When in Rome, do as the Romans do.

Rome from the top of St. Peter's Basilica

Which means we walked everywhere!! Between climbing the steps to the top of St. Peter’s Basilica, touring the city, and (of course!) geocaching, we logged 13.5 miles on Denna’s pedometer today. That means we really earned our scoops of gelato, glasses of wine, and slices of cheese and salami J

Mailing postcards from
the top of Vatican City

Michaelanglo's Pieta

We began the day with a short bus ride to St. Peter’s, which was early enough that we had to stand in line for only 15 minutes - much less than the quarter mile line that was waiting to get in when we left. We ended up in the line to climb to the cupola at the top of the Basilica (which we didn’t know we could do!) and climbed the 551 steps to the top - and we‘re really glad we did. We also saw Michaelangelo’s Pieta, which is the best known statue in the Basilica, but only part of the large collection of altars and statues of popes and martyrs.

The Pantheon

From the Piazza we walked to Piazza Navona (where we found our first gelato of the day) and then to the Pantheon, built between AD 118 and 125. We left our group at that point, since it was our free day, and set out to see the sights on our own. After making our way to Trevi Fountain, into which we each threw our requisite coin so that we could return to Rome, we ran into a bit of a police action (we and about 400 of our new closest friends) and were all unceremoniously sent away from the fountain’s steps - ask us about it some time.



Oceanus and his Fontana de Trevi



The Spanish Steps and
a few of Rome's visitors

The last site on our have-to-do list was the Piazza di Spagna and Scalinata de Trinita dei Monti, know more informally as the Spanish Steps and piazza. We found a shady spot on the steps and proceeded to eat our lunch of bread and cheese. As we read about the steps, a popular meeting place for Rome’s visitors, we found that eating there was forbidden and people could be fined. We quickly shoved our food and wrappers into our bags and headed to the bottom, where we began our climb back up to see Rome from a new angle.





 The rest of our day was spent geocaching, where we discovered the birthplace of Enrico Fermi, the famous physicist, and the pre-war and war-time home of Benito Mussolini. Once we found our way back to the hotel, we spent our last evening in Rome resting up for our next adventure to Florence via Assisi. Arrivederci!

Kathy and Denna (and St. Peter's) at the Tiber River