Day 7 Leaving Rome on a train to Zurich

We decided to leave Rome bright and early to get to the train station.  The hotel called us a cab that took us to the train station.  We thought that traveling on Sunday wouldn't be so busy but we were sadly mistaken.  We wanted to get to Zurich early and be able to walk around the city but that wasn't the case.  We couldn't get an earlier train from Milan to Zurich so we had to hang out in Milan for four hours.  We wanted to do that rather than stay in Rome any longer than we had to.  We weren't too impressed with Rome and I don't think that we'll be going back.  I'm glad that we got to go but the city just wasn't for us.  The people were rude and pushy and it was just way too crowded for us.  After traveling all day on the train we eventually made it to Zurich around midnight.

I had to show everyone this.  This is considered a hair dryer in Europe!! I'm so glad I never have to use one again!

These are what some of the trains look like in Italy.  The ones that we took were the red trains which meant they went really fast!

This was one of the fastest trains we took going 186mph.

Day 6 Rome

We woke up really early to head to the Colosseum.  We first went to Palatine Hill since we could get our combo ticket for the Colosseum and the Roman Forum there without having to wait in a line.  We walked around Palatine Hill and were able to enjoy where all the palaces where and to see more parts of the city.  We then walked over to the Roman Forum.  At this point it was starting to get really hot and there aren't a lot of trees for shade.  We stayed at the Roman Forum for a while before heading over to the Colosseum.  By now the line to get into the Colosseum was wrapped all the way around the building and towards the street.  Thankfully since we bought the combo ticket we were able to bypass the really long line and go right in.  We wanted to do a guided tour but the line for the guided tour was really long.  So we used our Rick Steve's guide book for our tour guide.

View from the breakfast room in our Hotel.

Palatine Hill

Roman Forum

After the Colosseum we grabbed some lunch nearby and then headed to the Pantheon.  The Pantheon's dome is the world's largest unenforced concrete dome and has a central opening to the sky. When we finished at the Pantheon we got some gelato for a snack and then walked back to the Spanish Steps to do some shopping.  Chris knew that I had fallen in love with a mint green handbag from Louis Vuitton and he wanted to buy it for me.  So we headed to the flagship store in Rome which is also the flagship store for all of Italy.  We asked to see if they had the mint green bag in stock and they didn't but they did have a razorback red and a brown bag available.  I was debating between the two colors when Chris pulls out his debit card to pay for the red bag.  I didn't realize it at the time but there was a very angry Italian woman who also wanted the same red bag.  She was pointing at the bag and pointing at the salesman.  So needless to say she wasn't very happy when we bought the bag.  After wrapping my new bag our salesman also gave us a personal tour of the whole store.  Chris said that this was his favorite memory of Rome.  I asked him why and he said because he’s never been able to buy me anything that nice before.  He’s such a sweet husband and I’m so blessed to have him!! After we finished shopping we went back to the hotel room to relax before heading to dinner.

There were street performers on every street.

Day 5 Rome

I didn’t sleep at all that first night in Rome because our room was located right next to the elevator and it was extremely noisy.  So Chris went and asked the manager about switching our room to another.  The manager said that there were no other rooms and when Chris asked about the bathroom he said that all of the bathrooms looked that way.  After taking a shower in the scary bathroom I went to blow dry my hair only to find out that the hair dryer didn’t work.  I came out to tell Chris and the manager that the hair dryer wasn’t working.  The manager saw that I wasn’t very happy and offered to give me a new dryer.  I told Chris that he just needed to email Choice Hotels about the issues that we’d been having.  After hearing this he must have looked up Chris’s account and saw that he stays in 100+ nights in a hotel.  He then offered to switch us to a brand new room with a completely renovated bathroom.

After all that we asked how to get to the Colosseum. He kinda looked at us funny but told us how to get there. We walked 2 miles to get there and we started noticing that there weren’t a lot of people around.  We thought that was a little odd but when we got there we found out that the Colosseum, Palatine Hill, and the Roman Forum were all closed due to a strike! So we decided to walk around and take some pictures of the outside of the Colosseum before walking back to our hotel room.

Arch of Constantine

When we got back to the hotel we told the manager what happened and he didn’t look shocked at all when we told him they were on strike.  We decided that would head to Vatican City so we asked him for directions on how to get there.  He told us we needed to take a bus but he didn’t tell us where the bus stop was or where to get the tickets for the bus.  After walking around for an hour and a half in the rain we finally found a place to buy tickets for the bus. The machine only took 10 and 20 dollars so we had to buy three tickets.  Once we bought the tickets we had to walk back to the bus stop. We waited for about 10 minutes before the bus came and then we were on our way to the Vatican.  After being on the bus we discovered that you really don’t even need a ticket!!  When we arrived in Vatican City we walked over to St. Peter’s Square to get in line to see St. Peter’s Basilica.  We waited for about 30 minutes to get in and go through security.  We walked around the Basilica a while before heading up to the dome.  We decided to pay to use the elevator that way we didn’t have to walk all 551 stairs to the cupola.  Instead we just had to walk 320 stairs to get there.  I don't see how anyone who is claustrophobic would have been able to make it up to the top.  After a few breaks we eventually made it to the top.  The views were worth it but we didn't really get to enjoy it that much since there were so many people who wanted to be able to see the views too.  We walked back down and headed to go find some lunch.

Michelangelo's Pieta

Saint Helena

We ate at a little restaurant right around the corner from the Vatican and it was the best pizza we had.  We knew it must be good when we saw several clergy men eating there and when the little Italian woman came out from the kitchen barking orders to all of the employees.  We finished our lunch and walked to the Vatican Museum.  We really didn't enjoy the Vatican Museum because it was so crowded and you weren't able to enjoy a lot of things.  By this point we were really tired and we just wanted to see the Sistine Chapel.  When we finally made it to the Sistine Chapel there were so many people in there that you could hardly move.  We took a few pictures and we were finally able to stand in the very back and enjoy it. After the Vatican Museum we took the bus back to our hotel room and rested for a while before we went to dinner.  Thankfully we ate at the restaurant right across from our hotel room.  We were so tired from the days activities that all we did that night was walk back to the Trevi Fountain to toss our coins in and get some more gelato.

Vatican Museum

The ceilings were all lined with paintings like these.

The Sistine Chapel

Our delicious dinner!!