Bonjourno!--Day 1

8 May 2010
Rome, Italy
Piazza Navona, Pantheon, & Trevi Fountain

We arrived in Italy around 9:30am. We waited for a long time at the baggage claim. Then we got on the train to Termini Station. From Termini Station, we walked forever to the metro station. A word to the wise, get an airport shuttle that will take you to your hotel. It's not worth walking through the metro station. Good grief! It's the worst metro ever...I'm surprised that anyone at all even uses it. Anyhow, we finally made it onto the metro and out at the Ottaviano stop. Then we walked forever to get to our hotel. This was honestly around 11:45 or 12:00 by this time.

We left our things and headed down the street to get some lunch. We ate at a little Italian place close to our hotel.

We started off with fried stuffed olives. They were interesting and pretty good. I think they might have been stuffed with sausage actually.




Then Josh and I each got some pasta.





When we got back to the hotel, it took a bit before our room was ready. Once it was, we crashed for a few hours. Then we got up and headed out to see a little bit of Rome for the evening.

We walked from our hotel and wound up in the Piazza Navona. The main fountain in the middle symbolizes the four greatest rivers in the world. We stepped inside the church there as well, where there was a choir singing. There are also two other fountains--one of the Moors, and one of Neptune.




From here, we took a side exit and came across the best gelateria ever. They had blackberry gelato! Everything since hasn't seemed worth buying... If you go to Italy, find some blackberry gelato and get lemon with it. It's AMAZING. Lemon gelato is so good with everything, actually. It's not too lemony, just right. We're going to try to find this place again, and I'm going to get the biggest serving I can...hopefully tomorrow =)


We then made it to the Pantheon. The Pantheon is sadly undergoing some touch up work in front, so I tried to crop that part out, but not very successfully.





We walked around for awhile longer, passing by Largo Argentina.









We also stopped by Vittorio Emmanuelle monument which was built in honor of the first king of Rome. It also holds the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.






We got dinner at a little side cafe that sold pizza. We walked through the Trevi Fountain area as well.





Then we took the scenic route home for the evening, going by the Castel San Angelo and a few of the pretty bridges that put us back on the side of the Tiber River where our hotel is located.





We also had a nice view of St. Peter's Basilica from the bridge we took back to the hotel.