Wanders Until Lost

So Wednesday morning, I got up and went to the Colloseum and Roman Forum.  If you are ever in Rome, definitely do the Roman Forum first--the ticket for the Roman Forum is the same as the one for the Colloseum (one ticket for the forum, the colloseum, and Palatino) but you'll wait about 5-10 minutes at the forum instead of 20-30 at the Colloseum.

Honestly, I have no idea what I was looking at for the most part (same with Pompeii), but I just love ruins, so it really didn't matter. I wandered around and took bunches of pictures, read information when available.

After the forum, I headed over to the Colloseum, which was pretty spectacular. It was just something interesting to see, even if I'm not really up on all the history surrounding it.

When I finished exploring the Colloseum, I headed over toward the river and walked up the river until I found the bridge I had seen a picture of on Tumblr. Along the way I got to enjoy the scenery, the sunshine, and the architecture. Then I wandered around a little more (all the way almost back down to the Capitole) before heading in for the night.

Thursday, I pretty much did nothing. In the morning, I headed over to Trevi fountain and sat around enjoying the milling company of the crowd until it could passably be called lunchtime. For lunch, I headed over to Obika--a mozzarella bar with locations in Rome, Florence, New York, and Tokyo (among other places). Allow me to just say, YUM. I had a chilled tomato soup with homemade croutons and a hunk of creamy mozzarella cheese. I wasn't sure what to do with the cheese, so I stirred it into my soup, and it was SO GOOD.  Then I had some more creamy mozzarella cheese with cherry tomatoes and pesto. So much cheese, but so much goodness. I didn't know that mozzarella could be so creamy and delicious.

After lunch, I explored some piazzas and wandered some more (welcome to my traveling life). That night, my roommate convinced me to go see Trevi fountain and the Colloseum lit up, so I ventured forth into the night to see the fountain, the Capitole, and the Colloseum. It was pretty beautiful, and a good way to tire myself out to get a good night's sleep.

Friday morning, I headed up to the Vatican to see St. Peter's Basilica. I decided to climb the Duomo--all 551 steps of it. I'll be honest, I got to the inside of the church (inside the Duomo looking down on all the people milling about) and I thought I was done. I was like, "That was 551 steps?! Too easy, mate!" Then I saw a sign saying, "to the cupola" and I figured "Alright, what's another few steps?" HA. Yeah, I thought I was going to die. That point I thought I was done at? That was probably not even halfway up. So the further I go up, the more crowded it gets, the steeper the steps, and the hotter it gets. By the time I got to the top, I was sweating like I would have if they would have held band camp in Hong Kong. It was BAD.

After the Basilica, I headed over to see the Mouth of Truth. I didn't actually stick my arm in, but the church was pretty. Cue heading to the train station to come to Florence.

I'll update with pictures when I've got a more reliable internet connection. Hopefully this is tomorrow, but it might not be until Sunday/Monday.