Day Ten: 5/2
After our cozy night of sleep, the conductor
awakened us. He brought us breakfast and tea. After the overnight train ride,
we arrived in Rome. We said goodbye to the people we met at dinner and hopped
on the metro to our hotel. We arrived at the Hotel about 12:30-ish and our room
was not ready yet.
We checked our luggage and went for a walk. We walked to the Spanish
Steps. We approached the steps from the top. The view from the top was quite incredible.
After we took our pictures of the Spanish
Steps, we walked to the Trevi Fountain. It was an adventuresome walk, as it took us
a while to find the fountain. One of the things that Steve thought about Rome
was that it would be more open and pronounced.
The streets in Rome are all very narrow and you can blame a horse’s ass
for that! But this is another
story. Because of all the tall
buildings it was hard to find where anything was if you did not see the signs. The Trevi Fountain was
tucked away in a square that was hard to find.
After some searching and backtracking we found it. Yeah!!!
The fountain was an impressive site. I would
love to have something like this in my back yard! For those of you who do not know, we have a great desire to have
a large water garden and pond in our back yard. Assuming we obtain a back yard.
We headed back to the hotel. When we arrived,
we found out that our room was once again not ready! Angie and I were more than a little ticked about this. We waited 30 minutes in the lobby for the
room. Finally the room was ready and we headed up.
We unpacked and washed some clothes. Boy we really like this material. This clothing is a must for anyone that
wants to travel light and not have to carry a lot of shirts and pants. After we washed out our clothes, we took a
nap.
Later that evening, we took a walk. We were on a hunt to find a place to
eat. We ate dinner, and then took the
metro to the Coliseum and walked around it. We could not go in as it was closed
after 6pm. It was currently 7:30pm, so we were out of luck tonight.
We walked down Imperial Avenue. We saw a lot of ruins and sites that we had
no idea what they were. We did find 
out later. One of the things
that we noticed around the Coliseum, was that there were a lot of stray
cats. Steve heard from someone that
they are all feral cats and it is illegal to feed them. Steve had heard from his English teacher in
high school (circa 1984) that there were hundreds of cats around. We only saw maybe a dozen or so.
We overlooked the Forum. It was not what Steve expected. He thought there would be more buildings
than there were. This was mostly because
he had never seen a picture of the Forum, only read about it in books and
movies.
We saw this magnificent white building that had some lovely gold
statues on the top. There were some
amazing fountains on either side of the building. We saw some people soaking their feet in them.
We noticed there was a guard at the top of
the stairs watching over a flame. We
assume that this was the tomb of the Unknown Soldier. We walked around this building.
The building was quite large and this took us a while! We finally found
out that this building is the Monument
to Vittorio Emanuele II.
After walking away from the monument, we
stumbled across the Piazza
del Campidoglio. The Truscan lions are here. Michelangelo designed this
building. The sculpture in the center
is rumored to be one of the last sculptures he did.
On the way home we
stopped for tea and gelato at the Suggestum Café. We sat outside and feasted while we watched the people pass
by. After dinner, we headed back to the
hotel to sleep.