June 29th

We had enough with the tent, so this morning we changed to a bungalow. It was just like the one we stayed in at Camping Jolly in Venice (minus the fridge). We cranked the AC and took nice showers and I was certainly happier. We got a late start because we had to wait until 12 to switch rooms, but then we headed into town and went first to the Trevi Fountain. It was packed with people, but still nice. It's a really beautiful fountain and we relaxed there for a little bit. Next we trekked over to the Pantheon, but today was some sort of religious holiday and since the Pantheon is now a church, it was closed. We decided to do some shopping on the way to Piazza Navona and found the neatest little shop called Bortolucci's. They make amazingly cute things and I wanted a lot of stuff in there, but we didn't buy anything. We got to Piazza Navona and there are three fountains there, two smaller and one larger one in the middle. They were all pretty neat - of course the middle one was the best! From the Piazza, we walked to Campo di Fiori which is a big market, but because of the holiday, the place was deserted.

We started wandering after this, grabbed some gelato, and then ran across some ruins that were just in the middle of a piazza. They were really cool so we spent some time looking around them, and as we were circling them, we saw a sign that said there was a free tour in half an hour of the ruins. So of course we decided to hang out and do this tour. The tour was given by a volunteer on behalf of the cat shelter they have at the ruins. The people of Rome have a history of dumping disabled, old, injured and unwanted cats at the ruins. The shelter was started by an American woman and they have all the cats fixed, properly vaccinated, and they provide care for the old and disabled cats. They do adoptions and even do adoptions long distance (sponsoring). It's a great place because there are about 180 cats total and about 100 in the ruins which makes looking at the ruins very interesting! The tour was facinating. It was given by a lady who had lived in Rome off and on for long periods of time and knew a LOT of history. The ruins were fairly self explanatory, but she explained why they were there and some of the general history of Rome. The ruins contained three visible and one not visible (under a road) ruins of temples. There were four temples right next to each other because each was dedicated to a different goddess. The guide said Julius Cesar was not actually killed at the forum, but contrary to popular belief, was killed at these ruins at a place covered by pavement and sidewalk. The senate could hold meetings anywhere as long as there was a religious place on site, and (I forget his name) some important dude built a place for the senate to meet on his land as well as these four temples so he could have the honor of the senate meeting there. The senate did meet there and it was that day that Cesar was killed, so obviously he was killed there. If it's accurate and true, it's pretty awesome because it's completely hidden and no one knows about it :) At that time, Rome was still a Republic and the senate was losing power and rumors of Cesar becoming king were making other senate members nervous that they'd lose their career opportunities to such a young politician. Cesar never said no to possible kingship, and so the senate members decided he needed to be killed. The guide also told us about how Rome went from about a million people to only 30,000 and was saved from everyone deserting it by a local bishop who used the "Peter, you are the rock upon which I'll build my church" and the claim that Rome had St. Peter's tomb to keep people from leaving Rome. This bishop eventually became the technically "first" pope, but they also made one across the river (Vatican City) and he became the official first pope and the other guy became the Anti-Pope.

Next we walked to Fori Imperiali and saw a small exhibit there which wasn't too exciting before heading up to a park near Domus Aurea. The park holds the last remains of Nero's Golden House which was unbelievably huge! It's the house that stretched around the square where the Colosseum is (that was a lake when the house was there). There were also ruins of the public baths which was pretty massive as well. Back at the bungalow, around midnight (check-in closed at 11 so we're not sure why this happened) we got a random knock on the door from some lady. They had 3 adults and a kid and the reception made them rent our third bed, so she took the sheets from it back to their other bungalow. In the morning, we were rudely awakened by the cleaning staff who, looking for the sheets the people took out, yelled at me in Italian and then took my pillow (I was awake and propped up on it typing on the computer) and when they realized I didn't have that extra bed's pillow, finally listened to me trying to explain that the lady took the sheets. Those cleaning ladies left and later another lady came and was basically seeing if we were checking out and we had another really broken signs and pointing type of conversation. Before we left for Rome that morning, we informed the front desk and the cleaning lady manager (the second one who came in) was standing there having some sort of problem and talking to the reception. We explained and they translated to her - she was asking about the problem with that extra bed. So we got that all straightened out but man it was crazy!

June 30th

After the bed incident, we headed into Rome and got off the metro at the People's Plaza which was pretty cool. The obelisk in the middle was brought back from Egypt by Augustus after a war victory. We headed up a hill to a cool building behind a large statue and ended up finding Villa Borghese which is a big park area. It was beautiful there and we spent a few hours walking around it. I somehow ended up rubbing a blister on my heel (weird because I wear the same shoes everyday and haven't gotten one there yet). We found this AWESOME clock that reminded us of something straight out of Peter Pan and we decided we'll have one in our backyard in the future :) Also in the park, we found a big thing set up for the World Cup with soccer fields and a big stage with a huge screen for watching games. We left the park and went to the Spanish steps and found a pharmacy so I could get band-aids. Then we went in search of the cool toy shop we found the other day because I decided I needed to buy things. We retraced our previous day's steps, but ended up at the Pantheon before we found the shop again. The Pantheon was open this time and we went in. The concrete dome was poured as one solid piece and we overheard a tour guide saying that up at the top (around a large circular opening) it's about 4 feet thick and 15 feet thick at the base. The Pantheon is now a church and because the roof has a huge opening, there are 22 holes in the floor to drain the rain water. The toy store was just around the corner from the Pantheon and I got my shopping in :) We walked through the Campo dei Fiori, but it was too late in the day and everything was already gone. We headed back to the campground for a 10 euro all you can eat + your first drink buffet and stuffed our faces.

July 1st

This morning we got a purposely late start because we wanted to see Rome at night and not be out for too long of a day, so we did our laundry again before we had to move hostels. While waiting for the laundry, we booked our flight home (July 23rd if anyone is interested) and booked a hostel to stay in for our Pompeii and Naples journey. We had originally decided to camp near the excavation sites, but it was a lot more expensive than a really cool hostel we found, so we decided to stay in Fabric hostel in Portici (just south of Naples). Once we headed into Rome, we visited Castel San Angelo which was pretty awesome. The castle is circular and used to have big trees planted on part of the middle level roof. It is also Hadrian's mausoleum. The castle is connected to the Vatican by a long wall that you can walk inside of and on top of, but of course it was closed to the public. We had a big dinner at an Irish Pub we'd seen an ad for the first day we were in Rome called Scholar's Lounge. I had a salmon salad and Ryan had beef stew and everything was delicious! It was a good break from pizza and pasta. We wanted to take a lot of pictures of Rome at night, so we waited around the Colosseum until dusk and then started our photojourney to all the sights. We visited the Colosseum, Capitol Building, Navona and orchestra, Trevi Fountain, Spanish steps and the People's Plaza before catching the metro back to the campground. We got off the metro and were a whole hour early to the bus stop before the buses stopped running, but some people had been waiting there for over an hour for the bus! We were scared it was not coming, so we started walking back to the campground (35 min walk) and were only a few hundred feet from the bus stop at the campground when the bus whizzed by us and dropped the people who had been waiting off. We ended up beating them to the campground anyway because they walked slow! It was a pretty great adventure :)