Rome!

Søren and I just got back from a wonderful 3½ day trip to Rome.  We feel so blessed and privileged that we got to go on such a trip, just the two of us.  We found out earlier this fall that we had worked too many hours and therefore were able to fund the trip with our overtime work.  Silas was at Farmors and they had a wonderful time.  Lukas and Nikolaj were also on "vacation" at Grandmas so they got to spend a lot of time together.  They went to the aquarium and playground and otherwise hung out at the house and outside.  We were super excited to get home to see him, but we had a wonderful time.

Here are some details and pictures from our trip.

The first day we got into Rome around dinner time.  We went to our hotel, and that was an experience of its own.  First we found the "reception" after snaking our way through a grungy corridor...we were then shown to our room, which happened to be a few blocks away, so we took a little stroll with a nice Italian man.  Our room was very small. but it could fit an extremely hard double bed so we had what we needed.  We found a really cute restaurant for dinner where we could sit outside and enjoy the beautiful weather and atmosphere.

The second, and first full day, we experienced A LOT.  Due to my very pregnant state, we decided we would take a hop on hop off bus around the city for the 2 days.  Our first stop was the Coloseum. We had bought our tickets ahead of time so we didn't have to wait in the at least 1 hour line. We went inside the giant structure and were amazed at the sheer size.  It was huge and massive. We walked around in there for awhile admiring how old the building was.  We then found a small café overlooking the Coloseum for lunch and continued on the bus.  (We had wanted to spend more time in the gardens and ruins surrounding the Coloseum, but due to a demonstration, it was closed..:-(

We decided then that our next stop would be the Vatican.  As the bus pulled up near the front of St. Peters Bascillica, our breath was taken away.  The church was so enormous, and we found out that it is the oldest church in the world.  We bought tickets to go into the Vatican Museum and Sistine Chapel. The tickets were pretty expensive, but again we got to skip the over 2 hour line to get in here.  There were a lot of interesting things in the museum, but not being such big museum fans, we made it through quite quickly, enjoying the sights and all the different types of art and sculputures.  The museum ends in the Sistine Chapel, and that was also very beautiful.  The entire Chapel was covered with paintings and we recognized the famous 2 hands reaching towards each other, painted by Michelangelo. We were maybe a little bit dissapointed, but probably because it was so hyped up.  With that said, however, we were glad we did it, now that we were in the Vatican.

By now we were getting quite tired, so we took a rest and had some Gelato ice cream. Yummy!!!  Then we were ready to see St. Peters Bascillica. There was a line to get in again, but it turns out that it was just the security line and that it was actually free to get in.  The inside was just as breathtaking as the outside and we marveled at all the art and design.  Very beautiful.  After exploring for a while we decided we would look into how difficult it would be to climb the dome and get a view over Rome.  Although we decided to take the Elevator, that only took us the first 200 steps...we then had to snake our way up through some very narrow passages and 320 more steps.  I was very happy that I was able to do it, as the view from up there was really spectacular, and in general cool to be walking around in the dome!

View from the Dome!

By the time we got down from the dome, it was time to catch the last bus back to the vicinity of our hotel and find some dinner.  It was a nice bus ride, as it had gotten quite dark and things were lit up.

The third day was spent exploring some of the parts of Rome that we didn't get a great and close up look at from the bus.  Due to a large demonstration (over 20,000 people and A LOT of policemen) the buses closed at 2, so we walked a lot. Our first stop was back near the Colosseum to visit the gardens and ruins (Palantine and Roman Forum) It was really amazing to be walking amongst ruins that were over 2,000 years old.  This took the whole morning so we found some lunch and continued walking towards the massive Capital Building, Trevi Fountain and the Pantheon.  All were beautiful in very different ways, and we just enjoyed time to just sit and stare into space at the fountain, really feeling like we were on vacation.  We had decided that we would relax a little at the hotel before dinner so as we walked back to the hotel we stopped at a few shops and found lots of "hyggelig" streets filled with life and character.

Roman Forum

Roman Forum

Capital Building

Pantheon

Pantheon--The middle of the dome was completely open, so it sometimes rained inside.

Trevi Fountain

Before we knew it, it was dinner time and we visited another cute café with outside tables.  Our time in Rome had come to an end and we went to bed pretty early as we had to get up at 5am to catch our flight.

We had a fabulous time. Time to really see each other, laugh and make lasting memories.  We had amazing weather,75F/24C, and sunny!  We had some great food and just enjoyed some adult conversations and hand holding.  It was a very wonderful experience for us!