When in Rome...

On my last day in Prague, I said goodbye to my friends I had been traveling with and took a bus to the airport to fly to Rome! Even though the flight was only an hour or two, it was a long day of buses, planes, and trains, but I finally made it to my hostel in Rome, where two of my UNC friends from FUBiS were waiting. We quickly adopted the motto "When in Rome...!" and decided to go out for a nice dinner. I was amazed that our hostel was right around the corner from these beautiful places:

I was seriously amazed just by the walk to dinner. I had no idea Rome was so beautiful! The next day, Thursday, we got up early to go to the Colosseum. I only had one full day in Rome, so we decided to hit two major attractions. Luckily, the Colosseum was very close to our hostel! We waited in line to get inside, and by the time we left, the line was around the block. Good thing we woke up early!

The Colosseum was just so amazing. It is HUGE, and seriously cannot be captured in photos, but here are a few anyway!

Also, as you can probably tell, the day was beautiful! It was also probably 95 degrees, so we were hot! We were determined to see a lot, though, so we walked on past the Palatino towards the Tiber River and the Vatican!

By the time we got to the Vatican we were pooped. I went to find some different shoes, and then we bought some gelato and cold drinks to rejuvenate ourselves. Then, we walked right up to the Vatican! In these pictures it's just amazing to see how huge the Vatican buildings are - look how small the people are!

We first went to the Vatican museums and then came back to see St. Peter's Basilica.

I mentioned we were exhausted when we arrived at the Vatican. Well, after walking through art museums for hours, we were even more exhausted/in pain/sweaty/tired/cranky. But, we were at the Vatican! We had to see St. Peter's Basilica, so we took a quick break and then got back on our feet to walk back to the Basilica. When we got outside though, the skies looked like they were about to open up. We bought some ponchos and walked through the crazy wind as it started to rain. Luckily, we made it under some shelter before the downpour began, and honestly it was pretty nice to have an excuse to sit down for half an hour. Also, the rain cooled the weather down significantly, and we were so much happier afterwards! We finally went inside to visit St. Peter's Basilica, which was so impressive. Unfortunately, photos are not allowed inside, so I don't have any!

After the Vatican, we walked back in the direction of our hostel and chose a restaurant for dinner. We sat and chatted for several hours before deciding to walk around a bit. We stumbled upon this festival all along the Tiber River, where people were eating, drinking, and shopping. We walked through the festival for the rest of the night. It was a perfect, relaxing end to a long day!

Ok, I think that's enough for now! I'll be back with more about Italy later on!