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Published: June 15th 2009
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Goofing Around in the Eternal City
There were old ruins everywhere including in parks Seeing the eternal city of Rome has always been a dream of mine to see and I had hoped this year I would be able to go. The weekend before our final seminar in Berlin was a long, so we decided to plan another blind booking. The theme we choose was culture with cities like Athens, Barcelona, Prague and Rome. As soon as you book the flight you find out which city you fly to and it happened to be Rome. Everyone was really excited since most of us had never been to Italy at all. We started the search for a place to stay and discovered it would be a lot more expensive than Krakow. We finally settled on a hostel that the New York Times recommended called The Yellow.
We left on Friday and our flight back was Monday, so we were lucky to have a good amount of time to see the city. We got into the airport at Rome and I knew the best way to get to downtown Rome was to take a half an hour train ride. We bought our tickets and got on the first train since we figured all of them went
Pantheon
The pantheon is one of those building you see and are like heck that belongs in Rome. through Rome main station. Of course with my luck we sat on the train for about an hour before deciding we had made the wrong decision. We did a little backtracking but made it to a station we could take the subway into the correct train station. The subway in Rome is not exactly pleasant and smells a little like an overused bathroom but it is fast and easy to figure out since it has only 2 lines. Once we got off the train we notice how hot it really was. The entire trip it stayed about 80-85 degrees and no rain at all. We dropped our stuff off at the hostel and headed out to see a few sites. We hit a few sites quick to get a feel of the city and after walking around found the first place that served pizza for dinner. The stone baked pizza and red wine, which seemed warmer than the temperature outside, made the first dinner great.
The next morning we planned to go around and see the bigger tourist attractions. We headed off to see the coliseums right away in the morning. It was a pretty cool site to see
Pantheon Light from Above
There is a large hole in the ceiling of the Pantheon. Trust me I am not an amazing photographer all my friends have the same picture. and was kind of an Eiffel Tower moment. When you see it you are like “I have now seen Italy”. I had hoped to take a tour but the line was really long and you had tons of people coming up to you and tell you they have the best tour deal. It got kind of annoying so we decided to walk around the ruins nearby without a tour. After the coliseum we just followed our map to the next monument. That is one thing Rome is full of, every 10 minutes you can see another famous monument. That day we hit all the big sites like Trevi Fountain, Spanish Steps and Pantheon. The Trevi Fountain was amazing but don’t try to eat ice cream by it they yell at you. The Pantheon was one of my favourites. First was it is free and also with the hole in the ceiling an amazing site to see. That night we stayed close to the hostel for dinner since we had walked so much all day and it kind of felt like our feet were going to fall off.
On Sunday we planned to take it easy and get away from
Trevi Fountain
This is the famous fountain you throw a coin in so one day you will go back to Rome the overly tourist Rome. We walk through a few parts of Rome that we had not seen before and enjoyed leisurely snacks at cafes that had the views of ancient fountains. After lunch we headed towards areas mostly away from the tourist attractions. We found some amazing views of the whole city from a wall that ran along a hill. We continued along paths and found huge fountain that people were putting their feet in. After walking around all day we found a great place to enjoy our last dinner in Rome. We had pasta that was amazing with our new favourite Italian red wine. One thing about eating at a restaurant outside is the amazing people watching. You really see all kinds in Rome and it is fun to listen to what language everyone that passes is speaking.
We woke up the next morning early to go to St. Pauls Basilica since we heard that was the best time to beat the rush. It was cool to go up to the top of the church and see the town. The church was a fully fledged tourist attraction, all the crowds and lines really didn’t make it feel like
Dinner with Warm Wine
We spend lots of time sitting at cute little restaurants and eating great food with warm red wine the important religious building it is. Still was amazing and it was great seeing famous art my Michelangelo. We did our last little bit of shopping before having to run to our train to the airport we almost missed. Rome was an amazing city and it is filled with so much history and beauty that once you leave you can’t believe it was all in one place. We flew back to Germany for the night since in the morning we all had to catch a train heading to Berlin for our exchange programs final seminar.
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r supek
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cool trip
awesome dude. can't wait to see it myself. good article