Day FIVE: Rome, Italy

Our final full day of our trip was the most exhausting of all of them!  We had a lot to see and a lot of walking to do since the attractions were pretty far away from the metro lines.  We did take a bus a few times, but we still did a ton of walking...it was hot and the girls were spent within an hour of starting our day!  Just organizing the photos of this day was exhausting! :)  We made a BIG oops to start off the day when we thought the first place we wanted to see was a lot closer to the metro.  This was DEFINITELY something I told our friends about who were heading to Rome the day we left.  The place we walked to initially (Vittorio Emanuele II Monument/Piazza Venezia) was just next door to the place where we ended our day (Roman Forum) and we could have seen it then vs all of the backtracking we did.  You live and learn and that was our only BIG planning mess up during the whole trip, so I can't get too worked up about it! ;) 

 

I took lots of screen shots of the online research I did because once we were out for the day, we only had maps and a Rick Steves book to use to navigate around.  This one below was perfect except I didn't put two and two together that Piazza Venezia and Vittorio Emanuele Monument are the same thing. 

The Victor Emanuel Monument also known as "The Wedding Cake" and it also has the Tomb of the Unknown Solider. 

 

 



 

We left there and instead of walking all the way back to the metro, we waited for a bus to take us to the metro and then over to the Circus Maximus area. The Metros were packed that day!!!

Our 2nd stop of the day was at the Baths of Caracalla which were neat to see, but we felt that the Roman baths in Trier were more fun because you could go down below where they transported the water.  We told our friends who were a few days behind us on this trip, to skip the baths and do them in Trier about an hour from our house. 

We left the baths and headed to La Bocca della Verita.  We were desperate to find "kid fun" on this trip and this was a pretty neat legend.  Again, I used a screen shot from my research to get us from the metro to the cathedral where the mouth is. 

The fields are Circus Maximus where the Romans held the chariot races and the structures behind it are part of Palatine Hill



The Mouth of Truth!!!!  Hailey was too scared to put her hand in and Luke was napping, so Kai was willing to sacrifice her hand for us! LOL!!! 

We were beat by the time we finally made it to the Colosseum, our 4th stop of the day.  In hindsight, we should have started our day here and did the other small things depending on our moods, but of course hindsight is 20/20!  We bought a combo ticket for the Colosseum, Roman Forum, and Palatine Hill and didn't have to wait too long in line.  It was impressive!!!!!!

The birthday boy!!!!

 

We all perked up after a birthday gelato and then headed over to the Forum and Palatine hill (we had no idea how much more walking there was to come!!!!!)

What is was like when we let Luke get out of the backpack!!!  He really did so great though over the week; he'd fuss when we had to put him back in the backpack, but he'd get over it pretty quickly and he napped the entire week on the go!

Roman Forum and Palatine Hill...this was probably my favorite part of Rome because I'm a sucker for old ruins just like the old castle ruins here in Germany. 

Coming out of the Roman Forum (with the Victor Emm. monument right behind us where we started our llloooonnnnngggg day!)

While we were waiting for the bus to get back to the metro a man was making money by letting you hold his birds...the girls loved it!!

We headed back to the apartment to make dinner and start packing.  Our flight home the next morning wasn't until noon, so we had plenty of time to get up and not rush in the morning (or so we thought....)