A Weekend in Rome

After working hard all week, we ventured out on Saturday to see the sights of Rome.  We drove the 60 miles or so to the outskirts of the city and located a metro station.  Traffic is horrible is Rome (and most of Italy for that matter), so the metro made the most sense.  It took us about 15 or 20 minutes to figure out how to buy all day metro passes and where to get on the train.  Once on the train, it was only a few minutes before we arrived at the Colosseum.  Very efficient and recommended.

We toured the Colosseum and the ruins of Palatine hill.  There was so much to see that it was just impossible to take it all in.   We walked all the way around Palatine hill and walked the Circus Maximus (where they had chariot races in front of the palace).

Afterwards, we had lunch at the Massenzio Bar (which is actually a restaurant with outside seating available).  This was very good food and was located up a side street next to the ruins of Trajan's Market.

We continued to tour and saw the Trevi Fountain, the Spanish Steps, and the Parthenon.  Photos included although they just don't do justice to the impressive sights that these places are.  Rome was also all lit up for the holidays and the streets were just lined with festive people and things going on as the evening went on. 

We ended up having dinner at a little place called Ristorante Andrea, which turned out to be one of the best meals we had during our entire stay.

By this time, it was past 11 pm, and we found that the metro had closed for the evening.  Oh great.  We had to get taxi driver (who didn't speak a lick of English) and try to tell them which metro station to take us to on the outskirts of town.  Fortunately, one of us had a GPS unit which provided the taxi driver with the information he needed.  What a night.