More Rain in Rome

Because we didn’t have enough rain in Venice, it rained quite a bit on our way to Rome, and then even more on our first day in the city. We parked our car at the metro station, and took the subway to get downtown. Our umbrellas from Venice were pretty bad, getting blown inside out by the wind every time we experienced a mild gust. Nonetheless, we still went out around the city. 

Our first stop was the famous Trevi Fountain, which was crowded, despite the rain. We both tossed coins in, then soon noticed a guy with a magnet on a stick, nabbing the bigger coins before running off. We also went to the Vittoriano Monument, which had some interesting things about Italy during the war. We had enough of rainy Rome for one day, so we headed back to the hotel.

Our second day in Rome was much better than the first. We started out by heading to Vatican City, because it was Sunday and we wanted to see the pope. We were quite surprised at how many people were heading over there from the subway, and then even more shocked at how crowded the city was! 

Nonetheless, we still got a pretty good view of the pope, even though he was quite high up. It was a pretty cool experience, even if we weren’t able to understand him. We later found out that there were around 150,000-200,000 people in Vatican City for a rally showing support for the pope during everything that’s going on with the Church right now.

After Vatican City, we headed to the Colosseum, which was my favourite part of Rome. The line looked really long to get in and so many tour guides were trying to tempt people to pay extra to skip the line, but it really only took about 20 minutes so it wasn't bad at all. It’s amazing how a building so old with so much history is still standing, right in the middle of a developed city. The weather was beautiful for looking at it too, warm and sunny!

After the Colosseum we went to Palatino/the Roman Forum, which are the ancient ruins right next to the Colosseum. These were also really awesome to look at, and we got some amazing pictures.

Our third and final day in Rome started out warm and sunny, but it was rainy as soon as we got off the metro. We ended up at the Trevi Fountain again, for a brief moment on our way to the Pantheon. We actually went to the Pantheon the first day as well, but the interior was closed off. This time we were able to go inside. Unfortunately it was undergoing construction before the tourist season, so the picture of the exterior isn’t very visually pleasing.

Afterward, I grabbed a “Granita” from a nearby café, which is coffee-flavoured ice. Kind of like an Iced Cappucino from Tim Horton’s, but so much better! We then had lunch at McDonald’s – the first McDonald’s in Italy, in fact, built in 1986, and headed over to a park north of the city, which apparently has really nice gardens. We only walked around for a bit and didn’t get a chance to see the gardens before the rain picked up again. It was alright though, since we did pretty much everything we wanted to in Rome.