Okay, so the updating twice in a day didn't work out, but now I am up to my final post for Italy! Thursday was our last full day in Rome, and we had to make the best of it. Once again, we got up early and visited the Spanish Steps. Amazingly enough, at eight in the morning there is no one there! We had the steps to ourselves which was fantastic. We climbed the twelve flights to the top, and the view was fantastic. But, since there are only so many different angles of pictures you can get of the Spanish Steps, we headed to the Colosseum to get in line for tickets.When we got there, it was just opening so we were able to get tickets right away. The Colosseum looks absolutely massive on the outside, but on the inside it was a lot smaller than I expected, not that it was tiny by an
y means. It was amazing to see the expanse of the place, and imagine that it was larger at its height! It really was fantastic...a lot of the old columns are on the ground and words are carved into the sides of stones. There were original staircases (that we didn't use, of course), and they built a little bit of a wooden floor over the ruins that were under the original wooden floor. I'm assuming that they did this so tourists could see how the floor might have looked. Early in the morning with the bright sun was a great time to go see it, and we beat the crowds...even better! Outside of the Colosseum and Roman Forum were all of these men dressed as gladiators, and they try to rip you off by charging 10 euros after you've taken a picture of them. I was a little disappointed in their stature...they didn't look like gladiators. Then Jess and I pondered about the possibility of Gerard Butler being a gladiator...we thought he would look much better in the outfit! :)
y means. It was amazing to see the expanse of the place, and imagine that it was larger at its height! It really was fantastic...a lot of the old columns are on the ground and words are carved into the sides of stones. There were original staircases (that we didn't use, of course), and they built a little bit of a wooden floor over the ruins that were under the original wooden floor. I'm assuming that they did this so tourists could see how the floor might have looked. Early in the morning with the bright sun was a great time to go see it, and we beat the crowds...even better! Outside of the Colosseum and Roman Forum were all of these men dressed as gladiators, and they try to rip you off by charging 10 euros after you've taken a picture of them. I was a little disappointed in their stature...they didn't look like gladiators. Then Jess and I pondered about the possibility of Gerard Butler being a gladiator...we thought he would look much better in the outfit! :)Since our tickets also included the Roman Forum and Palantine Hill, we went there next. Funnily enough, we found AJ and Caitlin there! We walked around with them for a few hours. There are barely any ruins left in the 
Forum(I suppose that's why they are called ruins), but you can imagine how large the area was. The Arch of Titus was great and climbing on some of the ruins was fun...not sure if it was allowed, but I did it anyway. It was extremely crowded in the Forum with all of the tour groups, so we went up to Palantine Hill. You could wander around that area for hours and not see the same thing twice. It was an upper class area of Rome, and you could tell by the scale and grandeur of the buildings. I loved Palantine...I wish we could have stayed longer, but some of the others were getting a little restless with my wanderings.
Forum(I suppose that's why they are called ruins), but you can imagine how large the area was. The Arch of Titus was great and climbing on some of the ruins was fun...not sure if it was allowed, but I did it anyway. It was extremely crowded in the Forum with all of the tour groups, so we went up to Palantine Hill. You could wander around that area for hours and not see the same thing twice. It was an upper class area of Rome, and you could tell by the scale and grandeur of the buildings. I loved Palantine...I wish we could have stayed longer, but some of the others were getting a little restless with my wanderings. We said goodbye to Caitlin, and went to the Piazza del Popolo. We sat on the lions at the fountain, tried to avoid the men "giving" away rose
s, and watched people drive Segways which I wanted to do so badly! We ate lunch at a nice little restaurant in which I had a mushroom pasta, and it was delicious!
s, and watched people drive Segways which I wanted to do so badly! We ate lunch at a nice little restaurant in which I had a mushroom pasta, and it was delicious! After walking down to the Piazza Novana again, we headed back to the hostel and got snacks for our plane ride home. We packed and headed to the Trevi Fountain for gelato. We had gelato every day we were there! You know what they say, "A gelato a day keeps the doctor away!" We saw some more people from Vandon at Trevi! It was a fantastic day, and a great way to say goodbye to Roma, Italia!
Now, for my travel horror story. Jess and I had a flight out at 7 AM which meant being at the airport at 5 AM (Abbey had a later flight). According to a man at the hostel, there were no trains or buses running to the airport that early in the morning because it is really far out. The only option we had was to get a taxi (50 euros). So, Jess and I had them call a taxi for 4:15 AM. We get up at about 3 AM because we thought we would have a difficult time getting up and moving. Surprisingly, we were both pretty awake even though we had about 4 hours of sleep. We were ready to go by 3:35. We played UNO in the lounge waiting for the taxi. At 3:45, the taxi shows up early. So, we get in and the man speeds (really, really, really speeds) towards the airport, and I was afraid for my life in the cab. We get there by 4:15 AM. We get checked in and through security before 5 AM.
So, we arrived too early and were waiting at the gate. There was no one there, but we made the best of it. 6:45 AM rolled around, and we hadn't boarded. They got on the intercom and told everyone that our flight was delayed an hour because of engine problems. They needed to switch planes. I wasn't all that worried because we had a four hour layover in Paris. An hour later, we boarded and headed to Paris. When we landed there, our flight wasn't on the departures board yet. So Jess and I waited by the board for a half hour for our flight to show up. We were starving and just wanted some fast food, but we had to wait for our gate so we could go through security again.
Finally, our terminal popped up on the board, we got through security, and we looked for food. To our amazement, there is no food in the terminal! There was a "food court" which really wasn't a food court that consisted of really, really expensive foods. We end up buying cookies and soda for lunch (I had already eaten Nutella and Pringles for breakfast). I was tired of junk food and just wanted a meal, but Paris thwarted us. We got to the gate, boarded on time, and pulled out from the terminal. But, the pilots tried to start the engine...and guess what? It doesn't work! They pulled back into the terminal and have us sit tight for a bit while technicians take a look. They decide that it is too risky to fly in that plane, so we all get off and wait for a new one.
After a total of 2 1/2 hours of delays, we get a bus to the new plane. Thankfully, we take off and land safely in London. But, both planes were Air France, Paris was really ticking me off with the food situation, and I was running on little sleep and had been up for almost 12 hours by that point...I seriously thought I was going to strangle a French person. Don't worry...no French have been harmed!
Overall, the trip was amazing. I couldn't have picked a better place to visit. I miss Italy so much, and I would absolutely love to go back. Minus a few bumps in the road which made for some interesting travel stories, the trip couldn't have been better. I can't wait to visit Scotland and Spain (if I make it there, thanks to volcano-what's-its-name). Well, this has taken me entirely too long for which I apologize profusely! I hope to get another blog up soon to describe my week back in London. Cheers all!
Goodbye Italia!
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