#FBF - European Adventure 2014 - Rome Part 1

After returning from our backpacking adventure in September, life got really crazy for me. Because of this, I never shared the pictures from our trip. I thought that I would take the opportunity with "Flashback Fridays" to share them with you now. I'll be breaking up the posts with each city we visited. Today, I take you to Rome, Italy!

Our big adventure started off in Rome. In 2013 we were only able to squeeze in one whirlwind day, however this time we gave it two days for a very specific reason.* The Sistine Chapel.

Originally we had planned our days being consecutive ones, but unfortunately our first planned day in Rome the Vatican Museum wasn't open since it was a Sunday, and it was closed the one day we were there the year before too. I was determined to finally see the Sistine Chapel since I didn't think we would ever make it back to Rome again. So as we finalized our plans for the trip, and realized we would be flying to Greece instead of taking the ferry, we decided to split our two day Rome visit up and come back to it the day before we flew to Greece.

I am so glad we had seen the major sights of Rome the previous year. We landed in Rome at 6:25am this time and let me tell you, we were completely jet lagged. A total mess. We weren't able to sleep on the flight and couldn't check into our hotel until 2:00pm. By the time we went to bed on that first night, we had been awake for over 24 hours.

However, the sunrise we saw from the plane as we landed was worth the early a.m. arrival.

Before we even left the airport, someone had to have a coffee, or should I say, espresso.

Oh my gosh, this trip made me wish I drank coffee. I spent the first few days of our trip a walking zombie.

After the coffee was downed, which took all of two seconds due to the tiny nature of these espresso's, we figured our way to the train to take us into the heart of Rome. Once there, we high tailed it to our hotel to drop off our stuff and freshen up in the restaurant bathroom.

Funny story, while I was in this bathroom I couldn't figure out why it looked so small and different from the previous year. Turns out I went into the men's room. Oopsie! Thank goodness it was a private one. After my sleep deprived mistake, we were off.

To fight off our utmost desire for a bed, we took to walking the streets of Rome in hopes of not falling asleep.

After walking for what felt like miles in the hot Rome sun, we sat down for a minute to rest and tourist watch, but before I knew it this is what I saw...

We eventually pried ourselves off the benches and headed back to the hotel. Once there, we cleaned ourselves up, watched some Italian television and then headed out for dinner.

We had our hearts set on the restaurant we enjoyed so much during our previous trip, sadly they were closed for Holiday. We eventually settled eating at the restaurant across the street as we were tired and starving.

After dinner we rolled ourselves back to the hotel where my eyelids couldn't wait to close. We had an early wake-up call the next morning as we were heading to our next destination, Naples!

*Our second day in Rome will be shared in a future post.