Here is the grand finale of the Rome trip:
Our last night in Rome we ordered a pizza… the best part of the pizza in Rome is the cheese, so a got a four cheese pizza. This is how we discovered that most pizza in Rome does not actually have tomato sauce… so we ended up with some really awesome cheese bread.
Oliver has decided to become a photographer, and practices with the camera every chance he gets. Careful little guy, that beast weighs as much as you…
The last day we had a 1:00 flight, so we got up early (not hard with small children) and decided to walk to a different section of Rome that we hadn’t been to before, and see what we could find… Here is a view of the Arch of Constantine in the morning, with the Colosseum off to the right.
Elora and Dirty Teddy hanging out in the park…
Dirty Teddy climbing a tree, with some interesting ruins behind him. We have no idea what these are, we came across them and they are not listed in our guide book or any of our three maps.
Oliver was of course, a fan of the fountain.
This is the Theater of Marcellus, an open air theater from ancient Rome, finished in 12 BC. It was used as a fortress in the middle ages, and then in the1600s, a royal family built a residence on top of the ruins. Now it has apartments built onto the top of it.
This is the back of the Basilica di San Giovanni. It was right near our apartment, but we never walked this way until the last day when I realized that the man who owned the apartment we rented said we shouldn’t miss this one! So on our way to the train station, we took our suitcase and walked over to the Basilica.
Because we entered from the back, we had no idea it would be so large and spectacular inside. Here are a couple pics.
These large statues line the walls on both sides of a large hall inside the Basilica.
Unfortunately, we only had about ten minutes to tour the inside, as we needed to be heading to the train station to find the train that goes to the airport…
Here is the front of the Basilica, and Chris looking around for the Metro, which we couldn’t find… When we finally got to the train station, we had barely missed the train to the airport (ah! Stress!) but then we realized the train only took a half hour to get to the airport, so we arrived in plenty of time. Especially because security let us cut to the front of the line because we had the stroller. Another occasion that reminds me that I really don’t mind traveling with kids!
The adventure continued when we got to Vienna, and our bag was missing… the airline had lost our bag, which had all of our coats, hats, gloves, as well as cameras, cell phones, and Chris’ computer power adaptor in it… nice. Vienna was not as warm as Rome, so we got to travel the hour back home on trains and buses with no warm clothing, and lots of older women looking at us like we were bad parents for having our kids out with no coats!
Luckily by the time we arrived home, the airline had found our bag and brought it to us at our apartment. Thank goodness, because Elora had started to cry when we told her we couldn’t find the bag that had our souvenirs, some toys, and blankies in it…
