Roma

Rome.  The last city on our trip with Andy's parents.  The first class cabin on the train had large roomy seats, free drinks and little cookies, it's nice to spoil ourselves.  Andy and I stored our bags at our hostel then met up with Andy's parent's to do a little sightseeing.

The Trevi fountain was our first stop.  It was really crowded and we didn't try to fight the mob to get down close to the water.

The spanish steps were also crowded, probably because it was afternoon and everyone was out in the city.  Jane, Andy, and I walked to the top of the stairs and into the little church at the top where mass was given in french.

The church at the top of the stairs.

Back close to Andy's parent's hotel we found a cute little restaurant and I had an amazing gorgonzola and radicchio risotto and Andy had pizza.

In the morning Andy and I conducted our own sightseeing tour while the parents were on theirs.  The Pantheon was our first stop and amazingly huge, especially since it was built in 130 AD.  The dome at the top is perfectly spherical and is still the largest unreinforced concrete dome in the world.

After that we just wandered our way over to the river, passing through the Piazza Novena and quaint tiny streets.  We met back up with the parents around 1 and had lunch then took the metro down to the Coliseum.  It was mid-afternoon but only took us 10 minutes to get tickets.

Click to enlarge

The same tickets also got us into the Roman Forum, but since we all had been walking all day, we just didn't appreciate it or spend much time wandering around.

For dinner we ate around the parent's hotel again and Andy got an amazing gorgonzola and pear risotto while I had a ravioli in red sauce.  As a bonus we all got a shot of limoncello after dinner.