Our Holiday in Rome! (Part 1)

Without further ado, here is the first part of our awesome holiday in Rome! I know, I know... it's a bit long, but I have so much to show you! It was really hard to select just a few photos :)

I had to include this one. This was quite close to the apartment we were staying at, and I remember arriving at this piazza thinking "Is this a pyramid in the middle of the road?". Turns out, it's way older than the city walls.

We started off our first day in Rome at the Terme di Caracalla. Very impressive! Some of the ruins are in very good condition so it wasn't too hard to imagine how it would have looked at the time. I just couldn't believe how tall it was! We were lucky to see some of the original floors as well. You can easily spend hours in this place but we had planned some more sightseeing for the afternoon!

Staying in the Aventino & Testaccio area, we headed off to the Piazza dei Cavalieri di Malta where we found a couple of beautiful basilicas. We had an hour to kill, which we spent around a nice little park full of orange trees before visiting one of the basilicas, so I made sure to explore a bit more and snapped a few photos (those cute old cars were everywhere!).

On the second day, we decided to go and visit the Colosseum and the Roman Forum, but because of Repubblica Day being on the second of June (duh!), everything was closed until 12noon because of a big military parade. So we thought, sod it, we're not staying around! We ended at the Villa Borghese Park (the biggest in Rome), and we actually much preferred it as it was so beautiful and quiet. However, Jason being Jason, when he heard the sound of an old Porsche, he didn't think twice about following it and all of a sudden we found ourselves in the middle of a massive car show, full of rare expensive Porsches and Ferraris. Oh well!

The afternoon was hot and busy as we walked down to Piazza del Popolo, and then all the way to Piazza di Spagna and the well-known Spanish Steps. Except the fact that it was full of people, we were actually in awe with all these imposing buildings and the amazing views that you would get on top of the steps. We really enjoyed strolling around the nice quiet streets as well, and the Keats-Shelley museum was a really welcomed and educative break.

We explored the Vatican City during our third day in the capital, and wow, I know the Vatican museums are quite expensive, but you really can't miss it! I really struggled with limiting the amount of photos I was sharing with this place because we saw a lot. The funny thing is that even if the Sistine Chapel was impressive, Michelangelo's The Creation of Adam was much smaller than I thought! We weren't allowed to take any photos in the chapel though. I think my favourite part was the hall of hand-painted large scale maps. Even the ceiling was incredible!

We queued for about an hour in the heat to go inside St Peter's Basilica, and even if Jason kept telling me that "It's just another basilica", I knew we needed to see this one because it's THE basilica. And I was right! Absolutely jaw-dropping. We didn't know where to look because of the amount of details on absolutely everything. It was worth it! We were really tired though at the end of the day and we couldn't wait to get back home and eat a massive pizza without any guilt :)

Part 2 is coming soon so keep your eyes peeled!

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