Weekend in Rome

This past weekend two of my closest friends arrived in Europe from NYC, and will be spending nearly three weeks travelling around.  They began their trip in Rome, so I flew down from Geneva to meet them for the weekend.  They're running around northern Italy at the moment, making their way slowly to Venice on Friday and Saturday and then taking the night train arriving in Vienna Sunday morning where I will be to meet them and hang out with them there until they leave on Thursday.  

Piazza Navona where our cute little B&B was located

Our front door, amazing location and we felt like we just got to blend in with the locals a little bit.

First things first, get some proper coffee in us.  They'd just flown all night and I had gotten up before 4am to catch my flight (yes it's only an hour flight for me...but I wanted to be sure I had a flight that arrived in Rome as close to theirs as possible)

The weather was sunny and hot all weekend, but as long as we found shade where possible and kept drinking lots of water we were just fine.

We had no exact plans for Friday, so we sort of just decided to wander a bit in the general direction of the ruins and the Colosseum 

Piazza Venezia

And then sort of all of the sudden there are just these amazing ruins all over the place...part of the Forum of Caesar 

It's almost surreal to just see the Colosseum at the end of the street

 

We knew there was a strong possibility that we wouldn't be able to go inside, not having pre-booked a tour, and not really wanting to spend several hours waiting in line, but we figured it was worth checking out anyway.  Somehow we totally lucked out and walked right in, straight up to the ticket counter, got our audio guides and off we went.

The three of us tourists

The inside of the Colosseum is amazing

After that we walked back through more of the ruins of the Forum and back towards the center of town

The Pantheon

Friday was also Adrienne's birthday, so we wanted to leave plenty of time for a great dinner.  Some friends were in Rome a couple months ago and had recommended a restaurant to us, and they for sure did not let us down.  The food was delicious, and the staff was helpful and very entertaining...I'm still not sure what exactly we ordered and what ended up just sort of showing up for us to try.

Saturday we did have a tour booked of the Vatican for the afternoon, so we wandered a bit in the morning (and to get more delicious coffee) and then walked across the river and to Vatican City

The tour took us quickly through a few points of the Vatican Museum, including down to see the collection of cars and carriages...we've come a long way from this ornate carriage...

oh the Popemobile  

We also went through all sorts of galleries of statues and busts

Through the hall of maps

Many ornate rooms and courtyards before you get to the Sistine Chapel, which they strongly enforce no photographs...which I definitely respect, but it is a bit overwhelming at the time to take it all in, especially being super hot and crowded, but I suppose that just means I'll have to go back

The afternoon sun streaming into St. Peter's

The square

After the Vatican we headed to Trastevere for dinner and then walked along the Tiber to see all the bars and stands and things they have set up down there.

The Pantheon at night

The Trevi Fountain, again, we'd been in the daytime, but definitely beautiful at night

And the Spanish Steps...by this point we were rather exhausted but we did take time to sit and look around a bit

Sunday morning I got up pretty early to head to the train station and come back to Geneva.  One benefit to getting up that early is apparently being out and about earlier than everyone else.  A deserted Piazza is pretty cool. 

I had booked a train that meant I should have just had to switch trains once in Milan, but as soon as I got on the second train from Milan to Geneva they informed us that due to issues with the tracks in Switzerland, this train is only going as far as the Italian border, and we'd all have to get off in Domodossola and take buses to another train.  After about a 20 minute bus ride they dropped us off at the bottom of this hill and said that the train station is up that way...so we all set to trekking up the road to the train.  There were train workers at the top handing out bottles of water, and we all loaded on the little regional train that was waiting there for us.   

The train ride all through there is breathtakingly beautiful, plenty of Alps and vineyards to look at all afternoon.

I'm back in Geneva this week interning and all that good stuff, and then I fly to Vienna Friday night once I get off work and prep for Kiersten and Adrienne's arrival on Sunday!  I'm quite excited to be back home for a few days and get my Vienna fix in.