My name is Maximus Decimus Meridius, Commander of the Armies of the North, General of the Felix Legions,

loyal servant to the true emperor, Marcus Aurelius, father to a murdered son, husband to a murdered wife, and I will have my vengeance -- in this life or the next.





Well we started our 7 day tour of Italy in Rome. As I stated at the end of the last blog, we took a night train from Interlaken, so we arived at about 9AM. We were only going to be in Rome for a day and a half, so we wanted to get as much done as possible while we were there. From our hostel, we started our marathon of walking by going to the Trevi Fountain. We did the usual throw one coin in to ensure your return and then another to make a wish come true. From here he started to make our way over to the Colosseum, this is what i was most excited to see. On our way there we kept running into police having areas baracaded off. Eventually we found out they were having a military parade pretty much all over the city. So we took a few detours only to find out that the Parade ended at the Colosseum so it was closed until the parade was over. We decided we didnt have time to wait for this parade to be over, so we started over to the Vatican. If you have ever been to Rome, you know this is a very far walk. The Vatican was so cool to be at. St. Peters was so massive and beautiful inside. From St. Peters we went to the Sistine Chapel. It was almost sureal to see things like the top of the chapel, the vatican and the colosseum.



After the vatican we stated walking around the city a little more and ended up at the Piazza de Navona where this guy was puting on a great slap-stick show. At different points during the show he used both josh and I as props...Drew laughed. After we watched that for a while we decided to make our way back over to the Colosseum to see if it had re opened. Although we ran into many road blocks still on out way there, we were determined to get there and see itm so we did! WOOHOO! It was one of the coolest experiences of my life. From here we just walked around town a little more and saw what rome had to offer when the sun went down. The only thing we didnt make it to was the roman forum which we knocked out the next day.

At around noon of the next day we felt that we had seen all of Rome that we wanted to, so for a small 5 euro reservation fee (which goes on top of the 560 euro we already paid for out rail pass) we set out for Florence a few hours early.

Well there is the first of our three Italian cities, more to come very soon. Internet has been hard to come by lately, so you might be getting a few blogs all at one time in the near future.

Peace!

Michael