Travel blogging

In honor of my recent, most awesome vacation to Italy and Egypt, I have decided to devote several blog posts to my adventures. And of course, once I get my photos back and start scrapbooking, I'll be posting about the trip all over again! ; )
We took the redeye to Rome and arrived in country around 7:30 in the morning, local time. Border control was probably the most chaotic entry into a foreign country I've ever experienced. And I felt like I'd truly arrived in Italy when the guy who checked our passports took mine and gave me a wink. Welcome to Italy! We took a quick train ride into the city and found our hotel with relatively little trouble. Check out the view from our hotel room:

It was still pretty early in the day when we headed back out to explore ancient Rome. We walked about 50 down the street from our hotel and out onto the piazza where the Spanish Steps are located. Here's what we saw:

We wandered around the Colosseum and the ancient forum for several hours. It rained for a little while, but we were able to shelter under an overhang inside the Colosseum. The whole area is truly amazing to see, but I think we both wished that we'd hired a guide or bought an audioguide, becuase we really didn't have a clue what we were looking at most of the time!
the Roman forum from Palatine Hill

temple of the vestals:

arch of constantine:

the colosseum:

We had lunch at an outdoor restaurant near the colosseum. I had marghareta pizza, and Alton had another kind (I forget what). I was quite thrilled my pizza, but Alton did not think the pizza was quite up to snuff.

After lunch, we visited the Pantheon. Here's an image of the occulus inside the dome:

Afterwards, we wandered a bit around the city, admiring all the wonderful buildings. I particularly loved the way the yellow buildings weathered, the texture on them is so delicious!



We headed back to the hotel for a rest, and becuase we wanted to at least try to have dinner at a more 'Roman' time of day, meaning 8pm or later. As the sun was setting, we headed back out and down the Spanish Steps. The sky was gorgeous at that time of day:


We picked a random place to eat dinner, and it turned out to be pretty decent. We had bruschetta for an appetizer, and then I had ravioli pomodoro, yum, yum. Dessert was gelato at San Crispin's. I had cinnamon ginger and Alton had concord grape.
Almost twenty years ago, I had visited Rome with a friend and her family. We visited the Trevi Fountain and each of us threw a coin into the fountain. Supposedly, if you do that, then you will someday return to Rome. I don't know how it turned out for my friend, but twenty years later, the guarantee was proven true for me! Of course, Alton and I are now testing that promise ourselves.