set for 5:30, we want to be at the airport at 7:30, and the plane leaves at 9:30. We probably won't post again until we've checked in to the hotel, but I just had to get down in writing how unbearable the excitement was today!

Welcome!

This is the site for Emily and Christopher's Italian Vacation!

We arrive in Rome just after 8:00am Italian time on Thursday (just after midnight, Utah time). So hopefully by the time you're all waking up on Thursday morning, there will be some blogs and pictures here. Ciao!