Everybody is asking about pictures. Since Kevin and I took separate cameras and we both love to take pictures, we have several thousand pics from our trip (over 10 gigs worth!).  Some are great, some are duplicates, and some are boring, so we are going through all of them to cull down the collection to a manageable set.  Even for an 18 day trip, you probably don’t want to see more than 200, right?  Even that may be too many. I’m working on it for a few hours every night, so hopefully we will have them available for viewing soon.

Remember that I talked about taking our GPS? Because of my GPS data logger I have timestamped location information that I can match up with my pictures. That means you will be able to view my pictures on a map and see just where each picture was taken.  If you have never seen this before, click here for an example.

After 21+ hours of travel, we made it home. We left our Rome hotel at 6:30am (11:30pm Austin time) to catch the subway/train/plane, and arrived home in Austin at 9:00pm (4:00am Rome time). Getting to the plane in Rome was stressful, but after takeoff we were able to relax.

The best part of being home is spending time with Katie, our cat. She was very upset with us for being gone for so long, and let us know it. Her little voice sounds hoarse from howling for us, and she hissed at me (something she has never done before) when she first saw me. But she is recovering, and clings to me like duct tape. She’ll be fine, but Kevin thinks we shouldn’t be gone for so long in the future because it was so stressful for her.

Much thanks to Nathan, Chris, and Elvia who all helped to watch our house, take care of Katie, gather our mail, and mow our lawn while we were away.  You guys rock!  Without you there we would have worried the whole time and probably couldn’t have been gone so long.

Short post today. We just cannot get over being tired, so we slept in again today. We skipped doing the Angels & Demons tour that we had both looked forward to, but it just wasn’t something we could do this morning.

However, we did make it to Capitoline Hill Museum, which overlooks the ruins of the Roman Forum.   The museum is fantastic, and little visited.  This place was a highlight of Rome, and we stayed until they closed at 8pm.

We’re all packed  and ready for the morning travel.

We got an earlier start today than the past few days. We were dressed and packed up for the day by just after 8am, went down for breakfast, and was disappointed to learn that they were out of formaggio, so all we would have today is bread. This hotel is fantastic location-wise, but the food service has been pretty lackluster – which is funny since this place is primarily a restaurant with a few rooms.

We took the subway to the Spagna stop, home to the Spanish Steps area. Since we were on the subway at about 9am on a Thursday it was jam packed with locals on their way to work. It was so packed that there was trouble getting in through the door, then challenging to find a place to hold onto while we stood for the ride.

The whole reason to be out in this area at this time was to visit the Levi’s store to get new jeans and maybe a new shirt for Kevin. Well, the store didn’t carry custom jean lengths like you can find in the US, all were 4 inches longer. They could custom hem them, but pickup wouldn’t be until after 6p tomorrow, which is the night before we go home – what’s the use? Plus, the jeans and shirts were all way more expensive. After money conversion, the polo shirt we looked at would have been $125, waaaay tooooo much $$ for Kev’s wardrobe.

Then we went on a hunt for a store we saw on the map that sells Cuban cigars. Didn’t look to be too far away. Hmm, we ended up getting our city tour this morning, in an unplanned fashion, as Kevin hadn’t even brought his camera with him. We saw Piazza Colonna, Piazza Parliamento, Trevi Fountain, etc as we wound through the streets. After leaving Trevi Foutain we got turned around and walked the wrong direction, by the time w realized it we were far from a subway station. So we walked all the way back across town. Kev would want me to mention that he did most of this walking carrying a bag of groceries, since we bought a few things when we thought we were about to get on the subway to go back to the hotel.

The good part of the walk was that we found an excellent little hidden restaurant called Mario’s. Excellent service and food, with an outdoor patio under cover of ivy that was tucked back behind the ruins of Forum of Augustus on via Grillia.

After all the walking, we came home (to the hotel) to relax for a few hours. We have a lot of walking to do tonight at the Vatican Museum and Sistine Chapel and want to be rested and refreshed. I’ll write about the Vatican tour in a separate post.

We are eating healthy foods, but probably because of all the walking and hills and stairs, we are always soooo tired. Again, we slept in today.  Didn’t get down to breakfast until a bit after 11am. We should have just had lunch, but our free breakfast was waiting on us. We both had two cups of cappuccino with breakfast which really helped get us going.

Cattia gave us better directions to the laundry place, so we set out again to find it, this time with the suitcase of dirty clothes. Well, we did find it, but they could not get our clothes washed/dried the same day, and both of us really need some of these clothes to wear tomorrow. To make a long story short, after a fruitless search for a nearby self-service laundry we gave up and I washed the necessary clothes in the hotel sink. I’ll be lucky if my jeans are dry by tomorrow. And, a lot of precious time wasted that could be spent seeing the sights of Rome. Argh, I hate that these menial tasks take up so much time.

On a good note, the sun is back out today and we went to the Forum this afternoon. I love this place, but not as much as I used to. I fell in love with the Forum on my first trip here ten years ago. Then, it was free and you could just wander through the ruins any time you wanted. Now, not only is it 11 euros per person, but there are major walkways that you have to stick to, and you can’t go up to and get close to the ruins. Many paths are even closed off. I know it is to protect the ruins from the increased number of tourists, but it just isn’t the same intimate experience it used to be. I was very disappointed with the experience today, although the runs of the Forum shining in the sunlight are still awe-inspiring. This changes my opinion of Rome as my favorite city in the world.

We took a quick trip on the subway tonight. We went to the Spanish Steps area where there are a ton of retail shops to find the Levis store we saw on the map. Kevin’s jeans are ripping in an undesirable area and he needs replacement jeans pronto. Unfortunately, the store closed thirty minutes before we arrived so we’ll have to go back tomorrow.

We plan to get up early tomorrow to get pictures in the Forum with the morning sun. Tomorrow night is our Vatican tour, only two days left…