Rome

Rome was busy.

There are so many tourists walking around in that city. I'm glad that our group planned museum visits in the morning than in the afternoon because that's when it got annoying with tourists standing around aimlessly or walking extremely slow.

But other than that, I enjoyed Rome. It's a nice place, but I just think I'd go back because of all the tourists in the area.

We stayed at Torre Rossa Park Hotel. It was more of a business hotel but it was a nice upgrade from the hotel in Vico. This hotel didn't have the weird sofa bunk beds. I got to sleep in a regular twin size bed. Thank you Torre!

Before we arrived at the hotel, we stopped by the Royal Palace and gardens where we got to walk around and needed to get lunch. Lea said that the gardens were modeled after the ones in Versailles and she said that they were better than Versailles. Well, I'd have to agree. These gardens had several water fountains/falls and at the very end of the line of waterfalls was a huge waterfall. It was beautiful and so worth the walk in the sun and heat.

So we got to the hotel and had dinner there. It was nice. We had delicious pasta and then served meat with vegetables.

The following day we took buses over to the inner city part of Rome and went to Sant' Agostina and San Luigi dei Francesci to see paintings by Caravaggio. They were great. I think Sant' Agostina was the church that I was extremely blown away by. There were carved reliefs everywhere and it was just so beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. After seeing those we got to see the Pantheon. Um, absolutely amazing. I wish I had pictures. It was beautiful and amazing to finally see in person. Unfortunately there was scaffolding covering up part of the building but it was still amazing to see. Afterwards, Lily, Angie, and I went to grab lunch. We ate at a restaurant where we ordered pizza. Delicious. Pizza in Italy is amazing. Everything about it is great. They know how to make pizza right.

After lunch, Angie and I went to meet up with our bookmaking and graphic design classes to visit a book museum. We were told to meet at the steps of a museum at 1:45. Angie and I were about 10 minutes late and by the time we got there, we couldn't find anyone. So, we went into the museum bought tickets and walked around in search of our group. We went up and down the floors, but we couldn't find them. So what else is there to do other than to panic. Well not really. But it crossed our minds that maybe we were in the wrong museum. I tried so hard to push that thought out of my mind because our tickets were 10 Euro each and I was not about to waste my money and just leave the museum. Fortunately we found some other people in our group coming up the stairs. I ran out and told them that we were late too and that we couldn't find the group and had already bought the tickets and everything. And their reply made my feel dumb. We were just meeting at the steps at 2:15 (not 1:45) and then walking together as a group to another location. hah! That was hilarious. I don't regret buying that ticket though. We went through the museum one more time and looked at a photo exhibit which we had to pretty much run through to join up with the group at 2:15.

The book museum was pretty small. It was about papermaking, bookbinding, and ways that books deteriorate: natural disasters, war, mold, insects, etc. It was pretty interesting.

The rest of the day was somewhat uneventful. We went to the local art store where I bought a sketch book and another Micron pen and then headed back to the hotel.

That night we went to bars in Rome. It was nice. I ended just being at one bar and then heading back only because we were traveling in a large group, half of them had more than enough to drink, and then half the time we were walking around trying to find bar number 2 and I was getting pretty annoyed and some others were as well. So the 5 or 6 of us just walked back together to catch the bus before the night buses started to run. But Rome at night is pretty. I just wish I had had more time to enjoy it.