Rome In a Million Photos // Part 1

Rome, Rome. What can I even say that will do our 48 hour trip justice? It’s big and grand and quaint and cozy all at the same time. We absolutely adored it and would love to go back.

We arrived in the evening and stumbled across the Piazza Navona right around the corner from our apartment. Not a bad introduction!

It was nearly deserted, which was a wonderful way to experience it. We walked through it in the daylight and it was buzzing! All that open space was filled with artists showing their work, people milling about and bikes whizzing through.

Here it is in the daytime – the statues are just incredible.

How about all that blue sky? We’re still waiting for an hour or two of that in Dublin. That’s St. Peter’s Basilica in the distance as we headed toward the Vatican.

This is the view from one of the Vatican windows. Incredible, right? I loved watching women hanging laundry on the rooftops. It was wonderful to see palm trees (we have some in Dublin but they never look quite happy to be here!) and pastel colored buildings. It felt positively tropical to us even though it was still only around 50 degrees.

The Vatican wasn’t my favorite part of our trip, I must admit. It was the most crowded place we visited and I think January is probably the least crowded the Vatican gets, so I can’t imagine what it would be like in the thick of tourist season!

That said, the building itself was glorious – I loved looking up and down. It always amazes me the care and creativity that used to go into decorating floors with mosaics and ceilings with elaborate images. And of course, our favorite part of the Vatican was the Sistene Chapel. It was crowded and you’re not allowed to take photos, but we could have stared up at the ceiling for hours. Everywhere you looked there was another interesting figure I remembered from my art history classes!

The Vatican’s exit stairwell was another favorite – isn’t it incredible?

We also loved the Pantheon – here’s its ceiling.

And its imposing exterior – it’s amazing that nearly all of the buildings we learn about in history class are just nestled into the rest of the city. We walked up on the Pantheon and both said, “This can’t be the Pantheon?” You could be a block away and not know it was there, and yet it’s enormous! Apparently it takes three people to push each of the enormous doors shut!

We did a lot of walking. I was mostly a willing participant, unless I was hungry. We probably could have done a better job of bringing some granola bars with us. There were a few moan-y moments – sorry Mike!

One of the great tips we received (thank you, thank you readers!) was to pop into random churches. Boy, was that a good trick. From the outside, the churches were of course huge and marble, but you would never know the inside was covered in gilt and statues and incredible art. We stumbled on this church (which was a little falling-down-ish on the outside) and got a little personal organ concert!

Then we walked some more. I love these trees (we always see them in Paris, too, but I’m not sure what they are) with little hanging balls that look like ornaments.

So much sunshine made this chick very happy!

I think that’s more than enough photos for one post! I have more from the Colosseum to share, as well as a few fabulous tips we received from readers that I just have to pass along. Ciao!