Roamin' Roma

We were hoping to get going early to beat the crowds, but we didn't actually leave the apartment until probably 8:30.  We made some scrambled eggs, yogurt, cereal and milk, plums and whatever else we could scrounge up. One hitch though -- it was raining.  Like actual proper rain.  We could use our umbrellas, we didn't pack them along for nothing!  Within 5 minutes Lily was regretting her decision to wear crocs, so I had to take her back to the apartment to change while the rest of the clan continued on to Piazza Navona.  When I met them there, though, I was met with the sight of Joey carrying an inverted umbrella!!! I guess $1.00 is a little too cheap to spend if you want quality. I wish we had a picture of him carrying it, but just close your eyes and imagine what you think it would look like, and then pretend I put it

[here]

Due to the rain, we had Piazza Navona to ourselves

Joey's umbrella after I bent it mostly back into shape. You can see one side was irreparable

From Piazza Navona it was only a short walk to get to the Pantheon.  I was surprised to find that the center oculus was never covered by glass, and the rainwater was still able to fall in and cover the center of the floor. Fortunately, the floor was constructed to be concave in the center and and convex around for proper drainage, another cool fact we learned.  It was the resting place of THE Raphael (I think Melissa has a crush) and the first two kings of Italy.  The dome was once the largest concrete dome in the world, and they needed to come up with ways to make it lighter, including the recessed square panels.  The walls are 19 feet thick. It is a tremendous example of early engineering. (Anyone from Fodors or Lonely Planet reading? Will travel and write for $$$) It's actually a Catholic church now. Mary apparently said a prayer for it to stop raining.  After our half hour visit we exited to find... the rain had stopped! Hallelujah.

Around the corner from the Pantheon was the Templo Adriano, which is pretty much an ancient wall of columns, and the newer building adjoining the columns just left them in place so people tourists could enjoy them.  Along the walk we ducked in to St. Ignatius of Loyola Church.  We didn't know anything about it, but churches are open to the public at all times and it looked cool. Like all other churches, the ceiling was painted beautifully, and there was even a wooden model of a mega-church some guy spent 20 years working on as a hobby.  After this we headed over to the Trevi Fountain.  It was cool but with the skies clearing every other person in town started pouring out of the woodwork and there was a mob waiting for us as we neared the tourist hotspot. We didn't stick around other than to snap some pics.  Rather than taking the shortcut, we went back to the main drag and approached the Spanish Steps from the west, where we could see them from afar opening before us like a flower (rather than seeing them from the side).

After climbing the steps and taking photos, everyone was starving. I mean, it was 11:30, and 3 hours is an eternity to wait and literal starvation was at hand.  Pietro had told us to try and find a restaurant in the Monti neighborhood, so we walked in that direction, turning when we wanted and basically going wherever our feet took us.  Around noon we found the restaurant he recommended, Tre Scalini, but it was more of a bistro and didn't open for another half hour, so we wandered some more and ended up eating at La Piadineria (piadas are sort of like a thick quesadilla/flat taco).  The girls were a little wishywashy about their choices, Katie ate pretty much all of Moms, and Joey hated it all.  He cried because he thought he wouldn't find anything he liked - so I took him out and got him a hot dog at a little Americanized deli around the corner.  We walked about 5 minutes from Monti over to the Colisseum, but the line was enormous and we were a little tired from walking, so we headed back to the apartment. Along the way we ducked into another cool-looking church called Santa Maria sopra Minerva, where St. Catherine of Sienna is interred (except her head we later learned, that's in Sienna).  Google it to see better pictures than ours!!!  We also passed countless ruins, fountains, and loads of other stuff that you wouldn't see everything if you had a lifetime in Rome.  We were back around 1 or 1:30 and worked on blogs and other stuff for a while.

Yea we're not waiting in that mob

Mob at Piazza Navonna that we avoided this morning

All of a sudden it was like 6pm. Where did the time go? Pietro recommended the pizza place around the corner, so Melissa, Katie and I walked down to order some.  We thought we would wander around the area for a little while waiting for the food to be ready, but he said it'd only take 5 minutes, so we chatted with him and brought the pizza back upstairs.  The three of us had a piece apiece (like that alliteration?) and headed back out again.  We just wanted to "get lost" and discover the true Rome.  We explored for a while and ended up stopping at the gelato place our host recommended, which turned out to be quite good if I say so myself.  They use fresh ingredients, so my mint tasted like mint leaves and not like peppermint extract... We were enjoying our gelato in the street when suddenly some sort of procession came around the corner, singing and carrying some sort of silver-gilt Virgin Mary icon, not sure which one. Here's the video.  And the next street we walked down I found a 5 Euro bill on the ground.  Maybe we should go to church every day!
We walked over to St. Peter's Basilica on the other side of the river, to check out where to go in the morning, but didn't go any further since we had been gone for a while.  20 minutes later (after buying a Rome/Vatican guide book) we got back to the apartment, all kids alive and not too much of a mess.  We put them to bed, did laundry in the bathtub, and went through the guidebook to prepare for tomorrow's adventure.  It was a late night but I hope our preparation pays off!