Roman Moon and Phoenix Sun

Hello again! Sorry we’ve been out of touch for a few weeks. We just returned yesterday from our two-week visit to Italy and France and didn’t really have any time on our trip to post updates. But we’re back home in Thessaloniki now, and if you bear with us, we’ll catch you up on our travels.

Friday, October 6 – Monday, October 9: Rome (Bill)

We arrived in Rome in the late afternoon and were immediately taken aback by how spread out the city is. Most of the historical sites are in the old district in the center of town, but the rest of the city is huge and very sprawling. Rome is the kind of city where you can drive in the wrong direction for a long time before realizing that you are heading out of town instead of into it. Trust us, we know.

We checked in and decided to call it an early night so we could be well rested before tackling the city in the morning. Our hotel was only half a block from the Bologna metro stop, so Saturday morning we hopped on the subway and headed to Vatican City. Unfortunately, because it was closed the next day, the line to enter was about two blocks long. Fortunately, the Vatican was well worth the wait. With over 1,400 rooms, each full of beautiful and ornate pieces of history, the Vatican can be rather intimidating. But we hit the highlights: the Gallery of Maps, the Raphael Rooms, the Round Room and the Gallery of Statues, the Apostolic Library, and, of course, the Sistine Chapel.

Neither of us had seen the Sistine Chapel before; it is even more magnificent that we had imagined. Once you look up at the ceiling, it is all you can do to resist lying down on the floor to stare at it for hours. When you look at the detail in Michelangelo’s work on the ceiling, it seems impossible that he finished it in only 4 years. Then, to come back a quarter of a century later and paint the The Last Judgment on the wall behind the main altar (which took another 6 years to complete), it is easy to see why Michelangelo’s talent and genius has been celebrated for centuries. The Sistine Chapel was so breathtaking and tranquil, Amanda did not want to leave. Only my pleading (and perhaps the thought of another plate of delicious Italian food) got her to reluctantly walk out. We headed down Guiseppe Momo’s famous spiral ramp and out into one of Rome’s biggest draws, the Piazza di San Pietro.

St. Peter’s Square is pretty impressive, featuring perhaps the grandest church in Christendom, the Basilica di San Pietro. This absolutely breathtaking structure was also designed by Michelangelo, so I’m guessing the guy did pretty well in art class. We snapped a ton of pics of the Basilica, its fountains, and the architecture surrounding the square.

We then headed east until we hit the Tevere River and followed it south until we were in Trastevere. We had some great salad and pizza for lunch, then crossed the Tevere and walked along the Circus Maximus before jumping on the metro so we could head home and get ready for dinner.

[Quick funny story: as we headed toward the metro stop we passed Raja Bell, an NBA player who was sight-seeing with his family while the Phoenix Suns were in town to play an exhibition game against a team from Rome. I told Amanda I had to go say Hello to him. I told him how impressed I was by his defense against Kobe Bryant in last year’s playoffs, and that this was coming from a life-long Lakers fan. He was really nice, and seemed genuinely happy that I recognized him and paid him the compliment. Amanda may try to tell you that the best part of the story is that I totally tripped over a loose cobblestone in the street while approaching him and nearly fell on my face, but that part is NOT true…]

That night we took the metro to the Via Veneto, probably the most famous street in Rome. Had a fantastic dinner and then walked along the Veneto and stopped for a cappuccino before turning in for the night.

Saturday, we took the metro to the Piazza di Spagna—the famous “Spanish Steps”—and spent the day walking all over the old district. We went to the Piazza del Popolo and then shopped along the Via del Corso, stopping at San Carlos (with one of the most ornate church interiors in Rome) and the world-renowned Trevi Fountain. We then walked through the old Roman Forum to the Colosseum, probably Rome’s most famous landmark. We metro’d to the Piazza Navolo for dinner, and then walked back across the city so we could take pictures of the Colosseum at night with our third full moon of the trip overhead.

This post has been rather long, but like I said, Rome’s a big city. I wish I could promise that because Magliano Sabina is such a small town that the next post will be short, but it probably won’t be since we had such an amazing adventure there. I’ll let Amanda tell you that one.

Until then, Ciao!

Bill