Italy Part One - Rome + Vatican City

Oh, Italy. I have so many words. I was scrolling through my phone recently for my fine arts class, and I realized that I had never shared this trip here on the blog. I love sharing my adventures with you, and I also love having these recaps on my site for posterity. Recapping Italy will take a few posts because we covered so much. Rome, Tuscany, Sienna, Florence, Venice, and more!

I have to admit, I only had an okay time on this trip, but it wasn’t Italy’s fault. I was five months pregnant at 40 years old, on a choir tour with a bunch of college kids, and my body was just not up to the challenge. Some days were fine, but on others I felt I wasn’t going to make it another 10 minutes before collapsing. Italy is not somewhere you want to travel while pregnant. Italy requires a lot of walking. I averaged 12-13 miles per day. There are no options for Uber or the like. If you want to see it, you have to walk there. Fortunately, the hardest part of the trip was the first three days, and it got easier after that. Rome was by far the hardest on me.

Fresh off the plane with no breakfast or lunch, we headed to the Piazza Navona before walking to the Pantheon.

I absolutely love art and history, so I was definitely in my element.

I was lucky enough to bring along four friends from Newton. Sweet Sonji grew up with Jud, so she knows the Boundses well. She also stopped by our house every night before cancer treatments to bag Jud, be his personal nurse, and fill him with fluids before his clinical trials. I called them my “groupies”, but it was fun to share Bentley’s senior trip with this family.

The Pantheon was built in the 100s A.D. You can appreciate ancient architecture, but this was ANCIENT.

My Uncle Greg spearheaded this trip for his college choir, so naturally I decided to pretend I was a college kid one more time. Spoiler alert: I wasn’t.

The ceiling has this opening where it literally rains into the basilica and drains into floor holes.

My hotel room was smaller than a bunk room on a boat and my head hit the ceiling in the shower, but I had a private room and didn’t complain.

The following day we hit all the Roman highlights. The bus dropped us off, and well, this began the hardest day of all.

Aunt Laura was my seatmate this morning.

We began with the Trevi Fountain then walked down the Spanish steps.

Sonji and Bentley

We walked a very long way over to one of the two things I declared I must see on this trip – the Colosseum.

It really is that incredible to be standing there. All the history.

Baby Judson was the perfect travelling companion.

Following the Colosseum, we ventured to the old Roman Forum.

And up Palatine Hill.

By the end of this day, I truly couldn’t take another step. After limited sleep, we were up and off to the Vatican City.

Uncle Greg was my seatmate this morning. We were dressed in our concert black because our first official performance of the trip was at none other than St. Peter’s Basilica, the largest and oldest church in the world. Most people do not know that Vatican City is another country completely separate from Italy but within Italy’s borders. It is the smallest country in the world.