we did!!!

We had a great last day in Rome/Italy/Europe! We had a delicious breakfast at the hotel (which included CEREAL for the first time!!! I tried to have it one other time in Florence, but the milk they served with it was warm – yuck. So it really ended up being only like 28 days without cereal – I kind of feel like I cheated or something… or like we should change the name of the blog… but it was worth it!!!), then took the first shuttle into the city, went to The Roman Forum and Palatine Hill (a bunch of old brick piles and buildings from first century Rome), and the Colosseum; then had some yummy lunch before wandering through the Vatican and seeing the Sistine Chapel! We love Rick Steve’s, by the way – that book was worth its weight in gold, especially the way it helped us avoid pretty much ANY lines at all of the sights we went to in Europe (just by getting certain passes beforehand, etc.) – it was awesome! After grabbing some gelatto, we went back to the hotel for a siesta of swimming, napping, showering, trying to post our blog… and then went out one more time to take Rick Steve’s “Night walk through Rome” (which we had actually attempted to do on our anniversary… yeah, not so much), and it was PERFECT this time! We started out at a cute (jason says “loathed” – ‘cause we got lost so much getting to and from it) little square called Campo Dei Fiori, got a piece of pizza and focaccia, sat on a fountain to eat it, then wandered through “the walk” to Piazza Navona, which is a super-fun evening place to be. there’s tons of people around, just hanging out, people making money playing beautiful guitar music or drawing caricatures, kids chasing pigeons… We sat down at an outdoor café there to have “tartufo” – an incredibly chocolatey ball of ice cream rolled in more chocolate chunks - Rick Steves calls it "death by chocolate"(we also had a banana split)! they let us sit there for about an hour, just enjoying the scene before we finally asked for “il conto” (the bill) and continued the walk. there were some cool fountains, but the most amazing one in Piazza Navona was under construction and almost completely hidden from view (as were about a fourth of all the sights we went to in Europe as a whole – apparently July is “restoration month” or something?). We passed some obelisks and columns that must have some historical importance, and took a detour to Giolitti’s (Rome’s most famous gelatteria) for one last taste of Italian gelatto (which we were WAY too full for, and they “had” to give us 3 flavors, piling off the cone, and it was melting like crazy and we had to eat it so fast)! Then we went to Trevi fountain (another busy night scene and beautiful fountain) and tossed a coin in… We finished our walk off by stopping by one of the world’s largest McDonald’s to use their toilette, then stopping at the Spanish Steps – another local evening hangout place – and then got on the Metro and made it back to our shuttle bus just in time! a perfect end to the perfect trip!