State of the Thompsons: Italy: Part 3- Rome

*Its taken me so long to finish blogging about Italy because I made Cade a 120 page picture album on Shutterfly of Italy for his birthday and I've had about all I can take of these pictures :)

For the third portion of our vacation to Italy, we flew from Sardegnia to Rome. We got to stay at the St. Regis located in the center of the city. It was elaborately decorated and old looking but beautiful and such a great place to walk to a lot of the historical sights we wanted to see. On our first morning, we took a quick bus tour to get a good look at the city. Then we made our way to the Colosseum. It was absolutely breathtaking. It was very surreal to see and get to walk through because I'd seen so many pictures of it in books. I never imagined I'd get to be there myself. After our tour at the Colosseum, we walked to the Pantheon. I loved getting see such ancient buildings. Lastly that day we went to the Fountain of Four Rivers in the Piazza Navona. This is the fountain that was in the movie "Angels and Daemons" (or book for those of you who read it too) that Robert Langdon almost drowns in. Obviously it is a historical sight. That night, we celebrated Meagan and Reifs 10-year wedding anniversary at a fun restaurant. Part of the whole reason for our trip was to celebrate their anniversary and my 30th birthday. For the record, I'm not thirty yet. The next day we visited the National Monument to Victor Emmanuel II and the Italian Unnamed Soldier's tomb. We sat and walked up the Spanish Steps and visited the Trevi Fountain. We ate the famous gelato at the Trevi fountain too, we couldn't pass that up. On our third day, we took a tour of the Vatican. This was amazing to me. We got to see all the museums, St. Peters Square and Basilica, and walk through the Sistine Chapel (no pictures allowed in there). I really enjoyed getting to see all the famous paintings and sculptures that I've read about in books. Call me a dork! On our final day, we toured the Roman Forum, which is basically the ancient city ruins. It was so hot that day but we made it through. That night we ate dinner at a well known restaurant that was built into the catacombs where they used to bury the Romans. It was so cool. As well, they served some ancient recipes of what would have been eaten in ancient Rome. I loved it. I could have written a novel about everything we saw and learned in Rome but my pictures will just have to do most of the talking for me.