Today was an interesting day, due to it being the first Sunday of the month, all the museums in Rome had free entrance! One member of our party, PC, wasn't feeling so well, so we went to a local cafe to kill some time while she recovered from whatever she had. Afterwards, we traveled down to a museum that was down the road from where we were staying, thankfully, we didn't have to wait in line too long outside because it had started to rain. Honestly, I'm not even sure what the name of the museum was... and there wasn't any famous pieces in it either.
This guys was called the boxer and it was weird because he was hallow and had no eyes.
Our large stop of the day was to the Altar of the Fatherland, the large white building we had glimpsed a few times, but not really got a good look at.
This lovely monument became slightly less impressive when we found out it was built in 1925 for the first king over united Italy. I believe his name was Victor Emmanuel...I'm still not exactly sure why such a huge building was needed to commemorate him. At the top of the first set of stairs was the tomb of The Unknown Soldier and the Eternal Flame. We wanted to go to the top, but you had to pay to get into the elevator that takes you to the top, so we skipped out. But on the backside of the Altar was a lovely looking Cathedral that we walked into to get out of the rain.
Afterwards, I wanted to find the Bocca della Verità or the Mouth of Truth.
In case you don't know what this lovely thing is or the legend behind it, let me give you a brief summary on it! Carved from marble, it was thought to be part of a fountain and portrayed a Pagan God. But, beginning in the middle ages, it was thought to be a lie detector. The myth behind it was if you told a lie while your hand was in the mouth, it would be bitten off. Unfortunately, when we arrived, there was a line that was at least an hour long, so we didn't wait in line to test our luck and headed to St. Peter's Square to get some pictures and see if we could spot the Pope!
Chairs and some lighting equipment was still set up from this mornings mass and there was a very long line to get into the Basilica. We didn't wait to get in, instead it was time to get some dinner! We went to dinner at this awesome place called Papi Papi (which I highly recommend if you ever go to Rome) I wasn't very hungry because I had had the largest gelato from earlier, so my dinner consisted of 2 croquettes (I think they were potato flavor) and a deep fried artichoke (OH MY GOSH!!!! it was sooooo good. it almost tasted like Kale chips, but soooo much better). One cool thing that happened during dinner was that the subject of religion was brought up and I was able share my testimony about the temple and forever families, along with the church beliefs on the subjects. Afterwards we walked home and enjoyed the nightlife of Rome.
Monday (April 5th)
It was a somewhat early morning today because we had our reservations to go to the Roman forum and the Colosseum! We left the hostel at about 9:00 and arrived at the forum at 9:30 to get our tickets, unfortunately our reservations for the Colosseum weren't until 1:30, so we had quite a bit of time to kill until then. Thankfully, there was a lot of stuff to look at while we waited.
Yes, I know I'm a huge fan of selfies and I don't know why. But I must say, I do a pretty good job even without the selfie stick! I must apologize, because honestly, I have no idea what any of these relics are, and no, it's not just because it's taken so long to write this, but because there were sooooo many different signs and things to see in the forum, that it eventually became one large blur.
We then left the forums and searched desperately for a place to eat! Surprisingly, there aren't that many places to eat around the Colosseum, but we finally found this cheap looking fast food place where the guy at the counter didn't understand or speak English. It was a bit hard to get our meaning across, but we finally got unimpressive food and headed back to the Colosseum to brave the crowds at trying to get in and see the awesome building.
I was very very unimpressed with the way the lines we handled to get into the Colosseum. The people who still needed to purchase tickets were in a large queue that wound around the building, on the other hand, the people who already had reservations were mobbing into a gate to get past security. I'm serious, there was no line, just a large swarm of people trying to make it past the gate, I don't think I've ever been pushed or shoved quite so much as that time. After 15 minutes of this we finally made it into the outer wall of the Colosseum, but we weren't in yet, we still had to go through the ticket gate which would let us in at our certain time frame. RT and I got quite lucky because we got through the gate at 1:12. However, the rest of the group tried to go through a different gate and the lady wouldn't let them through. I think due to safety reasons, they only let a certain number of people in the Colosseum at a time. Well, we weren't having any of that, so the other girls just moved to a different gate and got right in!
The first thing I realized was that Lizzie McGuire did not have her concert in the Colosseum, firstly because it doesn't hold that many people and secondly because there is no way they'd allow a concert in a 2000 year old historical monument.
No, but seriously, I really enjoyed the Colosseum although there were a lot of people and it was quite large around with three stories.
We spent about an hour in the Colosseum walking around and enjoying the view. While there weren't very many signs explaining the history, I did find out that it was never supposed to be lopsided! There was an earthquake within the past 2000 years that lead to half of the building collapsing! And that if there was ever another earthquake in Rome that there was over a 50% chance of the other side of the walls falling as well. Crazy! Hopefully there aren't any earthquakes scheduled in Rome for a long time coming!
After we were finished walking in the Colosseum we headed to our gelato store of the day! And I must say that it was probably the best gelato I had had in Italy thus far!
We then headed to my fabric shop so I could get some fabric from Italy, but because it was the Easter weekend, many shops were still closed on Monday. Instead we stopped by some souvenir shops and then took the bus back to our hostel. It actually took longer to get there on the bus than to walk because the traffic was so horrible and the bus was very crowded. I started to get carsick so we ended up getting off the bus rather early so I wouldn't throw up over everyone.
After arriving at our hostel, everyone promptly passed out and took a nap, except for yours truly who just ended up reading a book. We then headed out for dinner and then for groceries to make lunch because we had a long day trip on Tuesday and we wanted to make sure we were prepared for the long trip!
Love reading your adventures!
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