Its difficult to put the feeling into words, but the culture, history, language and people of Italy are just so vibrant and lively. I have loved all the places we have spent time in and traveled to, but there was just something different here that really excited me. Old buildings and history really took on a new meaning this trip and overall our general feeling was small and insignificant. A real change in perspective.
Neat maps of Rome throughout history.
The colosseum. Too crowded for our liking so we went to the Palatino instead. It was a really nice place to walk around and see much of the ruins close up from an ancient neighborhood containing homes, marketplace, prisons, etc.
I developed a bit of a poppy obsession here and thought it was so cool how they were popping up amongst all the ruins.
This is the shot I was trying to take, but wasn't tall enough to get what I was going for (thanks, Scott)
After the whole morning walking through Rome this little girl was tuckered out. We grabbed a little lunch from a street vendor and an ice cold banana from a fruit cart and headed back to the hotel. It was nice being right in the middle of the city so we could come back for a nap and escape the heat of the afternoon without having to be done for the day.
Off to the Fontina di Trevi and as I promised...gelato. Morgan chose melon and kiwi and mine was raspberry and lemon. Yum. We'll just say I promised it to her to be nice and reward her for being an amazingly good sport, not because that's what I've been looking forward to since we decided on the trip. Both are equally good reasons. Even though dad didn't want his own Morgan was very concerned for him not having any and nicely shared hers.
The Area Sacra. Morgan spotted a little cat taking a nap down in the ruins and insisted we take a picture (I'm pretty sure this was also thanks to Scott from the vertically challenged).
Meanwhile what we were there to see.
Morgan had a great vacation for many reasons, but she got SO much attention on our trip she didn't know what to do with herself. It seemed like we couldn't walk down a street without hearing "ciao bella" at the very least, sometimes people stopping to talk to her. The most extreme though was our experience at dinner. We stopped at a little place called L' Arcano on our way back to the hotel. Morgan immediately charmed not just the waiter, but the entire staff. Towards the end of our dinner the waiter came up to Morgan and whisked her away to the back where for quite some time being passed around and hugged on. He came back out empty handed and told us she wasn't ready yet. Finally she came out with this nice lady, chocolate in hand and a huge smile.
On another note traveling with a toddler is an experience of its own, but we have come to love it. I'm sure if we'd had the chance we might have considered leaving Morgan behind to enjoy this fun trip more fully, but mostly I love having her with us. She is quite used to us dragging her all over the place for long days with no naps, walking and taking her to all kinds of places that probably aren't all that fun to her. Somehow though through all of it there is always a moment when she really makes you think from a different perspective. I'm thinking, wow, I'm in Rome, surrounded by ruins of building built thousands of years ago and what does Morgan get excited about...the sleeping kitty. It just makes it that much more special.
