Marco-YOLO

We are in Rome now, doing laundry near the hotel. We got a suite with a large balcony and the weather is great so we’re going to chill on it for the rest of today. Tomorrow morning we catch a flight to Nice after which we’re going to stay on the French Riviera between Cannes, Monte Carlo and Nice for 3 days. After that, we’ll be flying to Barcelona and then Grenada where we may rent a car to see more of Andalusia.

Today, we took a bus from Venice (which we really loved) to Asisi where we had lunch and roamed the city for 2 hours and then we rode down to Rome. We saw a lot of beautiful Italian countryside along the way. Since it was Sunday, people were out flyfishing or riding around on their bicycles or motorbikes. Our hotel is great and is near an area with a lot of Arabs. We had the best meal we’ve had in Italy at an Arabic restaurant nearby.

What you’d expect.

Saw Vatican including St Peter’s Basilica, The Vatican museum and ending with the Sistine Chapel. It took 5.5 hours to do all this. Our guide was exceptionally knowledgable and we learned a lot about the progression of Christian Italian sculpture and painting through the ages as well as the broader events that brought about these changes.

Learning the history of the Catholic church was more interesting. The church and its policies evolved through the ages in response to the challenges and changing external power dynamics of the times. We both learned so much.

After doing some damage at the snack bar in the United red carpet lounge in Dulles airport, we took our direct flight to Rome. We watched 2 movies on the plane; Sweeney Todd (w/J. Depp) and Atonement (w/ K. Knightley). We both hated Sweeney Todd and strongly discourage anyone from seeing it (even if you love Depp) and I loved Atonement although Colleen thought it was just OK.

Rome was having beautiful weather. Sunny in low to mid 60′s (F). We took the Leonardo Express from the Fiumicino Airport into downtown. We are staying at the Marriott Grand Flora on Via Veneto. This area used to be the favored building spot of Roman emperors for their palaces and is very expensive today. We used points for our stay, otherwise the room we are in runs 400 Euros a night. The room is nice but has this balcony with an amazing view of Via Veneto and the Villa Borghese Gardens which we are right next to.

We took a siesta after getting into the hotel on Thursday around noon then grabbed an Italian dinner at an outside restaurant on Via Veneto. We then walked around Rome for the next 3 hours, taking pictures in front of the Trevi Fountain and going up the Spanish Steps. We continued walking to Piazza di Spagna and then walked back to our hotel along the perimeter of the Borghese Gardens.

Tomorrow morning we take in the Vatican and the Sistine Chapel.