Italy Day Five- Rome and Home

On our last day in Italy (oh how sad!) the skies were gray when we woke up.  We packed up all of our belongings (most still wet from the day before) and headed out to do our last trek through the streets of Rome.  One last time, we walked by Vatican City, grabbing an espresso on our way.  We stopped in the little shops along the route to buy souvenirs that we had been putting off until now.

The first thing we had to do was to go to the Campo dei Fiori markets across the river.  Caroline loves the pasta mix there and wanted me to bring some back for her.  We found the market with no trouble at all and almost all of us bought some of the pasta mix to bring back.  Not a minute after I had purchased my mix it started pouring again.  The wind was horrible as well.  Overall- not good weather for seeing the Roman Forum and the Colosseum like we had planned for the day.  Nevertheless, we kept on going.

(Campo dei Fiori!)

(Braving the wind and rain!)

It seemed like forever before we finally made it close to the Roman Forum.  We ran into a little restaurant to grab a bite to eat and see if the rain would die down.  Unlike Ireland, however, rain typically doesn't come in short spurts in Italy.  It continued to rain as we made our way to the Roman Forum.  We found a great area that overlooked the whole Forum so we decided not to go inside the grounds to walk around.  I liked seeing it from above better anyway--- it allowed us to get the full picture and take it all in.

(Roman Forum in all its rainy glory!)

(Not a happy backpacker)

(More of the Forum)

From there we moved on to the Colosseum.  After taking an obnoxiously large number of pictures in front of the Colosseum we decided to head over and buy tickets.  There are so many steps in there!  Seriously, I don't know how they did it.  Granted, I was lugging around a backpack and everything I was wearing was soaked and weighing me down, but boy was it tiring!  We were all talking while walking around inside saying that it was incredibly surreal actually being at the Colosseum.  It is one of those things that you learn about all throughout your life... but then, once you are there, you can't believe it.  I tried to imagine what it looked like back when it was still in use, but it was hard to put together everything I knew.  What kind of people keep lions and other wild animals caged up to fight humans?  It just seems like a fairy tale of some sort.

(In front of the Colosseum)

(Yay Colosseum!)

(Umbrellas up, ladies!)

(Cross for all of the Christians Martyrs)

We spent a long time inside the Colosseum just wandering around before finally heading out to our last cafe.  I ordered my last cappuccino in Italy and savored every sip.  Then, we headed to the metro to go back to the train station to catch our bus to the airport.

(My cappuccino with a heart in it!)

It was a once in a lifetime opportunity to be able to backpack around Italy.  I'm so glad Caroline told me I had to get there and I couldn't have picked a better group of people to travel with.

Thank you, Italy, for an amazing experience that will stay with me for the rest of my life!

"These things, I warmly wish for you-
Someone to love, some work to do,
A bit of o' sun, a bit o' cheer.
And a guardian angel always near."