The Eternal City

In addition to the gelato and the pizza and the tomato sauce, there are a few other reasons everyone should put visiting Italy on their bucket list. First stop, Rome (Florence and Venice will follow). So why visit the Eternal City?

1. These amazing places straight out of history are right in the middle of the city (along with a whole bunch of other stuff that's been around for a few thousand years):

 

 

 

 

 

 

2. If those aren't old enough for you, you can take a drive out to Ostia and relax in the ancient sauna, just like your thousand-times-great-grandfather did:

 

 

3. There are lots of statues of naked men:

4. If you're ever bored, you can just find a busy intersection and watch in awe at how well having no traffic laws can work. People just go when they want, stop when they want (which isn't often), yield to the Vespas if they feel like it, yield to the oncoming bus if they feel like it, and generally just embrace mass chaos. It's fascinating.

5. You can actually visit all those places you see in the movies:

 

 

6. And then you can turn around and see all the other people who are visiting the places they've seen in the movies: 

7. Where else can you learn firsthand that Michelangelo really was a genius (well, other than Florence, which we'll get to in the next post)? Those art history books don't do his works justice. And you can't get a sense of the grandeur of the Vatican, specifically St. Peter's basilica, until you've walked inside it. (So of course I'll show you a picture that just proves my point.)

So while I'll admit that Rome didn't make it to my list of favorite cities in the world, I loved the mix of old and new, the energy of the people, and the sense of walking through history. Definitely a once-in-a-lifetime experience.