Day 12- Conquering Roma

So today we woke up and decided we wanted to go to Rome. Saturdays are Cinzias day off so she told us we could sleep late and relax, but due to our hibernation yesterday we were up early and ready to go. We watered the plants in the greenhouse and went for another unbeknownst uphill bike ride. When we devised a plan to try to wake up Cinzia to ask if spending the day in Rome would be okay. Our plan failed but at least we got the peanut butter out of her kitcken. We decided to go and pack for our day trip despite not having asked Cinzia yet. After having our bags packed and outfit ready we decided to try and wake her one more time, trying to make as much noise in her kitchen as possible. Success! Cinzia woke up and agreed to our plan and told us whenever we were ready she would take us to the bus stop. To her durprise it took us about 40 seconds to run upstairs and grab our bags before we were ready to be on our way!

We took the bus to Spoleto and spent a few minutes before our train to Rome searching supermarkets for peanut butter concluding that we definitely should have bought more in Switzerland.

We boarded the packed train to Roma and we were off. Once we arrived in Rome we realized we had no idea where we were going or what we wanted to see. We denclined buying a map and began walking in hopes of finding something famous we recognized from the DaVinci Code. Surprisingly this tactic did not work and we ended up asking many nice Italian people how to get to some famous land mark.

This lead us to the Coliseum which came easier than expected as it was RIGHT out of the metro station! We had to ask about six different people before we got a picture of us that had at least a little bit of the Coliseum in it. We are now pros at spotting good picture takers and we use them wisely.

Pizza time. We ate at a cute Pizzeria overlooking the Coliseum and stuffed our faces with an entire pie each. Cinzia's mother has gotten the best of us, but who wants to carry around leftovers all day?

After a leiusurely lunch we began walking again, mostly following the crowd, to an unknown destination. How we were excited! We came upon the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Although we may never who's tomb it was it seemed important and so we joined in the tourist ooh-ing and aah-ing. Tomb, check.

Now off to find the Trevi Fountain! Somehow, after explaining to Italians that we were looking for the "T-r-e-vi Foun-tain" we stumbled upon an extremely overcrowded fountain and immediately felt like we were in that Hilary Duff movie. Check!

Then we set our sites on the Pantheon. After taking pictures of a few building that we thought very well couldd have been the Pantheon we finally found the real thing! Check.

After exploring the windy streets and shops of Rome it was time to visit the only country where there are more parking spaces, more jobs, and more water fountains than citizens. It was time to see the Pope! Although the Pope was not around we chilled with the nuns for a while while walking around the Vatican, and eventually decided that the Pope might be found at a gelato bar.

He was not found at Blue Ice, but we still endulged in what may very well hav been the best gelato yet. But they are all so good, we will have to continue comparing places.

After our gelato eating and people watching break (Italia really has great style and has perfected the solid color outfit) we were off to find the spanish steps. Again, having no map, we took pictures on about three different stair cases before finding the real Spanish Steps where we found hundreds of people hanging out and admiring a beautiful sunset. Bellisimo!

After contemplating a second round of pizza and/or gelato we headed for the metro to go back to Spoleto. If we had a nickel for how many people we asked for directions today we could buy pizza and gelato for all of you. Who needs maps anyway?

Step aside Caesar, we can conquer Rome in just ONE day.

-J and C