Roma - Day 3

We started out the day at the Spanish Steps.

Looking down the steps.

The street vendors were out in force. You could hardly move without being attacked by several. This guy was selling the flour filled balloons, Jesse was brave enough to try to work him down to 5 for 1 euro.

There was a gelato shop on every corner and all the displays are so tempting, this one had just been set up for the beginning of the day.

We stopped and ate lunch at one of the little restaurants on the road to the Pantheon. We couldn't get enough of the delicious Italian pizza.

Our true Italian pizza man.

This gelato shop was one of our favorites. They had a million choices, that's the hardest part about the gelato, trying to decide what flavor to try next.

In front of the Pantheon.

This is my favorite picture of the trip. Does life get better than this when you're 4? Doesn't she look like she is loving it! Check out the background. We were trying to capture how large the hole in the roof was, but you just can't tell in a picture. We have heard it's pretty amazing to be here when it rains, we were glad it wasn't raining that day, but I would love to see it when it does.
Logan was taken by most of these old buildings, he wanted to know all about them. He may be our history buff.



You could buy almost anything on the street.

We had read about how many fountains there are in Rome, most of them were pretty elaborate and interesting to look at. We loved the view behind this one.
We were quite the sight everywhere we went, people would turn and count us as we walked by. I told the kids this is what it would feel like to be famous, to have people staring at you everywhere you go. We were stopped many times and asked if they were all ours. "Mamma Mia" was the popular response when we said yes, they all belonged to us.

Masks are really popular here. Most of the stores had lots of different kinds, there were small painted ones to large elaborate ones to wear.

We had success in our shopping, we ended up with the Italia sweatshirts and jerseys for a bargain price.

It's hard to capture in a picture how neat these streets look, but I am attempting it anyway.

We ended our day at Trevi fountain and everyone threw some money over their shoulder to ensure their return to Rome.

Roma - Day 2

Today we had decided to head to the Vatican Museum, so we walked through Vatican city working our way toward the museum entrance. Because it was free today the line must have been about a mile and a half. We joined the line for a few minutes until we decided to change plans and try the National Museum of Rome instead. There were a lot of fascinating things to see here and a lot less people.

Some of our favorites were the Discus Thrower and the Mosaic pieces.

Spending too much time in any museum can make you tired, the kids found a great place to stop and rest and let us know it was time to go.

Our next stop was the Colosseum. Before we left each of the kids wrote a report on a main sight in Rome and this was Logan's. When we walked out of the subway station and there right in front of you, bigger than you can imagine, is the Colosseum, Logan was blown away. "Wow, it is ginormous". He was so excited to see it in real life after looking at many pictures and studying all about it.

It was amazing to see so much of an ancient structure still standing. We stood inside while Mark read us more information, it all made a lot of sense when you are looking at it. The boys were of course fascinated with gladiator stories, and all the animals that they brought into the stadium.

After the Colosseum, we walked through the Forum- there was plenty of room for the kids to work out a little energy, so we did just that.














There were many parts of broken buildings laying around, Sophie and I particularly liked this one. Many of the structures are in disrepair, but the history is amazing and you could just picture how it once was.

Dallas has been studying about Julius Ceasar at school, so he couldn't pass up the chance to pose like him, especially in a place where he may have actually been. The last we saw of Dallas he was saying to Logan,"Et tu, Brute?"