Bus Tour Around Rome!

We took quite awhile getting up and ready this morning so we didn't leave Makenna's place until about 11:30. She and her roommates have a favorite restaurant that's right outside their apartment so she took us there. She said that it has really good, cheap pizza, but Heidi and I didn't think 7 Euros was that cheap. The pizza was good, not fantastic, but I was hungry. We enjoyed our lunch and shared a huge bottle of water. Something I don't like about eating in Italy is that they charge you a fee for dining in. I think it was about 1.5 or so for each person! That's crazy. Lauren met up with us and we all headed out to get on a bus tour.

The one Makenna wanted us to do (that was only 8 Euros) was only doing tours of the Catacombs that day. So instead we got on another bus that was 16 Euros. At least on this one we could get on and off at the various stops as we wanted. It was already cold outside, but we decided to sit on the top so we could get better pictures! We all had headphones that we were supposed to plug in. It was kind of boring, but there was so much to look at that it didn't really matter.

The first stop we made was at the Church of Santa Maria. This is where the Mouth of Truth (Bocca del Verita) is. We each took our turn putting our hand in the mouth. The legend goes that if a liar puts his hand in the mouth, it will be bitten off. But now the mouth refuses to work because it was tricked many years ago. A suspicious husband who thought his wife was cheating brought her to put her hand in and it drew a big crowd. Suddenly, a man jumped out from the crowd and kissed her. It is believed to be her lover, but he was made out to be a crazy person. When she stuck her hand in she said that she had never been kissed by anyone other than her husband and this other crazy man. Her hand was not bitten. But the Mouth of Truth was upset by this trickery and has refused to work since. We took a walk around the church and even saw the skull of St. Valentine. Across from the church was the Temple of Hercules. There wasn't any information to tell us about it, but I found out that according to legend, as he was passing through Rome on his return from stealing the cattle of Geryon, the monster Cacus made off with a few cattle and hid them in a nearby cave. Hercules located them and slue the monster Cacus. To celebrate his victory over Cacus he made a sacrifice of some of the bulls at or near this site. It was a Greek temple and I think one of the only round temples in Rome.

Our second stop was the Vatican. How beautiful! We thought that they charged to get in everywhere, so we didn't even go into the Basilica. I guess that's the only problem with traveling places for the weekend on a tight budget. You pass up going to different things so that you can save money or there are many things that you just don't have time to see. But there were so many people in line it probably would have taken us quite awhile to get inside. We found a place that was selling 20 postcards for 1 Euro so of course we had to buy them! Then something I've been waiting to see happened. There are tons of people selling purses, watches, sunglasses etc. all over the place. I've seen them walking around with their huge bags, but never saw them get busted by the police. As we were buying the postcards, the police pulled up and all of the "illegals" started running all over the place. Some of them dropped a few purses in the street and the police came up and kicked the purses out of the way. My favorite was watching the ones who were a little slower try to sneak past the police. Nobody was arrested, it was just really funny watching them scurry all over the place.

My favorite stop was the one we made at the Trevi Fountain. It was so pretty! There were SO many people there, though. We found a nice place to stand off to the side where there weren't quite as many people. Heidi and I threw our coins in together, but when we flipped them over our shoulders the first time, they didn't go in the fountain! It was so funny and thankfully Makenna got a video of it! We took quite a few pictures and then headed out. There were even guys dressed as Roman gladiators. Good thing I didn't ask them to take a picture or they would have charged me!

Makenna had been telling us about a realling good gelateria that was nearby. On our way there we decided to walk through the mall to warm up a bit. We found a Lindt choclate store and each got a few pieces. Then we made our way to get gelato at Giolitti. I had never thought about getting banana gelato before, but Makenna and Lauren said it was really good. They said that if it is brown, then you know it's fresh. I got that, Straticella and cheesecake. SO yummy!!! Heidi and I couldn't believe how good it was! One of the flavors she got was cantaloupe and it tasted just like it! I could have stayed there and eaten gelato all day long!

We headed back to Makenna's and made pasta again. We also made a little guacamole and had that with chips and salsa. Christina (from the IBC Conference) came over and ate with us. Then we waited for Lauren to get back from dinner and we watched 'The Holiday.' I love that movie! Now I'm totally in the mood for Christmas! We had talked about taking a walk to the Colloseum, but were so tired that we just couldn't do it!