Rome

While in Rome, we did all the usually tourist stuff. We went to the Vatican, saw the Sistine Chapel, saw the Colosseum, saw the Pantheon, saw the Trevi Fountain, and ate Gelato (The first of 5 straight days eating Gelato). Some chick also tried to pickpocket me on the metro. I laughed at her though because I had nothing in my pockets. We also found a very cool family run Italian restaurant that had "Chef Benny" as the cook. The house wine was actually the best tasting wine that any of us had ever had. Plus, they had the grandfather (Pepe) chilling at the front door greeting everyone. He was very cheerful and was the one who grabbed us off the street to go inside and eat. We ended up going there for dinner both nights in Rome because the service was so good.

-Ed


Rome was another great city. It felt like we couldn't walk more than a couple blocks without seeing a famous fountain or building. The city is also relatively small so walking through the city is an option.... in fact one night we were forced to since the Metro closes at midnight.

We started the first day by visiting the vatican. we went to the very top of the basillica which was not an easy task. Then we toured the city and went to the spanish steps. We ate at a authentic restaurant, where I had the best white wine ever. I ordered a 750ml bottle of the house wine... unfortunately though Ed is allergic to wine so he had half a glass... and well Rui is a weakling I had to drink most of the bottle of wine by myself. After dinner we went to the Trevi Fountain and bought several wooden clocks from a clock shop near the Trevi Fountain and ate Gelato.

The second day we were forced to go back to the Vatican as yesterday the sistine chapel was closed and I demanded that we return to see it. The line was very long to get in. The sistine chapel was amazing when you first look at the ceiling it appears as though theres complex pillars built in, but then you look closer and realize that everything there is painted, but amazingly it all looks 3 dimensional. After the sistine chapel we headed ot the colisum. We used the trick of going to Palentine Hill to buy tickets and thus we were able to completely bypass the line to the colisium. We walked through the colisium then headed to the forum. We made the mistake of eating lunch at a tourist restaurant. The food was absolutely terrible and expensive.

After the colisium we walked to the pantheon and continued walking through the city. Ed hijacked us and made us walk back to the Vatican... he claimed there was a spot he had to take a picture at which was the exact symmetrical point. He said there was a circle there. We arrive at the vatican square and well theres like 10 circle things on the ground. We never did figure out the "symmetrical point". Later that night we decided to eat at the same restaurant for dinner again. We each ordered a pizza, which was not quite as good as the pasta. We walked the city again and got gelato at the same spot a very popular place with the locals. As we tried to board the metro we find that its closed so were forced to do a 2 mile walk back to the hotel.

The next day we boarded a 2.5 hour train to Florence.

-Poon