Our first day in Rome!!!

We took a bus from Montepulciano to Rome on Thursday September 10th. We left early in the morning so most of us slept on the bus, trying to save up all our energy for our busy weekend ahead of us. We checked into our hotels at about 12 and had about an hour to wait while the hotels checked our passports and then we were on our way again. Our first stop was Termini- the main Metro (train/subway) station in the city. The two main lines, red and blue meet here and this is where trains to other cities leave from as well. Our professor and director of the program purchased our Roma Passes while we all grabbed a bite to eat. There are lots of McDonalds throughout Italy and a large group of our students headed there for lunch. Kristin (my roommate) and I headed to a small sandwich place with a short line to make sure we had enough time to grab some gelato!!!

From Termini we headed to the Vatican (by Metro). The trains were not too crowded, which is something we were heavily warned about. We stayed in a group, I wore my money belt and we kept are purses-which only had my camera, phone, map and water- in front of us. The walk into the Vatican was a breeze, the program had pre-ordered our tickets so we did not have to wait in any lines!!! We spent the majority of our day in the Vatican Museum, St Peters Basilica and the Piazza San Pietro. The Vatican Museum is filled with masterpiece after mastpiece... If I only had one museum to choose from on a visit to Rome, I would choose the Vatican Museum. If you purchase tickets ahead of time it gets you into the museum and then you also do not have to wait in line for St Peters.

Just a few of the things we saw...
Raphael’s “Transfiguration”
and “School of Athens”
Leonardo da Vinci’s “Saint Jerome”
Caravaggio’s “Entombment”
Laocoon and his Sons
a Torso sculpture which inspired Micheangelos David
Mummy of a Woman
Micheangelo’s Sistine Chapel
and “Pieta”

Thursday Night: A group of us went out to dinner at a Pizzeria near our hotels. We all thought we were ordering individual slices of pizza and ended up with medium size pizza’s instead!!! After our long day and lots of walking we all just about finished each of our meals. After dinner we headed out for some mroe sightseeing. We headed to the Travi Fountain. A lot of the streets in Rome are small and narrow and do not follow a grid pattern, so one minute there is nothing on the street you are walking and the next minute you are standing in front of another masterpiece surrounded sightseers. On our way to the Spanish steps we got a little turned around with our directions, we came across a bar that offered us Americans drink specials and that is where are night ended. We visited the Spanish steps on Satuday and Sunday instead.