Rome trip report and photo preview

**Note: if you've already read this post, have another look at the description of photo #1. To keep things interesting, I decided to make an actual competition out of "Where in Rome were Carl & Jen on New Year's Eve?". I'm not looking for the exact name of the place, just an accurate general description of it. Post your guesses as comments in the post, and whoever guesses it right first is the winner. Here's one hint to get things started: we were NOT at an ancient site.

We're baaaack!! Okay, so I know I promised that I was going to do some posts and upload photos while we were in Rome (really I WAS!), but it didn't quite work out as I'd planned. First, I forgot the adapter I need to connect my camera and computer, so there was no way to upload the photos...duh (making a big "L" symbol on my head)!! Second, our B&B host didn't have wifi, just a hardline internet connection, and although he was willing to let us disconnect his PC and connect our laptops, we couldn't get the connection to work. I was going to do a quick post using his computer, but without any photos I just didn't think it would be all that entertaining for anyone. Anyway, enough excuses, let's get to the good stuff!

The trip was great, and it was the perfect amount of time to see all that we wanted to see in Rome, while still leaving time to relax and also take a few daytrips. The weather was not as warm as we had hoped for, but several times I considered how miserable it would be to hike through so many outdoor sights in the summer heat and humidity - that thought alone quelled most of the complaints! We had two rainy days, but out of eight days total that's not too bad either. The one unfortunate thing was that I came down with a cold partway through the trip, and a day later got either a stomach bug or mild food poisoning. Neither one knocked me down too severely, but sadly our worst day health- and weather-wise was the day we went to Pompei, which I had really been looking forward to! Still, we did have a really good time, so let me tell you more about it!

Rome
Rome is an incredible city, absolutely crammed with things to see almost everywhere you look. We're both history buffs, so this place was an absolute treasure trove! It's also a bit noisy and run down, but after several days we came to the realization that that's a big part of its charm. Anyway, here's a quick summary of what we saw:

Ancient Rome Sights
Colosseum
Forum
Palatine Hill
Trajan's Forum
Pantheon
Churches
St. Peter's Basilica
Sistine Chapel
Santa Maria Sopra Minverva
St. Peter-in-Chains
Santa Maria della Vittoria
Museums
National Museum of Rome
Vatican Museum
Other Sights
Trevi Fountain
Spanish Steps
Piazza Navona
too many other Piazza's and neat neighborhoods to mention!

Our top highlights were the Colosseum and Forum, dinner in Trastevere (the best dinner we had in Rome by far!), St. Peter's Basilica (I'd recommend seeing it last so the other churches don't disappoint!), and the Scavi (Excavations) tour below St. Peter's. This tour was pretty amazing; you have to book it well in advance as they strictly limit the number of visitors allowed, but it's well worth the trouble. It takes you directly underneath the basilica, where you can see excavated mausoleums belonging to Roman families that pre-date both the basilica and Christianity, along with the tomb of St. Peter and the various memorial structures built over it in the last 19 centuries. The progression of history that you can see in such a small (and important) space is really quite incredible.

Orvieto
Orvieto is a small hill town at the southern edge of the Umbria region. It has a gorgeous cathedral and medieval center, and stunning views into the surrounding valley about 1,000 feet below. The train drops you off in the modern town at the base of the hill, and you then take a funicular (hillside train) straight up the hill into the old town. In addition to the cathedral and view, it's also known for ceramics and its clasico wine variety, both of which we were able to partake in - meaning we bought a piece of pottery and tasted the wine! It was quite chilly the day we were there, but despite that we really enjoyed our visit and the chance to see a bit of Italy's wine country.

Pompei
This place needs no introduction - it's simply incredible. I may be a bit biased because I've been wanting to go there since I first read about it as a child, but I think anyone would agree that it is THE place to go if you want to see the best preserved evidence that exists of daily life in an Ancient Roman town. Not even lousy weather, a cold and an upset stomach could ruin it for me!
A sidenote about this trip: some of you may have seen the recent coverage of riots in Naples over the tons of trash that have accumulated in the streets. Well it's not exaggerated! We took a train to Naples and then switched to the local commuter train "Circumvesuviana" to get to Pompei. Even from the train windows we could see piles of it in many of the residential streets. It's a very sad situation that I frankly have trouble understanding, but I guess inefficiency, corruption and the mafia have such an influence there that this has been an ongoing issue for some time.

Anyway, we're tired and ready to spend some quiet days and nights at home, but we had a lot of fun and we really feel that we can now confidently say we've "done" Rome!

Here's a few photos to "whet your appetite", but due to the sheer number that I took I plan to upload them onto a photosharing website and will add the link to a subsequent post. That will take me a few days since I'll need to add captions (so you know what you're looking at), so in the meantime you'll see:

1- Two "happy" Americans in Rome on New Year's Eve - the first person who can guess where we were wins a box of Belgian chocolates! Oh, but Carl's sister and my brother are ineligible, because they already know! :-)
2- Two "cold" Americans in the Colosseum on a rather chilly day!
3- St. Peter's Square with the basilica in the background
4- The Duomo in Orvieto
5- The theatre in Pompei, with the gladiator barracks and courtyard in the background