Rome, Italy – 06/14 – 06/16

(TJ) We took a train from Madrid to Barcelona to get on a 19 hr ferry that takes us to a city just outside of Rome. Since we are traveling on the cheap we booked ourselves in steerage class for the journey. That would have been fine, had it not been for the about 60 Spanish teenagers who also booked themselves in steerage class. Lets just say that we did not get a lot of sleep with all of the talking and slamming of doors, good times. At least the seats reclined back enough so that your neck would not fall to one side or the other. I’ll let Michelle fill you in on the sightseeing that we did in Rome since it was her first time there.

(Michelle) We stayed at a campground about 30 minutes from downtown Rome, where we were able to rent a two person already standing tent for 20 Euro. The hostels in Rome were very expensive, so this was definitely a deal, even if it was a little frustrating to figure out the bus there and back. The campground was very big, with a ton of people and their own bar, restaurant and grocery, so at least it didn’t totally feel out there.

Vatican City – cool statues, awesome map room, and beautiful frescoes on the room walls, but the “art collection” at the end of the tour was kind of bizarre. Sistine chapel is too crowded and the screaming guards (no pictures, NO PICTURES, HEY NO PICTURES) are really annoying, but it was at the top of the things I’ve always wanted to see and it is beautiful. We happened to be touring St. Peter’s Basilica when mass started, so we attended mass. We are little behind on confession, so we were hoping that lightning wouldn’t strike when we took communion.

We walked through other various ruins, fountains and plazas, bought pizza by the kg (great concept) and played with stray cats at a cat sanctuary.

In order to make it to Oslo by the weekend, we had to skip the rest of Italy. This was a difficult decision, since Florence is home to great works of are such as “Venus of Urbino” by Titian, but we figured - hey, we can always come back to Italy someday.