A Roman Holiday?.. Rome Part 3

Read Part 1
Read Part 2

Well, I had two witty titles for the first two parts.. and I couldn't think of another particularly good one for the third, so referencing Roman Holiday is the best I could do. If any of you readers out there have any suggestions for a better, witty, yet slightly cheesy title, please feel free to leave a comment.

I must admit, I've been very slow to get this last post up, as things have been busy with studies and traveling over our break. Although this post is written much after the trip, I've back-dated it for the purpose of keeping the post labeled under "October", which is when the trip happened, so it makes more sense. In any case, back to our final day in Rome..

We got up that morning with our usual routine, except we packed up all our things, and placed them in storage at the hostel we stayed at, so we didn't have to drag our bags with us. (Very convenient!)

So we started off around 10 to make our way towards Trevi Fountain, or Fontana di Trevi in Italian. We took the metro again, and after resurfacing still needed to walk a little bit. On the way we passed another, smaller fountain depicting King Triton.

After a short time, we found the Trevi Fountain, and it was quite the sight! Not to mention, it was crowded by a ton of people. Of course, that was expected, as this was a pretty touristy thing to see. Nevertheless, we all got down by the fountain and took pictures by it. Story has it, that the fountain was named "Trevi" after a woman who apparently showed thirsty Roman soldiers the spring that it is built on top of. It is guessed that the female figure featured on either side of the fountain is supposed to be Trevi. Now, the other thing about the fountain is that you throw a coin in it, and make a wish. Supposedly, depending on the number of coins you throw in (1, 2, or 3) will determine what type of love you will find, when, and how strong it is, with 3 being of course something like falling in love and getting married in Rome!

Next, we made our way to the famed Spanish Steps. Again, another very touristy type of thing, but one of those sites that you have to see. Granted, the steps were very nice. One of the more interesting things we did see there were people holding signs that said "Abbracci Gratis" on one side, and "Free Hugs" on the other.

After having fun at the steps, we started to look for some lunch, and actually found a Hard Rock Cafe! Okay, yes, totally a tourist trap.. and how much more American can you get than a Hard Rock Cafe? Honestly, though.. the giant BBQ Cheddar Bacon Cheeseburger was totally worth it. We can indulge once in a while, right?

It was now early afternoon, and with the day running short, we decided to try to make it to wherever we could, and so on the way was the Pantheon. The Pantheon is a construction marvel of it's day, and one of the best kept ruins in Rome. It originally of course served the purpose of being a temple for Roman gods, but many, many years later was reintroduced by a Pope as Santa Maria ad Martyres. It was built around the new time of the common era, and was re-done right around 115 A.D., where a dome made entirely of concrete was put on top. As to how this was done so long ago, people are still amazed.

Our final stop for the day was at piazza which featured a large number of individual artists, most selling original works of theirs to anyone interested. There was a fountain there as well, but unfortunately it was under repair. But there was plenty of bustling going on, including a man who was doing juggling tricks on a unicycle and accepting donations for his performance. A few of us who bought some nice little pieces of art, as well. (Myself not included.. although I did get some gelato.)

Well, that was about it for our trip! All that was left was to get our things from the hostel, and head to the train station so we could ride back to Florence. Although, we did get a little worried because we couldn't find a train to Florence listed on the electronic board at the Rome train station, and the train numbers weren't listed, either. Luckily, we figured out soon enough that the train to Bologna actually passed through Florence, so we simply got on that one. (Phew!)
From there it was a smooth ride back on a really nice EuroStar train, and we made it into our apartment around 11 PM.

We were pretty tired, but we had a really fun 3 day trip!

Photos from Around Rome
Photos from the Trevi Fountain
Photos from the Pantheon
Photos from the Spanish Steps