Greetings from beautiful Rome! It's day two and what a full day we had! My feet are screaming at me, but I know they enjoyed this day as much as I did :) We started the day with breakfast at the hotel.....I wonder who I'm going to get to cook breakfast for me everyday when I get home?!!? Our first stop today was at the Colosseum. We took a tour that let us skip the ticket line (which was VERY long....at least an hour wait just to buy tickets) and we had a tour guide to tell us all about this ancient structure. Our tour guide today was Philomena. She was wonderful! Many great facts about this building as well as stories about Rome's history. Included with this tour was a tour of Palatine Hill which ended just above the Forum. Since we had some time, we wandered around the Colosseum on our own and then had lunch just outside sitting on a wall in the shade with the Colosseum as our view. There were two wedding parties there while we were, too! Can you imagine the real Colosseum as the backdrop for your wedding photos??? Wow!

Palatine Hill was where Romulus actually began building Rome in 758 BC. The name Palatine means palace and the emperor's palace was located here, although it's now in ruins. What does remain mostly intact is Mussolini's home, which is now a museum. We also saw the Forum from above.....how amazing! You can't even begin to imagine how large these ruins are until you're walking among them....which was next on the agenda. While we were on our walking tour today, we started a new "photo op". Because we learned about Maria Teresa, the ruler in Germany, we saw one of the pictures of her in her palace. In the picture, everyone, including Maria Teresa, was pointing at her as if to say "it's all about her". So we decided we needed to that for each of our group members. We've got three done (Paula's was at the Forum, Peter's was outside the Forum (where we weren't supposed to walk on the grass, but we did....oops!), and Bob's was outside the Pantheon. I'll post those later when I get them from Vicki. They're definitely a hoot!

Around the corner from the Forum, we stopped at the Piazza Venezia-Vittoriano which is where the eternal flame is and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier is located. There was an option to climb 242 steps to the top of the building, but I declined.....I'm saving my poor legs for the rest of the week. We discovered we walked almost 10 miles yesterday....it wouldn't surprise me to find out we walked almost the same today. This was the traumatic part of the day....our group got separated! Can you imagine? How in the world do you find someone in Rome without a cell phone?!?!?!? We finally found Peter and Patrick and recovered from our trauma to continue on to the Pantheon.

You would never know it to look at it from the outside, but the inside of the Pantheon is AMAZING! How in the world these people were able to build these buildings 2000 years ago without today's equipment is beyond me, but I'm very impressed. We were then in search of the best Geletaria in Rome (according to Rick Steve's anyway!) and we finally found it. This place was crazy busy (could have had something to do with the HOT weather.....it had to be at least 80+ degrees today with virtually no wind!). And we decided he was right....the gelato was delicious and definitely a welcome refreshment on a hot fall afternoon.

Our next destination was the Piazza Navona. This square is an artists dream. There are all levels of art work on display for sale as well as entertainers playing on different parts of the square. We were to tired to check it out, but apparently the evening entertainment is well worth a stop. Also located in the square is a chuch called St. Agnes in Agony (no idea how that name came about or whether it's accurate, but what an interesting name!) as well as two fountains--the Fontana del Moro and Neptune's Fountain. There are restaurants surrounding the square, so you can have dinner and entertainment all in one area.

Tonight we opted to try one of the trattorias and Vicki made a wonderful pick. We were able to sit outside and enjoy a wonderful meal with wine and beer (Italian beer is pretty good if I do say so myself!). After our leisurely dinner, we took a stroll along the river and took our train/bus ride home. It's been a long day, but very fun and educational as well, but now it's time to relax a bit and head off to bed. Tomorrow we are going to attend mass at St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City and then stay for a Papal visit! More fun and exciting things are in store in the afternoon so I'll get you all the details tomorrow! Arrivederci!!