Rome

I'm back with a series of updates about my most significant events of the past month. So let's start with the trip to Rome.

Friday morning (2/17/12) our TCU group gathered at the train station where we met our awesome Australian tour guide, Freya (she's pretty great, so if any of you are ever in Florence I highly recommend you take a tour with her). We hopped on our train and arrived in the Eternal City about 2 hours later. We checked in at the Hotel Navona and pretty quickly set out to explore. One of my favorite things about Rome was the juxtaposition of all the ancient ruins scattered among medieval and renaissance architecture, as well as more modern buildings throughout the city. I'm not sure if any other city has so many different eras of monuments still standing.

Over the next 3 days we visited all your standard Roman sites with our guide: the Trevi Fountain, the Pantheon, the Vatican, the Colosseum, the ancient Roman forum, as well as countless other cathedrals and political buildings. But I'd have to say my favorite part of the trip was all I got to do in our free time. We had 2 incredible dinners there, once in the Campo de' Fiori with Jenna, Briana, Stephanie, Sarah, and Carrie, and the night after we went to a fun prix-fix restaurant behind the Pantheon with almost our entire TCU group. I also enjoyed walking through the different piazzas, my favorite being Piazza Navona where local artists and performers set up every night around the 3 beautiful fountains in the center.

There was so much to see and do in Rome, and I'm so glad that I'll be able to go again this week when my parents come to visit.

Cat sanctuary in some ruins near where Caesar was stabbed

Fountain in Piazza Navona

Pantheon (by the way, the floors inside slope down to gutters, so that's why it doesn't flood when it rains)

Ancient amphitheater underneath apartments built in the Middle Ages

TCU at the Colosseum

St. Peter's Basilica

Trevi Fountain