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Published: January 30th 2006
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Roman Soldiers!
ok, so we got suckered into this little tourist trap thingie, but it did turnout to be a cute picture. It was already the end of July and time was quickly running out for me and my roommates stay in Italy. So, like any sane person would do.. we decided to challenge ourselves to seeing Rome in a day. Myself, Sarah, and Katie caught the 5:55am train from Florence to Rome and arrived 2 or 2.5 hours later. We knew we were going to be rushed for time, so we caught a cab and went straight to Vatican City/Holy See. (See my other journal entry about this.)
Upon leaving Vatican city, we caught another cab (I know.. I know...) and found ourselves at the Pantheon. It's always amazing to see things in person that you've read about in school year after year.. and Rome was full of these feelings for me. The Pantheon was much like I had thought it would be. The inside was very interesting in that the Catholics had converted it to be a Christian building and had crosses all about it.. despite it's historically pagan beginnings. The top of the structure contains a large hole in white sunlight streams into creating a beautiful beam of light.
From the Pantheon we wandered nearby to where the
Trevi fountain was, and it was quite large and very beautiful. You knew you arrived even before seeing the fountain because of all the people milling about the area. Over to the side, as is common all over Italian cities, there was a fountain where you can drink with your hands, or fill water bottles with. So I can say I've had water from the Trevi fountain to drink.. 😉
In this area is also where we grabbed lunch. We were doing great on time and wanted to fuel our bodies before heading over to the colosseum. Upon arrival there, it was like a dream. When people think of Italy, especially Rome, they think of the Colosseum... and here I was. To comprehend how long this building had been around, or how many people through the years had been here was hard to imagine. We did not go on the inside because we are poor college kiddos, but were completely content with this.
We did get lured into a tourist trap though I'm afraid to admit. "Soldiers" dressed up in 'traditional' roman garb were near the colosseum so people could do silly photo ops ... and only after
they'd had their way with us taking goofy pictures and goofing off.. did we realize they expected money from us. oops. That was a fast 5 euros.... each.
The whole area around the colosseum is full of ruins and three different arches. We walked around a bit and sat to relax for a while overlooking the ruins since our food was digesting nicely at this point. It truly was a beautiful day that we chose to go. After we wandered around the ruins, we realized we'd crossed everything off our lists that we all felt the need to see while in Rome. While getting our bearings straight so we could return to the train station, we also stumbled across the Republic building, which was a HUGE white stone building. I was suprised I'd never heard anything of this structure!
Finding the train station, we ended up catching an earlier train than we intended and made great time back.
We conquered Rome (or at least the part we wanted to!) in a DAY!!
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