Thursday morning we left for Rome. We stopped mid-morning in Montepulciano, a Tuscan town in Italy famous for its wine. Since another class we are in is Geography of Wine, this stop worked into our schedule for a wine tasting, even though it was barely 10am haha The town was so cute though and EVEN COOLER is that it is where some of Twlight's New Moon was filmed! For those who have read it (Sara) this was the Italian town that the Voltori live; where Edward goes to sacrifice himself, thinking Bella is dead. I saw the piazza that she runs through to the clock tower to stop him from getting in the sun! So cool! They had pictures in all of the restaurants of the filming and the actors around the town. After lunch we got back on the bus and got to Rome late afternoon. We didn't do much besides shower and settle in before dinner at the Hotel. After we ate, a big group went to the Trevy Fountain for gellato and to throw a coin in to ensure we make it back to Rome again one day!
Friday was a loooong day. We woke up early and had a tone of "site reports" throughout the city (each of us were assigned a monument that we research and prepare a report about it for the group). We started with a tour of the Colosseum. I have been there before but it still is really amazing to get to go and walk around inside. We went to the Palatine Hill (one of the 7 hills Rome is constructed around), the Forum, the Imperial Forum, Piazza Navona and the Pantheon. As nerdy as it sounds I really enjoyed seeing all the sites this time around since we had been studying Roman history and the monuments this past semester...it was much more relevant and interesting. After what seemed like endless sightseeing we finally were let go for lunch and after I headed towards Vatican City. We waited in line to get into St. Peters Basilica, the largest Christian church in the world, and it was pretty amazing to see. We went to the top to get great views of the city but I opted to skip the Sistine Chapel since it was expensive to get in and I have seen the Michelangelo painting before (really the only reason you go inside anyways). We made it back to hotel around 6:30 and decided to go out in the Campo di Fiori (a square surrounded by a ton of bars) The bars were a ton of fun but the late night did not help with our trip to MORE Roman ruins Saturday morning.
Our bus took us to Osteia, a past Roman city, Saturday morning which I was far from thrilled about. We were there for close to 2 hours and thankfully got back to Rome around noon. I took a nap and spent most of the day by myself, which was pretty nice. I went to run along the Tiber River and then stopped by the Spanish Steps to hang out and people watch for a bit. As you can see, they were packed! That night 8 girls got together and had a nice dinner out and then went back for some sleep, this trip was pretty exhausting.
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