Hi Mom!!
I am back from Rome, Italy and boy did I have a fantastic time! I spent a week seeing all the sites with another TV named Bertie. Our trip started with seats in First Class!! I had a seat that went all the way down into a bed and I watched lots of movies and had wonderful food and lots of Margaritas! I stayed at Hotel Homs, Via Della Vite street, which is located in North Rome, right in the middle of all the action. I took a TON of photos and will explain them all to you below! The weather was nice and cool and their was not a ton of tourists so it made for easy navigation through the city. I especially liked the tall tree's and buildings. Here are my photos from my big trip!
Here I am with Bertie getting ready to take off out of Philadelphia International Airport in Pennsylvania. We had to fly from Jacksonville, North Carolina to Philadelphia then to Rome.
Here I am with Bertie getting ready to land at Leonardo da Vinci - Fiumicino Airport! We were sooo excited to get on with our adventure!
We got in a cab and it usually only takes 20 minutes to get to the hotel BUT today they were having a demonstration/Protest of some sort and our poor cab driver had to find a way to get to Old Roma where our hotel was!! we had the WILDEST ride!! most roads were blocked off and our cab driver got in many arguments with the Police hahaha it was fun listening to him yell back and forth in Italian and we picked up a few new phrases of our own! The cab driver finally got sooo mad he drove right through the DO NOT CROSS tape and got us to our hotel in one frazzled piece!! I will never forget that ride!
Our next stop was to take a walk down the cobble stone streets and get some food! Darcie said this was the BEST sauce she had ever tasted!! The food was soooo good compared to the Italian food in the US. Here we are having Rigatoni Pompodore with fresh Mozarella and wine!
Our hotel was situated right next to Piazza De Spanga (The Spanish Steps) here we are at The Spanish steps. Everyday people would gather up this fantastic staircase and sit down and rest and have some Gelatto or drink some beer. We loved the people watching and the people loved watching us!
After the steps we were very jet lagged so we went back to the hotel for a rest. Here we are at our first Italian dinner! and guess what we had? Yep Pizza!! The pizza is very different then the stuff they serve in the US. This was way better as the tomato's are grown here and they taste way better and the cheese was out of this world! Steve (Darcie's husband) LOVED the local beer, which was Nastro Azzuro, here we are with a photo of our glass of beer and our pizza.
Every morning we would head to the McDonalds. This McDonalds was stunning and Darcie could not believe they had a pastry shop downstairs!!! This was always open early (most places didnt open till 9am) so every morning we would pick out a pastry and a nice big cup of fresh Capuchino. Here we are picking out our breakfast for the day.
The next day we went to the National Museum of Rome. This was a fantastic collection of statues from all around Rome. Here we are with Brutus, he is the man who killed Julius Ceaser. We had fun reading all about the different people and seeing all the history.
Here we are with Hercules, he was much bigger then we were!
After the Museum we went to Vatican City!!!! first we stopped for some wonderful lunch!! Here we are with Pasta Carbonera, which is cream, cheese and bacon with pasta.. it was beyond fantastic tasting!!!
Here we are in the Vatican courtyard. The Vatican is the worlds smallest country. They did not allow a lot of photos. The best part of the tour was inside the Cistine Chapel. This is the worlds prettiest church and this is the painting that Michaelangelo did on the ceiling. No photos were allowed but you can see it if you Google it. We had a fantastic history lesson from our tour guide and we learned a lot!
This is us inside the Vatican and we are sitting on a bath tub!!! look how big it is!!!
After our tour inside the Vatican we went outside to St. Peters Square. This is shown on TV a lot and it was HUGE HUGE HUGE! Here we are with St Peters church in the background. Look at all the statues on top!!
After the Vatican we were really hungry and tired. We took the Metro back to our hotel for a nap then we went to our favorite place to eat which is called Ciros. We ate at many places but this one was the best! Here we are with our Anti Pasta... lots of different things such as cheese, ham, Bruscella ect ect and it was all sooooooooo good!
Every night we would stop at The Gelateria where they sell Gelatto... yep we ate it every single night!1 it was a fantastic treat!! here we are deciding what kind to get!!
The following day we spent at The Colosseum and Roman Forum. All the old ruins are fantastic to see!! Here we are at the Colosseum.
Here we are inside the Colosseum, we had a long discussion on how great it would of been to sit with the other 50,000 fans watching the Gladiators fight!!
We walked around and then stopped for directions to see more of the Colosseum.
We stopped for a quick lunch at McDonalds before heading over to Palantine Hill and the Roman Forum.
Next we went to the Roman Forum, there are a lot of ruins that looked the same over and over so we just got one good shot of us at Circus Maximus!! This is where they used to do chariot racing and must of been way cool back in the day!!
After a long day we got a piece of Darcie's favorite Tiramisu (Italian wedding cake) and some Gelatto and watched a bit of Italian soccer on TV.
The next few days was shopping and visiting the Trevi Fountain, The Patheon and basically strolling around before we had to leave!! Here we are at the Trevi Fountain.
Here we are inside the Patheon, this ceiling was AMAZING!!!
The best part of the trip was the SHOPPING!!! We were 100 feet from Via Del Corso which had Versace, Gucci, Dolce and Gabbana, Fendi ect ect Darcie went crazy!! here we are outside the Gucci store.
Here we are with all our shopping bags! Also we went with Steve to get Dolce Gabbana silk boxers! we each got a pair!! hahaha
We went to a Irish Pub to watch the six Nations Cup! Ireland was playing Italy and we were pulling for Ireland to win and they did!! we drank Guiness with Steve!
Then we stopped for a snack... we were always eating and drinking!!
Here we are at the private first class lounge at the airport getting ready to go home.... we had sweet rolls and more Cappucino!!
Darcie pulled off a miracle!!! since we were in first class she went up to the flight deck before take off.. guess what??? WE GOT TO FLY THE PLANE HOME!!!!!!!!! here we are in the cockpit with the pilots!!
After a few hours we wanted a rest... here we are in our seats.. I had a fantastic time mom and I hope you like the photos!!!
Ciao!
Percy
