All roads lead to Rome

Guest blogger Celesta Ernst on Rome:

Morgan and I arrived in Rome on April 27 and were eagerly greeted by Courtney and Miguel.  It was wonderful meeting up with them in beautiful Roma.  We quickly unloaded our luggage and headed to downtown Rome via the Metro.   The Metro is quite something--extremely efficient, on time, and always packed with humanity!  It was a great way to maneuver the city.  We were on our way to the Coliseum when we had an omen and at this point we felt it was a great one!  Several pigeons flew over Courtney, Morgan and me and dumped one huge load on ALL three of us.  We had pigeon poop in our hair, on our clothes, and all over Courtney’s handbag.  We are not quite sure why Miguel was out of the line of fire but, bless his heart, he quickly cleaned each of us and made us presentable once again.

As the saying goes “all roads lead to Rome” and this was definitely the case when we arrived.  There were visitors to Rome estimated at over 1,000,000+ (yep, all the zeros belong!).  The reason—the beatification of Pope John Paul II was days away.   It became an art form weaving through the crowds.  We were fortunate to be able to see most of the sites on our list—Trevi Fountain, The Spanish Steps, Michelangelo’s Moses (my personal favorite), the Roman Forum, Coliseum, the Sistine Chapel, and St. Peter’s Square.  We were unable to get into the Cathedral because of the throngs of pilgrims that had arrived for all the beatification ceremony that weekend.  We found an open set of steps in the Square, sat, and watched the masses of people.

Fontana di Trevi

Piazza Navona

Piazza Spagna

Hercules...I can take him

School of Athens

Sistine Chapel...no pictures please!

We had a blast sampling the delicious fare and eating our share on gelatos.  The cappuccinos are so delectable—and I don’t even like coffee.

We were in Rome 4 days and had a blast but to be honest, we were definitely glad to get out of all the crowds and head to Bologna and Venice.

this guy was fishing out people's coins from the Trevi fountain

Molto gente!

Buon giorno Mario and Luigi!