Rome, Italy

As this will wrap up the posts of our recent holiday trip, I will share some Italian observations...

Italians LOVE cigarettes and dogs.  I can't tell which one more, only that they are both equally more present than I care for (which would be not at all if I ran the world).  We ate at food trucks, casual diners, finer restaurants, and museum cafeterias.  Our best meal was spaghetti with homemade sauce courtesy of Robert in our Rome apartment.  The loudest sound in the Sistine Chapel is " SHHH!  NO PHOTOS!" repeated over and over by large disgruntled security (although a glance upward and everything else melts into oblivion). That being said, we loved our trip.

Rome, our final stop, was even better with kids.  Robert and I were here several years ago with my dad(tour guide extraordinaire) via a visit to my parents while they were in London.  Rome provides a lot of hands on history.  I don't think it's on purpose necessarily, more that there are so many ruins everywhere that they just left a bunch of the lesser pieces laying around.  It's pretty neat to run your fingers down the carving grooves of letters inscribed thousands of years ago.  

Our first stop was the Colosseum, the Roman Forum, and the Palatine. 

 

 

 

 The Trevi Fountain was just down the street from our apartment.

 The Spanish Steps were so close to us we ended up passing them half a dozen times during our stay in Rome.  They're just down the street from Piazza del Popolo in which the kids "rode" the famous fountain's lions. 

 St. Peter's from the Villa Borghese.

 

 

 

 

 The Pantheon. Our walk to this also sent us past Piazza Navona and it's Christmas market.

 Castel San't Angelo

 Circus Maximus.  Not captured in photo was the attempt by the four to recreate a chariot race using each other as horse and rider.  Still fun to run it imagining being chased by armored men with spiked clubs. 

 The Mouth of Truth. 

 

 The Baths of Caracalla.

 

 Ice Skating near the Vatican.