Day 14: Rome

Day 2 in Rome was another clear, beautiful sunny day. We planned our day with an early start from the hostel. We headed for downtown to stop at the Trevi Fountain. From there we stopped at the Pantheon. This building was originally a temple to the pagen gods, but a Roman King turned it into a Christian temple. Artist Rapheal is buried in this perfectly built Dome. We then headed to the Vatican. However, the lines to get into St. Peter's Basilica stretched around the entire courtyard of the Vatican. We decided to start with the Vatican Museum. The line wasn't too long so we wandered around this huge museum and ended in the Sistene Chapel. I thought it was going to be a lot bigger, but nontheless it was still impressive and Michealangelo's paintings amazing. We decided to leave the Basilica and try get in the next day (a wise choise we found later!). We had to go back to the hostel and gather our bags since that evening we had booked a very nice hotel onto of Rome. We used Nate's hotel points to stay here, thinking a break would be nice 2/3 through the trip.

We took a shuttle to the hotel from downtown. The other people on the shuttle probably turned up their noses at these bedraggled kids getting on. However, at check-in Nate was brought to a VIP room since he had a dimond-VIP status with Hilton. (all the consecutive stays at a hotel while working in Florida paid off!) We snickered as we walked past those people to our private check-in. The hotel was gorgeous. We had a view of the entire city of Rome. We also had access to the Imperial Lounge with unlimited food and drinks all day. (We made this our dinner and breakfast during our stay.) The hotel also had a pool/fitness center, so we enjoyed relaxing that night. So we went from rags to riches in one day...from a lowly hostel "PopIn" to the "Waldorf Astoria Rome Calvilieri"!


Trevi Fountain


Pantheon

Our view from our room overlooking Rome


Our view at night: The Vatican