Grr, 'Pa & Shell Come to Visit (Part 5)

At the fountain in front of St. Peters Basilica

So the last leg of the marathon Christensen trip was going to Rome. There is so much to see there. I think one of the coolest things for me was standing in parts of the former Roman Forum and being able to imagine what Rome might have looked like 2,000+ years ago. My "must-sees" for Rome are:

• the Colosseum - I would recommend doing the personal guided tour which also includes the forum.
• the Vatican, including St. Peters Basilica
• the Pantheon
• the Forum
• Trevi Fountain

For me, there were a couple of other "bonus sites" that I'm glad we took time to see. Those are the Moses by Michelangelo and The Ecstasy of St. Teresa. I loved seeing these two sites because they were less crowded than most major sites in Rome. Keith mentioned that if these sculptures were in almost any other city in the world they would be the crown jewel of that place, but a lot of amazing art gets lost in the clutter in Rome.

Michelle with the audio guide in the Vatican Museum. This room was crazy--wall to wall with all kinds of famous sculptures from antiquity. It was overload to say the least. If I were to do it again (without a 1-year-old) I would get the guided tour for the Vatican Museum too. 

After a short catnap by the Vatican wall, Ezra ran all around St. Peters. I think he must have walked/ran at least 20 "baby-miles" that day. 

 While we were inside St. Peters we saw people walking around in the top of the rotunda. We asked someone about it and they told us that for 5 Euros you can climb, not only to the top of the rotunda, inside, but also go to the top of St. Peters. We decided to do it and got the view pictured above. It's a hike--320 stairs just to the rotunda, and that many more stairs to the top--but it was totally worth it. 

View back towards St. Peters.