Day 15 - Off to Rome!

Wednesday, May 26th - All roads lead to Rome! We left Florence around 8am and arrived in Rome shortly before 2, one of the shortest drives of the entire trip. We drove right into the city and started a whirlwind tour of Rome. Our first stop was the Mouth of Truth although I was never actually able to see it. The queue was too long to wait so we all just snapped photos through the gate. Next we headed to the Colosseum which was simply an amazing sight. Sian got us tickets so that we could jump the queue and walk right in. Once we actually got into the Colosseum I was blown away, I was in awe of standing in a place where so much history has taken place over two thousand years. Next we went to check out the Roman Forum, we wandered around the ruins a bit but Rome was super hot and we ended up spending most of the time in the shade trying to keep cool. I regret not having more energy to explore the Forum, judging from Ali's snaps there was a lot of great things to see but the heat was too much combined with exhaustion. Overall I wasn't prepared for our walking tour of Rome, Sian really hadn't given us heads up on the day's plans.

Next stop on our walking tour was Trevi Fountain. We only had about 10 minutes here but it was enough time for Sukhey and I to throw our 2 coins into the fountain - 1 to make a wish and 1 to ensure our return to Rome. Trevi Fountain is such a busy tourist spot - 3000 Euros are thrown into the fountain everyday! After that our next stop was the Roman Catacombs but I decided to skip out on going in and grabbed some gelato with Jas, Matt F, Shane and a few others. Definitely worth it, it was some of the best gelato I had on the trip. We then headed to the Spanish Steps and had a quick look around and then took a bit of a break sitting on the famous steps. We then walked past the Pantheon (although no time to stop) and then ended up in Piazza Noavona where we all broke off for dinner. We were all starving by now having just spent the last 5 hours wandering around Rome. Jas, Sukhey, Sandra, Pete, Monica along with a few others grabbed some dinner at an Italian Bistro and then it was finally time to head to our hotel.

I was excited to see our hotel, it was one of three "feature hotels" on the tour. After a an hour drive out of the city we finally made it. We were so far out of Rome that taxi's wouldn't come out to get us so we wouldn't be able to go out during our stay in Rome. The room at first seemed fairly decent - Sandra and I had a great balcony, it was huge! Things quickly went downhill from there, both Pete and Monica and Kyle and Amy's sheets were so damp I would call them wet. The rooms were super hot and smelled musty and we were told the pool wasn't open. We got settled and then a few of us went to see if we could at least grab a drink in the main lodge but no dice, the bar wasn't open either. With nothing left to do we decided to call it an early night and head to bed.

Mouth of Truth

The Colosseum

Roman Forum

Trevi Fountain

Spanish Steps