My Adventure to Germany

After our first day in Rome we traveled back to Orvieto where Melissa is staying to stay the night with her. It was only 7 euros for an hour train ride, which is a lot cheaper than getting a hotel in Rome for the night so we used Melissa’s apartment as a base point and traveled around from there! We were so exhausted from the travel and walking everywhere that we crashed early and then slept in a little bit on Thursday morning. Melissa’s shares an apartment with our other good friend Berta, they have this super tiny place, all there is a bathroom, one bedroom and another room that is the kitchen, dining, and living space. Which all total is super tiny! The shower was more like a sink that a big girl like me could seriously BARLEY fit in. the bedroom was also small with 2 twin beds that were right next to each other and the kitchen was smooched all together but it was a nice cozy place. Smaller than my apartment back in Manhattan, that’s for sure!

Melissa's Bathroom... toilet and weird thing i never can remember the name of......

super tiny shower!!!!

The entire town was exactly what I pictured when I thought of a tiny Italian Town, small, close roads and beautiful buildings. Population is about 20,000 and there isn’t much at all to see or do in Orvieto, I’m super glad I didn’t study there, I would have been bored fast, there is just so much to do and see in Trier itself! But Orvieto was super cute and peaceful!

the building where Melissa goes to class

The town its self is located on a hill, and entirely on a hill, on all sides around it at the bottom is another town and area, to get up to the top you had to take a shuttle thing, it reminded me of the thing you get on to go to the bottom of the Royal Gorge in Colorado. Then walking all around the entire town took like half an hour at the most.

panorama of one of the side of the hill

from the top of the clock tower!!

Gelato! Lemon and Raspberry... my favorite!!!

The big thing in the town is the Orvieto Cathedral which towers over the rest of the town, and is beautiful! We didn’t go in it but we walked around it.

Melissa also showed us many overlook sites and all kinds of wonderful areas of town. We then went up into the clock town and got to look out over the whole town, it was pretty cool!

We cooked dinner 2 nights we were there, Spaghetti and then pasta with chicken and onions and potatoes, it was yummy! And then of course we had Gelato a lot! J

It was so great to have a place to stay in Italy, it saved us a ton of money to be able to stay with Melissa and we had a blast! It was nice to get to see one of my best friends again and spend time together! She is almost ready to go home! I am jealous!!! :) But we love you Melissa (Especially MEEE!!) and we appreciate all you did for us!!!!!

So Rome was AMAZING!!! We flew into Rome on Wednesday morning, landed about 8:30 am and then had to take a bus an hour into the center of Rome to the Train station where Melissa was waiting for us! We met her and ate a small bite before we set out for the day. They whole day was fun but a mess due to the heat, and the fact that we had to carry our book bags around on our back, that was terrible! Rome was a mad house, mostly because it was Easter weekend and everyone wanted to go to the Vatican. It’s a pretty good comparison: Washington D.C. = Rome + everything is in Italian and everything is 1,000 years older! But all the transportation is about the same except Rome is more condensed. We walked all over Rome and was just fine. So once we landed we got on a bus and took it Rome Termini Train station which is in the center of Rome. There we Met Melissa who then became our Tour Guide for the day, and it was such a good thing we had her, I mean we could have found our way and been alright but it was nice with her there!

We took the Metro, which was exactly like the one we took in D.C. to the Colosseum. The Colosseum is one of the most famous structures in the world! This is an Amphitheatre built in 70-80 AD and is the largest Amphitheatre built in the Roman Empire.

Beside the Colosseum there is the Arch of Constantine which was built in 315 AD

From there we walked everywhere! The red circles are the big main places we saw and the purple line is the route we walked all over town!

We walked from there down the main Drag and on both sides of the street was tons of ancient ruins mixed in with other and new construction. It was different to see all of it!

We ended up at the Monument of Vittorio Emaniele II, which is also called the wedding cake, due to its appearance. This is a very new monument compared to everything! It was constructed in 1885 and is the home of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier exactly like the U.S.

One of my favorite places we then went to was the famous Pantheon. Everyone knows this building and I was super excited to finally be able to see it! The Pantheon was built in 120 AD and was first built as a church, and for 1700 years it was the largest Dome in the world. It was amazing to see it!!!

Then we went to Pizza Navona, which many people will recognize from the Movie Angels and Demons! This was built in the 1^st century AD and was built on the site of an older Roman Stadium arena. In the center there is the beautiful Fountain designed by Bernini called the Fountain of the four Rivers. Where we were her the plaza was full of artists who were selling their work and also painting right there in front of us for us to buy, pretty neat!

We walked along the Tiber River and saw all the beautiful bridges and structures across the way, when we crossed we walked straight into the Castel Sant Angelo, which we didn’t go in, just look at then headed directly to the Vatican. That was the coolest sight I’ve ever seen, standing in the street looking down at the most famous and beautiful places in the world.

Vatican City is its own city-state just like the way Washington D.C. is at home. It is about 110 acres and has a population of 800, it is the smallest independent state in the world. Surprisingly the town was established in 1929, I figured it was a lot older than that but the structures in this area are a LOT older. The main Part is Saint Peter’s Square which is located directly in front of St. Peters basilica. This was designed by the famous Bernini in 1656, Bernini also did the inside of the Basilica that we went into next and was Breathtaking, It was probably one of the coolest things we say the entire trip! So detailed and beautiful, I have no idea how anyone ever could do it, especially hundreds of years ago!

We then walked to the Spanish steps and just walked by because it was super crowded! And made our way to My Favorite Place in Rome, the Trevi Fountain. This was also designed By Bernini and is Gorgeous! I could have stood in front of this forever and looked at it and never have gotten bored! We all threw in 2 pennies for good luck and made a wish!

We came Home that night and stayed with Melissa in Orvieto and Got up on Friday and Came back to Rome for the Day just us 3 girls to explore, We mainly wanted to go into the Museums in the Vatican. So we spent a good chunk of the day there exploring around. Inside the museums there was tons of art and sculpture, all the ceilings were beautiful!

Us girls in front of a random fountain we found

Us inside the Sistine Chapel!!!

The best part was the Famous Sistine Chapel, this was another of my absolute favorite places in all of Rome, the Room was huge and the paintings that were one by Michelangelo in 1508 covers 12,000 square feet on the ceiling and it amazing! The Last Judgment is claimed to be Michelangelo’s most famous painting of all time and it really is cool!!!

From there we decided to wonder around and not look at our map, we ended up south of the Vatican in a residential and very green area. It was beautiful but we had no idea where we were and almost got hit by crazy drives many times in the tiny streets with no sidewalks!

We ended out Venture of Rome on the site of the Roman Circus Maximus, which really isn’t a Circus like what we think. This is a large open air stadium where public events were held. It was a long oval thing representing a track where events like chariot or horse races took place. All that is left now is the grass hills around it and the faint sand of where the track once was. People were everywhere just setting around and relaxing, it was beautiful!!!

Over all this was my most favorite part of our trip to Italy! Although it was busy and packed with tourist excited for Easter, But I LOVED Rome and would tell anyone to go visit there over anywhere else we went to In Italy!!!!!