Our room was really cute (and did not have bunkbeds!). Once we settled in, we took a walk all around the area to get a feel for the neighborhood and for Rome. We ended up in this little park with a fenced-in dog area and some Italian boys playing soccer. For dinner, we picked up snacks and wine at a grocery store (Carrefour, Liz!) and got pizza from a pizzaria. We actually got to watch them make our pizzas, which was very exciting. We ate dinner in the guesthouse while watching a movie on our room's TV and DVD player! Having a movie night was a super nice treat, since we can never have them at our host-stays in Granada.
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| San Giovanni Church right near our hotel! |
On Friday we got up early and headed over to the Vatican! We tried to get to the Vatican Museum early so we wouldn't have to wait in a giant line and we were successful! After only waiting 20 minutes, we got into the museum, bought our tickets, and started wandering through the giant galleries. We must have spent almost three hours checking out all the art and exhibits. There were tons of statues, paintings, and artifacts, not to mention amazing ceilings and walls. We even got to see the famous Sistine Chapel! It was quite a museum!
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| Sistine Chapel! |
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| Sistine Chapel! |
Afterwards, we ate in the pizzeria inside of the museum (which was surprisingly not expensive!), then left the museum to explore Vatican City. We ended up at St. Peter's Basillica and got to go inside. SO gorgeous!! There were a TON of chairs set up inside and outside, ready for the Easter services on Sunday. It was super crowded--I'm glad we decided to check it out of Good Friday instead of Easter!
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| Sign at the Vatican Museum Pizzaria |
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| Inside the Basillica |
Since we'd gotten up so early, we decided to go back to the guesthouse for a siesta, but not before stopping at (what claims to be) the oldest gelato factory in Rome! It was surprisingly cheap and DELICOUS. Best gelato I've had ever. And it came with homemade whipped cream :-)
After our siesta, we walked to a neighborhood called Trastevere for dinner. It was somewhat of a hike, but we got to pass the Colosseum and other awesome ruins, as well as through a few famous plazas. Then we crossed the river and found a great restaurant for dinner. I got to eat more pasta! After the delicious dinner, we decided to try to take a bus back. Turns out there are two "San Giovanni" stops, however, and we managed to choose the wrong one. We took a tram in the complete opposite direction and ended up in a random Roman neighborhood. With the help of a friendly club-owner, however, we grabbed a taxi and got back to our hotel.
On Saturday we conquered the Colosseum! We stood in the most unorganized line of my life for an hour to get our tickets, but then we were in! It was SUCH a cool experience. I was completely overwhelmed by how epic it was to be standing in a building so old. It was the oldest thing I've ever seen (unless you count dinosaur bones in the Museum of Natural History, but I do not). I was blown away by the architecture the Romans managed to create without modern tools and technology. We toured all the other ruins around the Colosseum next (between rain and hail showers...). Again, completely amazed by the buildings! Also by the fact that you can just be driving along a highway and BAM! suddenly you're in front of 2,000 year old ruins! What a cool place.
Sunday we had to check out of our hotel. We couldn't store our luggage there, so we had to take it to the train station for the day. After we dropped off our stuff, we went to a nearby church (Santa Maria Maggiore) and went to an Easter mass! As a non-Catholic Christian, I was super lost for a lot of the service. It also didn't help that it was in Italian and Latin haha. Nonetheless, it was a very incredible place to spend my Easter Sunday. The church was seriously gorgeous and the choir was beautiful! (It's got nothing on Holmdel UCC's music, though!)
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| Easter Sunday! |
The rest of Easter was spent wandering the streets of Rome. We checked out several famous plazas, the Trevi Fountain (where we tossed coins into the water, ensuring our return to Rome), the Spanish Steps, and a great park with a beautiful view. We had an excellent Easter lunch (more pasta!) and had an impromptu mid-afternoon snack of nachos and cappuccinos at the Hard Rock Cafe because it started pouring when we were in their buying souvenirs. After we spent as much time as we could hanging out in Rome, we went back to the train station, grabbed our stuff, and took a taxi to the airport.
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| Drinking Prosecco for Liz and Mom |
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| Hard Rock Cafe Ceiling |
Our flight out of Rome was at 7am and the airport was outside the city, so we decided that instead of staying in a hotel another night and waking up at 3:30am and trying to find a cab, we would just camp out at the airport for the night. A surprising amount of people had the same idea, so it wasn't too sketchy, although I did spend some of the night sleeping next to a homeless man. It was a very interesting experience, and while I don't regret our decision to forgo the hostel, I really don't plan on staying overnight at an airport again.
Monday morning we flew to Barcelona and then back to Granada. Our Semana Santa adventures were really fantastic and GREAT experiences, but I was seriously ready to get back to Granada. Nothing like Ana's cooking and my own bed! It was really nice to feel like we were going home :-)
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