Day 14 - Florence to Rome

Breakfast in the hotel at 7:00. Headed out at 8:05 to meet the bus. Arrived in Rome about lunchtime, checked into the Hotel Selene. Once again, nice big rooms. Went out for a stroll, went to the Santa Maria of the Angels church which is near our hotel. It was designed by Michaelangelo. Saw a fountain in the Piazza della Republica. Had a quick lunch on the way back to the hotel to meet up with the group at 3:10.

We walked to the metro stop closest to our hotel (at which time I realized that we had left the camera back in the room!), got on and rode to the Colosseum. The Colosseum is a really neat sight to see. It was in use from the year 80 AD to the year 523 AD. That is pretty old! A local guide met us there and gave us a tour. For some reason, the cast of Cats was there performing some songs down on the floor of the Colosseum. That was pretty neat. Wish I had had a camera! (Actually, some folks in the group are going to give me their pics, so all is not lost.)

Then, we walked over to the Forum, toured around there with our local guide. Walked from there to the Pantheon. These are just sights that are hard to describe in a quick blog entry.

We ate dinner at a place called Dividum, which was located in the Piazza della Maddalena, near the Pantheon. Gary and I each had lasagna.

The group met back up after dinner at 9:00 in front of the Pantheon and we took an evening stroll with our guide, Jennifer. It was a nice warm night and Romans (and tourists) were out all over the place enjoying their Friday evening having dinner outside or just walking around. There was a club of some sort that had people spilling out the doors onto a square and all the people were really glamorous that were standing out there. These Italians are an attractive, well-groomed bunch for the most part. We stopped at several squares and several fountains, included the world-famous Trevi Fountain. Tons of people were there. That is one beautiful fountain. We all threw coins in. Supposedly, you are supposed to throw 3 coins in, one for luck, one for love, and one so that you will return to Rome. Well, I only had two small coins (the others were euros and I wasn’t going to throw in a euro!) so I figured I would throw in the coins for luck and love and if I want to come back to Rome, I will. I don’t need to throw a coin in for that! J We stopped at one of Rick Steves’ favorite gelato places, which of course, I can’t think of right now, but anyway, Jennifer sprung for gelato for all of us. Then we walked back to the hotel at about 10:30 to get some sleep before we leave the hotel again tomorrow morning at 8:00 for the Vatican.