After a great night's sleep at the Gerber Hotel, we were able to enjoy their light breakfast buffet and start off on our sightseeing. We decided to walk toward the Vatican, since it was the closest landmark, and go from there.
We got as far as Castel Sant'Angelo, before our son decided to meltdown. We'd been out for about, 20 minutes. As embarrassed as we were of his behavior, the locals didn't seem to mind, neither did the other Europeans. The only ones that gave us dirty looks were obvious Americans, like us. We may, MAY, have fit in, if our son wouldn't have been wailing, "I don't want to walk....." at the top of his English speaking lungs. Oh well, carry on.
Once we got on the double-decker tour bus, he was much better. We did the hop on/hop off tour in Paris also, it's not the most glamorous way to see things, but it's easy, relatively inexpensive, you get to hear about the sights you're riding past in one of 8 languages on your head phones, and it makes the little boy happy. Happy toddler equals happy parents.
The second stop on the tour was Monument of Vittorio Emanuele II, an absolutely beautiful piece of modern architecture made to look historic. There were many other things that we were able to see from that spot, but I honestly, can't remember the names of anything to even look it up. What you need to know is that it was amazing. Behind Vittorio, there are some older monuments to see, two of our son's favorites are a similar pair of fountains. They each have a lounging man on them holding cornucopias, which he thought were either an ice cream cone or a snake. Found it, Piazza del Campidoglio, with the Equestrian Statue of Marcus Aurelius is what is behind Vittorio. Somehow, our son found the ice cream cone in the statue, but missed all the "realism" in the other statues in the area. When you walk to the side of the fountains, there are some of the ancient ruins. From the side, you can see the place where Julius Caesar was assassinated.
We had lunch in that area, what should have taken about 40 minutes in Belgium, 20 in the US, took us over an hour. Our waiter was horribly crabby and rude, he practically grunted when taking our order. One single woman next to us left her table to go to the restroom and when she came back, he had cleared her table and given it to someone else. We ate and we left to grab the bus to see what else we could see.
The next major stop was the Colosseum. WOW is all I have to say. There were many people taking wedding photos there, we joked that it was such an ironic place for wedding photos. The sight of senseless, brutal killings, what a great photo spot. Nothing says love like send your spouse to the lions. An impressive backdrop though, I must say. We did not pay to do the tour this time, the little boy was quite...wiggly, so it will be on the agenda for next time.
After waiting for our bus for about 30 minutes, we hopped back on, finished our tour without hopping off, and went back to The Vatican. We took a little bit of time to look around the outside, again, we didn't have the ideal opportunity to wait in line to see things this time. When we had our fill of nuns and beggars, we walked over to the Castel again and looked through the market, had a tasty German beer and let the little boy ride the carousel. Next, we took our time walking back to the hotel and relaxed before we went back to Pizzeria San Marco for dinner.
We were able to get some great photos of The Vatican, The Colosseum, Vittorio, and many of the ruins that Rome has preserved. It was a very pleasant day after the first major meltdown. We had other little hiccups, but he was much better, all things considered. After dinner with a nice Italian pizza and Irish beer, we called it a night. We had an early start the next morning to get back to Belgium and we had had a huge day. My husband and I both can't wait to get back.
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