Rome, the rest of the story

I was thinking I would spare you some of the Rome story... except that I have two things I want to share and then there are others along the way, so you might want to get a drink or snack for this....

Remember, I won this trip?  Well we did go and meet and the sweetest lady with Susan G. Komen Roma and she showed us all around, got us tickets to the VIP tent and then had a photographer take a picture of us with her... The problem with this is that we had been sight seeing and I don't feel we looked that part of the very grateful winners that we are.  We might have looked a little hot and sweaty instead...
She promised to share that picture when she gets it... I can hardly wait...

Speaking of that, I told Jennifer tonight that I took about a million great pictures of her but I must have been on a different trip because I don't think any of the pictures of me were good at all...
I believe that is directly related to the humid hair issues I was having...

But, back to the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure...

This is crowds pouring out of the Metro stop going to the race...It was very impressive...

maybe it wasn't the hair but the cross body purse in every picture that made me look bad...

We wrote the names of our survivor friends on the wall

This is Barbara, the local Komen person...we were just hunting a bottle of water when we decided to check out the VIP tent...little did we know that there was champagne, fancy food, pastries, and even a famous Italian actress in there...
It was a huge crowd, the walk was all through downtown Rome... pretty amazing...

We then hopped on the Metro and a trip through the burbs later we arrived at the Mediterranean Sea...

Jennifer just wanted to put her feet in the water...

We took the train back, where we learned dogs can also take the train... just FYI

A tour of a church decorated with Monk's bones, getting caught in the rain, a little wine and cheese,

a great dessert

                                       and soaking my feet in a bidet brought a close to day three...

Our last day, we headed to Orvieto...

Jennifer needed something a little more than the croissant that morning and found some chicken nuggets for the ride

the view is amazing and this is the most picture perfect town I have ever seen

And the whole town revolves around the Duomo... it is said that this church is so beautiful it will be part of rapture too...

This is the best roasted pork in the world along with a wonderful wine

that we ate at this little cafe... do you see our waitress heading inside?

If I'm ever missing, try here...I've read that no outsiders move to this town other than for short stays... that it is a very closed community... but I'm pretty sure I could worm my way in...maybe I could be the town nurse or something...everyone could visit me under that umbrella...

We grabbed a couple of pastries and left my new favorite town where I want to move and headed back...

I was very sad but we had to do it...

We went to St Peter's Basilica in the late afternoon...

there was a Mass going on back there

We stopped for dinner where I'm pretty sure Franck from 'Father of the Bride' was our waiter...it was the most fun meal we had on the trip!

He offered to take our picture but didn't give me time to change the setting for him so we're a little out of focus...

It was the perfect final meal in Rome...

The whole trip just flew by...

I'm ready to go back...

Come see me in Orvieto when I move...

P.S.

I found out today that Ask.com was the sponser who made our trip possible...

I am very very grateful to them!

Rome - day 2

Let me tell you a little more about my trip to Rome...

When I was talking with the man from Susan G. Komen in Dallas he said that he found out that another woman from Lubbock was also going to walk in the Race for the Cure....
I contacted her and met her for coffee before the trip.
Linda is a breast cancer survivor who loves Rome and has been several times.  She is active with the Komen Race here in Lubbock.  She decided she wanted to go to the walk there and was taking her Aunt with her...

We planned to meet Linda on Sat. morning at her hotel and go from there...
I printed out the map showing the short walk from our hotel to hers.
It looked easy but due to the lack of street signs and such we never found it...
she called me and met us at a corner near the bus stop since we couldn't seem to get there...
as Jennifer said "if I can't read a map at home I'm not sure what made me think I could here..."

We took the bus to the Campo de fiori market and took in all the beautiful fruit, flowers and a few other random things for sale...

I could not believe the fruit and vegetable selection.  There was anything you could think of and more...

they had grapes that were as big as plumbs and one vendor had the cutest tiny strawberries, I had never seen anything like them...

I could only think how wonderful it would be to cook with this selection!  I wish I could take all of it home!

I had read about the zucchini flowers and how they stuff stuff them with cheese and deep fry...I wish I could have found them on a menu somewhere...

I hated to leave this market but we headed to Piazza Navona...

I'm not sure what all the police were doing there...

We left there and headed for the Pantheon....

We sat right in front of the Pantheon for a little snack and coffee... it was just perfect...

The Pantheon was amazing...
amazing that is almost 2,000 years old and still standing...
amazing that they knew how to make the dome so perfect and without supports that long ago...
amazing they are still using it as church...

We headed to another church near by...

Santa Maria Sopha Minerva was a beautiful church with a lot of art and history...

the first thing you notice when you go in is the statue of Our lady of the the Rosary....

It was so beautiful it prompted me to buy a rosary from the little man selling them there...

and also there is Michelangelo's statue of Christ with the cross

did I mention that this is a real Michelangelo?

We headed out for the Metro and went to see the Protestant Cemetery which is behind the

Pyramid of Cestius

Poets Shelly and Keats are buried here....

I love cemeteries... not sure why but I always have...

this crying angel was beautiful... I'd like this on my grave one day please...

Loved this. 

We left the very hot cemetery and headed to the Race for the Cure Village to meet Barbara from Komen Italia and pick up our shirts, etc..

Did I mention it was VERY hot... I had heard the high would be 79 but it felt like 99 with 300% humidity... or at least my hair looked like the humidity was that high the whole time we were there...that heat promted us to enjoy many $4 cokes, water bottles and one afternoon when we found a "slushy" thing I thought we had found the best spot in Rome!

Are you tired of this day yet?  This was the day that seemed to go on forever...and I'm leaving a lot of sights out for you...

We took all our goodies from the race area and dropped them off at the hotel and went to check out the hop on hop off bus and all the sights it had to offer...
We got off at the Spanish steps stop

headed to Trevi Fountain

where we each threw in coins to insure our return to Rome...

and after the best pizza ever we headed home, fell into the hard bed and dreamed of my cappuccino that would be delivered at 7 a.m.....

The rose's Sunday morning were just a beautiful bonus!