Italy - Day 3 - Summary - Rome
Saturday, December 8th, 2007
|
Today was tough since I had stayed up until 3am the night before. I woke up at 7:30am and was supposed to meet with Westin to go and see the colosseum. While waiting on him to arrive, I met Ashley, a girl on holiday from Sydney, Australia. She was going to the colosseum as well. Ashley and I went ahead and Westin met up with us at paletine hill. Since it was lightly raining, there was almost no one there when we arrived.
We purchased a paletine hill and colosseum combination ticket for 11 euro. The paletine was nice, but it was very empty. I doubt I would go again. It is where the roman royalty lived, but now it was just like a quiet garden.
After we wandered around paletine for an hour or so, we decided it was time to head over to the Colosseum. By now the skies had cleared and there was some sun for us to enjoy. We waited in the group line to get by security and easily saved ourselves 15-20 minutes of waiting in line. And since we already had our ticket, we didn't have to wait in that line either.
The Colosseum - Inside
I would say I appreciated the view more this time than last time. It is still hard to imagine the place filled, but the partial reconstruction of the floor helps give at least a little feel for the way things might have been in the past.
From there we headed to the forum since the others had not been. We didn't stay long there and that was fine with me since I saw it the day before. I gave them the quick tour of the main sights there. Then we went and grabbed some lunch near the Vittoriano. I had some lasagna and it was pretty good, not as good as dad's though.
 From there we all split up and did our own things. I headed over to the Hard Rock to pick up a gift for a friend. It was easy to find and I guess it was the only time that I 'needed' the GPS. Then, on the way back, I was able to find an internet cafe where I could post some pictures and some blogs. I was there for 2 hours and that cost me 4 euro.
The sun set around 4:30pm as usual and shortly thereafter I left the hostel and headed over to the colosseum for some night pictures. I must have stayed there for at least an hour and a half getting shots from all different angles. They had a large christmas tree up in front. I think I got a few shots that are keepers. I would hope so because I took over a hundred shots while I was there. I'm so thankful that Andy gave me the gorilla-grip tripod as a gift for the trip. It has been more useful than I had imagined. A lot of the shots I'm posting could not have been done without it.
I ate some dinner while watching the vittoriano. It was a very good sandwich with mozzirella and mushrooms and marinara. After a relaxing time eating, I decided to head back to the hostel.
That night I tried to prepare more pictures before going to bed. I was asleep by 1. I also got to briefly meet my new roommates. There were 6 of them, 2 were Koreans who lived in Germany, the other 4 were Koreans who were studying abroad in Germany. They were all very nice and actually left the room when I came in so that I could sleep.
I packed everything in advance to prepare for a 9am train to Florence.
-END DAY 3-
Click here to see day 2
Click here to see day 4 |
| |
| |
digg this blog 
|
|
|
