Jason Austin's Blog Life and times of a PHP Developer in Raleigh, NC

Mediterranean Trail 2010: Rome

I wrote at the beginning of the year that one of my goals was to travel more.  A few months ago, Erin and I started working on that goal by finally planning a long overdue vacation.  Our plan was to go to Italy and Greece for 10 days with a previously unknown-to-us tour company called Contiki.  Contiki caters to 18-35 year olds and goes all over Europe, Australia, Asia and the US.  We went with Contiki because we wanted to see all this amazing stuff, and have a good time while doing it with people our age.  We wanted to let go, live large, and see Europe, and I’m here to tell you that we did all of that and more!  This is our story of the Mediterranean Trail Contiki, June 2010, in all it’s glory.

Days 1 & 2:  Viva Italia!  Rome

We arrived at our hotel in Rome around 5pm local time after a fairly long flight.  We were pretty much exhausted, but there was not a second to rest.  Our tour group was meeting at 5:30pm to go to dinner, so we quickly checked in, met our tour guide Amedeo (who was awesome...more on that later) and joined everyone in the lobby.

Dinner that night was pure Italy.  We had wine, pizza, bruschetta, gelato.  A very nice man serenaded us during diner, and we got to know some of our fellow Contiki-ers.  At one point during dinner, I leaned over to Erin and whispered...”can you believe we’re in Italy?”

After dinner, Amedeo led us on a walking tour of Rome.  Amedeo is a native Roman and he is rightfully VERY proud of that fact.  He knew everywhere, everyone, everything about Rome.  We started in Piazza Novona, seeing the 3 fountains at dusk.  We went on to check out the Trevi Fountain, the Pantheon, and the Spanish Steps.  It was very rushed, but we got to see a taste of Rome that night.  We made it back to our hotel and crashed...the following day was going to be a big day.

Day 2 in Rome started with a bus ride through the city taking us to the Forum and the Coliseum.  The Forum ruins were amazing.  I love all kinds of history like this, so I was in heaven.  We walked down the streets that Julius Caesar walked.  We stood in the shadows of 2000 year old columns.  The detail and longevity of the structures were amazing.

From the Forum, we walked down a long cobblestone path.  Just over the trees, we saw the Coliseum.  I was speechless.  No words can describe the feeling you get when you see this place for the first time.  It was huge!  We took LOTS of pictures, then went inside for a self-guided tour.  Everything was so awesome.  It was my favorite part of the trip.

After the Coliseum, we had a quick pizza lunch and then proceeded to Vatican City.  We got to go through all the Vatican museums.  The map room, the library, the sculptures.  Everywhere you looked, something was painted or sculpted.  Amedeo mentioned several times that Vatican City is the smallest and richest nation in the world, and you could really tell.  Everything was in top shape.  We then got to go into the Sistine Chapel.   The mastery of Michelangelo was on full display on the ceiling.  It was absolutely beautiful...not bad for a guy who said he wasn’t a painter.  We then got some not-so-great news that we wouldn’t be able to go into St. Peter’s Basilica because the priests were practicing for some event.  That kinda sucked, but we did go by the square and take some pictures.

After we left Vatican City, the “organized activities” for the tour were done for the day and it was still early.  Erin and I decided that, instead of taking the metro back to our hotel and sleeping until dinner, that we would go back down to the city center and see some of the sights.  We walked from Vatican City down to the Pantheon first.  This was one of the places that I REALLY wanted to see, so we went in and took some pictures.  It was very cool.  We then checked out the Trevi fountain and made a wish or two.

We also hit up Piazza Novona again where there were lots of artists out painting.  We checked out some art, then met a very nice artist who was painting in the square.  We talked to him a little bit then ended up buying a painting of the square.  We were getting kinda hungry, so we decided that we really needed a pre-game gelato fix at a place close to the Pantheon.

After gelato, we hiked back to our hotel room and chilled until about 7:30.  Dinner was on our own that night, so we set out to find something to eat.  There are restaurants everywhere, so we knew we wouldn’t have trouble finding anything.  We walked about 5 or 6 blocks from the hotel and came across a tiny little restaurant called “Le 2 Colonne”.  We decided to take a chance...and we were so glad we did.  The food was amazing.  I had a hand-made cheese tortellini in cream sauce with proscuitto.  Erin had an eggplant pasta in red sauce.  We shared a salad as well.  For desert, we had some homemade tiramisu that was out of this world, and I don’t really like tiramisu.  It was the best meal we had over the whole trip.

After dinner, we decided we wanted to walk some of our dinner off, so we decided to go back and have desert #2 from the same gelato place we ate at before dinner.  We made our way back there and ate our gelato on the steps of the Pantheon.  Very cool.  We walked around a good bit more...back to Piazza Novona, the Trevi Fountain and the Spanish Steps.  It was getting late so we decided to take the metro back to our hotel.  Only problem was, it was about 12:30am and the metro was closed.  Oh yeah, and we were about 3 or 4 miles from our hotel.  We ended up getting back to the hotel around 1:30am, but it was really cool to see Rome at that time of night.  The whole city is full of life and really was one of the coolest places I have ever been.  We only got a taste of Rome, but it was enough to make us want to come back!

Stay tuned for more...if you are even still reading all this