So much walking in Rome…

We spent a week in Rome. Trip and Taylor took to the city better than I expected. My sister and niece were there the first couple of days and Grandma Judy was there the entire week (they met us after their cruise to Greece and Turkey). It was so much fun to have family with us and it certainly helped distract Taylor from all the walking that we did. Rome is amazing but every day was filled with so much walking I was shocked the kids were able to keep going. There were a few times Trip didn’t think the walk was worth the site and a handful of times Taylor let us know how fed up she was with walking, but all in all they were fantastic. And we got more efficient with our public transportation as Greg learned the bus stops and was able to cut a little bit off the routes we took earlier in the week.

We hit the sites of Rome: Colosseum, Roman Forum, St. Peter’s and the Vatican Museum, Capitoline Museum, and lots of other churches and ruins. Some of those sites had so many people that we felt we owed it to the kids to let them have some space. We took a break from the crowds a couple of days: one day we went to the zoo and spent time in the Borghese Gardens and one day we ventured to Ostia Antica, a large archaeological site where the kids could climb and explore the ruins and have fresh air and quiet.

The kids ate lots of pizza “Margherita, shared” with the special request “no basilico, cut and Parmesan on the side.” They had that order down. They also found their favorite gelato flavors: limone, lampone, stracciatella, menta (lemon, raspberry, chocolate chip-like and of course mint). After 11 days in Italy, Greg said he couldn’t eat any more gelato – something he never thought he’d say. The kids became so comfortable they led the way much of the time. After someone on a very busy metro pointed out to me that some kids had tried to get into my camera bag, Taylor was quick to calmly grab my bag at the zipper any time she felt it was crowded enough we might be pick pocketed. In short, I think they felt at home by the time we left. But they are certainly looking forward to the next stop: Croatia!

Baths of Diocletian