Day One in Rome

I arrived in Rome at 9:30 am on Wednesday morning. My sister and I were scheduled to arrive on the same airline within 5 minutes of each other. We met up in baggage claim. When we exited that area I was not prepared for all the men hawking taxi rides into the city. We managed to shrug them all off. We bought 72 hour Roma passes and headed for the Leonardo Express train into downtown Rome. The train takes exactly 32 minutes. It leaves on time and arrives on time. Once in Rome we found the Metro and used our Roma Pass to get to our stop. I had made a 3x5 card with directions from our stop to our hotel. (As my sister likes to remind me, I am my mother's daughter.) But the card felt useless in the unfamiliarity of Rome. We dragged our luggage down cobblestone streets, frustrated and exhausted. We finally found our hotel down a narrow alley. It was noon and we assumed we would have to check our luggage and come back later. But when the clerk at the desk told us that our room was ready he became my new best friend. We fell exhausted into bed. It felt so good to stretch out!

After a nap, we left the hotel with adventure on our minds. Which started with gelato and a stop at the Trevi fountain, which is literally around the corner from our hotel.

 

Then we started walking towards the Colosseum. First we ran into the Monumento a Vitoria Emanuele II -- a tribute to soldiers.

 

Then we took a wrong turn and ended up at the Campidoglio. I found the capitoline wolf statue of which I had seen photos. The statue shows the twins Romulus and Remus (from Roman mythology) being nursed by a she wolf. 

 

From Capitoline Hill we got a good view of the Roman Forum, which is a good thing because by the time we got there it was closed.

 

We finally made it to the Colosseum. There was no line and we breezed through security.

 

We started at the bottom and got a sense of the maze under the arena where the animals were kept and the gladiators prepared. I could almost hear the lions roar and smell the blood. Then we took the lift to the second floor and were amazed by the scope of the place.

 

Since the Roman Forum was closed by the time we got there we hopped on the Metro and headed for the Spagna stop to see the Spanish Steps. There were happy people everywhere. 

 

We decided not to climb them but to find food instead. We used the aid of Yelp. We had lasagna, fried squash blossom, grilled artichokes (not a fan of grilled artichokes) and pears in chocolate cake. Well-sated we headed back to our hotel. We have an early day tomorrow.