When in Roma...

A few weeks ago we took a lovely little trip without the girls to Rome. It was amazing. Loved every minute of it. Really, it's such an amazing place. I felt like I was walking back in time. And to top it all off we met up with my friend from high school and her husband: Rachel and Brett Yerkes! They hooked us up and got us to tag along with their tour group. We had so much fun with them. It was truly a smash. We saw all the main highlights plus a few things off the beaten path. It's funny how much we missed our girls. We kept talking about them and looking at pictures of them on the phone. Don't get me wrong, it was amazing to go into a museum and not have to rush through right to the exit. We actually got to enjoy a lot of things we don't usually get to enjoy, but there was just something missing without them. Maybe I like pushing strollers up huge hills and down crazy stair alley ways. 

Sunday we had not yet met up with our friends so we went and saw a bunch of really neat churches including one where there were two more churches buried underneath, and another one that claimed to hold the chains that held Peter when he was imprisoned. We walked past the Coliseum and Roman Forum, took a much needed nap at the hotel (we had to get up at like 3am to catch our flight there), got lost looking for our hotel, and finished with the Trevi Fountain and a lovely night walk in the Pantheon district.

Monday: Used every possible form of public transportation in our attempt to meet up with the Yerkes.  But, we pulled off another successful rendezvous in Italy at the Bernini's Four Rivers fountain (or what the locals call "Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi."  Magical. We got to spend the rest of the day catching up with our long, lost Yerkes friends while we toured the Pantheon, Spanish Steps, and Piazza del Popolo.  

Tuesday: This is where the tour group really came in handy. We got to skip the huge lines to get into the Vatican Museums.  That we sure nice.  We saw the Sistine Chapel (which inspired Mark to get our bathroom ceiling similarly painted someday), St Peter's Basillica, the Pieta, and some huge Bernini wood carving over what is presumed to be St Peter's tomb.  Then our tour continued to the Coliseum and Roman forums, which were quite neat.  Great place for a picnic or ancient civilization.  Right outside was the Mamertine Prison where Peter and Paul were held captive. It was closed :(  But we went back to the Trevi Fountain for a little slice of pizza and nightlife.  And by nightlife I mean gelato.

Mark felt like the trip was pretty well planned, and it was... until Tuesday night.  We took a bus from a somewhat scary bus station (Ashley made friends with some real characters while I was in the bathroom) to a smallish city 3 hours away for a cheap flight out the next morning.  To make a long story short, we couldn't find any hotels near the airport at midnight so we spent the night in a freezing cold closed airport.  They almost didn't let us sleep there; someone got special permission from a man simply known as "the inspector." Thanks, Inspector. What an awful night.  Nobody got much sleep. All in all it was a great trip. 

Four Rivers  fountain

Behold, Michaelangelo's Pieta

Outside and inside the Pantheon.  Raphael is buried here (Raphael is Mark's middle name and favorite ninja turtle). Which gave us a great idea: If we ever have a first-born son, his name will be MARKelangelo Raphael Olsen.  Named after his father and other great artists of the renaissance.

The dome of St Peters.  Designed by Michaelangelo. (If you can't tell, Mark is a big Mike fan and insisted that he get proper credit for the dome.)

Keepin' the peace alive for Kristi and Mer.