Rome, Italy

Finally... I made it to Rome. First time I tried to go to Rome was in 1998. I was living in London and had a weekend trip planned with couple of friends. Unfortunately, I had submitted my passport to the Japanese Embassy for a visa and forgot to pick it up that Friday before leaving. I could admit I was just plain stupid, but I will use the hot date I had that night as an excuse for being distracted. Anyways, I kicked myself for the mistake and put Rome back on my list of places I must see before I die. Now that I live in Europe, there was no way I was going to leave without seeing Rome. So finally I did, and I can't remember why I had wanted to see it so much. I can't say Rome is one of my favorite cities. I much prefer the likes of Paris, London, New York, or Tokyo. But more on that later....

We had three full days there and saw just about every major tourist site: Colosseum, Pantheon, Spanish Steps, Trevi Fountain, museums, yada yada yada. The first day was spent mostly in the part of the city where all the ruins were. I had just spent half of April seeing ruins, some even Roman, in Egypt and Jordan. You could imagine my excitement over seeing more ruins. That's just one of the downsides of traveling a lot. You get jaded. The other sites were quite nice though, particularly the fountains, and the museums housed a nice collection of statues and paintings. We also had an interesting bike ride through a park. We were on those 4-wheeled pedal bikes. The boys kept wanting to take the bike off-road, downhill, down stairs, etc. Seriously, I didn't expect this from smart, intelligent, 30 yr old men... but of course, boys will always be boys.

The food was great and the sites were ok, but overall, I think I like other parts of Italy better. Compound that with blistering and sore feet from bad shoes and lots of walking, and the unexpected heat the first couple of days, the trip turned out to be a bit more work than pleasure.

Pictures are here.