Ancient Rome

Saturday, June 11

I don't know when I will be able to post this. Yesterday I was just too tired when we drug ourselves home from a very full day. And today...well, I will get to that.

Saturday we had ancient Rome as our theme. We started with the colosseum. The line to get in was the longest I had ever seen. We didn't have a fast pass, an hour later, we wouldn't have needed one anyway. I guess we hit when all the other groups arrived. The ticket included both the forum and the Palatine, so we filled our day with ruins. We spent a lot longer than we anticipated

Then the day got really interesting. I had hoped to make it to the three basilicas in the late afternoon. Well, didn't happen. I don't know exactly the sequence of events, but there was a gay rights parade that somehow got between us and the subway we needed to get on to get to Saint Paul's outside the Walls. And it was a big parade...rumor had it that Lady Gaga was leading it. I wouldn't know her if I saw her, but the kids said she wasn't in the parade, but there was a lot of her music blaring. Once most of the parade passed, an hour later, and the marchers thinned out, we joined the parade and let it carry us diagonally across the block to the subway station. I took pictures of Connor and Ryan...just in case I need fodder for blackmail! The parade was tame enough I didn't have to sprinkle them with holy water because of close proximity. The kids said it was the most fun they had. They liked Lady Gaga. At least it got the dancing out of their system. I guess the colosseum has seen many sights and this just another in its long history!

We did make it to the subway, finally, but by the time we got to St. Paul's it had closed. So we headed back to the Piazza del Popolo. There were a lot of interesting sights on the subway as the parade was over and the marchers headed back from whence they came...lots of glitter. From the Piazza del Popolo we spread out for dinner, window shopped the best shopping streets in Rome and had dinner. We met at Triniti de Monti, on the top of the Spanish Steps. By the time we reached home all the gelato shops were already closed. Bummer. I needed a sugar fix after the day we had.