Rome, Italy

Rome was an amazing city. It was our favorite place that we visited on our trip. We got off the boat and walked to the train stop. We just barely missed the train into Rome by like 30 seconds, so we had to wait a half hour for the next train. When we got to Rome we took a bus to the Coliseum. We were going to go to the Vatican first, but we found out that the Pope was giving his weekly address there that morning and there would have been a crazy amount of people there so we decided to see the Coliseum first and then go to the Vatican. On our way to the Coliseum we saw Italy’s huge statue to their unknown soldier. It was a really big monument. It was pretty cool looking. We walked a lot while in Rome. We’ve walked a lot in all of the port cities we’ve been in so far. While walking from the bus stop to the Coliseum, we saw thousands of students protesting something about education. It was kind of crazy. We weren’t planning on paying to go into the Coliseum, but being their by it, we wanted to go inside and see it from the inside. So we ended up paying to go in. While waiting in line we talked with a French couple. When we got up to pay we were a euro short of entrance fee and they didn’t take credit cards or English dollars. The French couple was really nice and paid the extra euro for us, so we were able to go in. The Coliseum was pretty amazing. I never thought I’d see it. I can’t really describe how cool it was to see. Our ticket also let us into Palentino Hill. It is where Julius Caesar was killed. That place was really cool too. It is amazing how many ancient buildings there are right in the middle of Rome. There was so much to see. After seeing Palentino Hill, we took a bus to Vatican City to see St. Peter’s Basilica and the Sistine Chapel. On our way over on the train, someone tried to pick-pocket Jake. He saw who did it, but all they took was our entrance ticket into the Coliseum, so we didn’t care that they took it. We first went into St. Peter’s Basilica. That Cathedral is amazing. There is so much art work and carvings. It is very elaborate. It’s hard to describe how amazing it was. After walking through St. Peter’s Basilica, we went to the Vatican Museum, where the Sistine Chapel is located. It is impossible to take in everything that is in the Museum in the short amount of time we had. It would take days to see everything in the museum. Some of the things in there are so amazing. The ceilings are all painted elaborate. There was one hall that had hundreds of different scenes painted on the ceiling. There was a room called the room of Immaculate Conception that the paintings on the wall were pretty grotesque. The Sistine Chapel was pretty amazing. It was a lot bigger than I thought it would be. Sadly, we couldn’t take any pictures. We tried to take video, but it turned out super dark. All the paintings on the walls and on the ceilings in there were just amazing, it was beautiful. I really enjoyed the museum. Too bad we didn’t have longer to enjoy it. After seeing the museum we had to get back to the train to make it back before our ship left. It would have been nice to have been able to have stayed in Rome a few days, because I know there was a lot of amazing things we didn’t have time to see. Jake did fairly well communicating with the people there. He was able speak half Spanish half Italian and the people were able to understand.