We certainly have not mastered the art of traveling yet. Every night we come home and our heads hurt, our feet ache, our backs hurt, we are thirsty, and we are exhausted. And, we haven't seen or experienced as much as we want to.

Rome is beautiful, exciting, wonderful, and very very hot. Last night we had dinner at Miscellanea, a fabulous little salad/pizza place with a view of the Pantheon. Neither of us was too sure what the Pantheon was, but we do now. It is very old and very beautiful inside. About 2000 years old to be exact, and has a bigger dome than St. Peter's Basilica (the largest church in the world). It's interior has been restored and it is like in the Roman times, cool.
We were utterly exhausted last night....we went on a short night walk through Rome and saw the Trevi Fountain and the Spanish steps, where lots of people gather. It was very pleasant and warm and lots of people.

The temp today, as normal, was about 38 Celsius. If you convert that, that's very close to 100 F. We were up and out nice and early this morning (after free breakfast at our hotel!) and by 9:00 we were at the Colosseum. And it was already about 95 degrees. The ruins and buildings here are so big that they are hard to fathom and hard to describe. They are interlaced with all the newer buildings in the city, so you're driving down the road and there's a hotel and then some Roman ruins, then a McDonald's. In fact, you can sit in the Piazza surrounding the Pantheon, at McDonald's. We didn't, don't worry.

So, we saw the Colosseum (huge, amazing, awesome), and then Palatine Hill and the Roman Forum. Both of the latter two are outdoor places with remains of ancient Rome's buildings. It was pretty astounding. We ate a picnic lunch (there are some things that we are savvy about and that is planning food ahead of time, so we had gotten a picnic early in the morning en route to the Colosseum) sitting on a piece of ruins, and then prepared to head to the Appian Way (the first big road ever, 2000 ish years old) and the catacombs. We got halfway there (via metro/bus) and realized they were closed from 12 to 2:30. It was 1:00. So we decided to take our afternoon rest then, and do the rest of the things later. After 2 gelatos (amazing grapefruit and then dark chocolate to follow it), we got back to our room. This had taken longer than planned because we were a long way away. We rested, but only briefly, because we had to leave by 3:00 in order to get to the Catacombs, St. Peter's and the Pantheon before they closed.

So, we decided to be super efficient and rather than take the bus to the metro to the other metro to the bus to get to the Appian Way, we were going to take 1 bus to the bike rental place and ride bikes. It was only a 4 mile bike ride, on a nice pedestrian road...should be no problem. Plus, we're tough and we had a lot of water so the 100 degree heat wasn't going to be a problem (despite the 1 speed rental bikes we were sure to get).

Yep, the bikes were 1 speed. But, they were better than walking on our tired tired feet. Unfortunately, we had 1 major snafu in our plan: our map didn't extend out to the Appian way and we didn't know exactly how to get there. We thought no problem....but Rome is a big city. It took us 1 hour 45 minutes to find the Appian Way. It also took about 6 bottles of water and ½ gallon of sweat. We saw three maps along the way, on our backwards route, but still couldn't find our way. At this point, it is 5:00 and the Catacombs close in 30 minutes...they are still 1 mile down the Appian Bad maps. Way....so we had to turn around. Guess what? We made it back in less than 15 minutes and only had to pay for two hours of bikes. Yay. So, no Catacombs but we couldn't let our morale fade too much because we still had two more major sites to see and 2 hours until they closed.

Basically, the only way we (and many others) survived the heat of Rome is that there are fountains and water spigots everywhere and you are more than welcome, and expected, to walk up to them, fill your bottle, splash your face, body, hat, dog, etc. You could wash your feet, your clothes, anything to keep you cool. And we did. Again and again. Some of them are beautiful examples of sculpture and architecture, some aren't so nice but all are cold.

St. Peter's Basilica is the biggest and grandest church in the world. It was enormous and very fancy. And not very hot.

The Pantheon we already talked about.

Had delicious salads for dinner. We are getting better at seeking out restaurants that serve casual food, in a casual setting. Like we said before, our favorites are self service cafeterias. Here in Rome, they are not as popular so we are doing our reading and picking casual restaurants (with good food!).

After dinner, still exhausted and hot, we crossed the river just for a gelato place. You might ask, oh, were there no gelato places near where you ate dinner? The answer would be no. We probably passed 50 enroute, but Rick Steve (our guidebook guy), said that this one was “worth seeking out” (unprecedented so far in all of our reading). So we sought. He recommended the cinnamon, unusual, but unbelievable. Rivaling Grom's dark dark chocolate for the absolute best. So good. We were in a new, very fun neighborhood (Trastevere) and if we had more time, we would definitely spend more time there.

We wandered back through Campo de Fiori and Piazza Navona, both very busy, bright, fun, night scenes and now we are going to bed. Have to leave early morning tomorrow for Sorrento (already bought our train tickets).

Maybe we should have given Rome more than a day. Who knew?

Ciao!