Italy Vacation, Part 3 - Rome

5/11/15

We met our Abercrombie and Kent tour guide bright and early Monday morning to start our official tour.  If you ever have a chance to go on an A&K private tour, do so.  Absolutely worth it.  We began by heading to the Coliseum, where we got our first taste of gypsies and refugees aggressively attempting to sell selfie sticks.  Apparently business was good, because it seemed like everyone we saw had one.  While here, we also checked out the Arch of Constantine and the Roman Forum.  Picture time.

To your left is the Arch of Constantine and to your right is some ruin no one
has ever heard of.

Inside the Coliseum.

Another picture with that ruin no one has ever heard of.  Just kidding.
It's the Coliseum from the outside.

While checking out the Coliseum, we were bombarded with interesting facts by our guide. Did you know that they used to host mock naval battles inside?  Pretty rad.  I'm just saying we now have a fallback option for when War Memorial eventually loses its yearly Razorback game.  Pretty sure that could hit Pacquiao/Mayweather PPV numbers. Next, we walked about ten feet to our next world famous ruin, the Roman Forums.

The people who built this are dead.

Cool view from the top of the hill.  

After a quick lunch at the Campo de Fiori, we were our way to JesusLand to tour the Vatican and St. Peter's Basilica.  Due to the presence of our A&K guide, we were able to skip a massive line and jump straight into the Vatican to encounter...

...Another massive line of people being herding through the corridors on the way to the Sistine Chapel, where there was...

This picture is technically illegal.

...A massive pile of people staring at the ceiling while an exasperated guard continually yelled at people to stop taking pictures since some Japanese company bought the rights to all pictures in the Sistine Chapel because the Catholic church is apparently too poor to renovate it themselves.  We quickly escaped the Chapel and made our way to a much less crowded St. Peter's Basilica.

Finally away from the crowds.

BEHOLD THE HOLY PINE CONE OF CHRIST!

St. Peter's Basilica was a pleasant surprise compared to the Sistine Chapel.  St. Peter's is the largest Catholic church in the world and they actually have markers on the ground detailing how large competing churches are.  We didn't take many pictures inside for some reason.  I blame father.

Inside St. Peter's.

After leaving the Basilica, we piddled around for a bit outside.  We got to see the Swiss Guard with their halberds. Pretty ineffective weapon.  I would recommend machine guns.

Do these pants make me look fat?

Afterwards, we returned to the hotel and prettied up before heading to dinner.  Dinner was good.  I think.  I can't really recall since it was so completely overshadowed by our dinner the previous night at La Terrazzo dell'Eden.  After dinner, Allison and I wandered up Via Veneto and found a place called Harry's Bar, which is apparently famous.  Not sure why, because it was dogshit and expensive.  We did meet some people there that worked for Discovery, but we left them alone after we figured out that they had nothing to do with Shark Week.

Outside Harry's Bar with Villa Borghese in the background.