July 12 - First full day in Rome

What a day. 9 miles of walking on centuries old cobble stone and crazy unrestricted at main intersections and avenues. Marco sketched out our route, and it was terrific.
Route included:

• Subway to Northwest side of town (above the Vatican)
  
• Walked past the Vatican (tons of street vendors and people waiting in lines). Looked like Disneyland except it was papal stuff for sale everywhere. Only took about 20 minutes to get out of that mess.
• Visited Castle St Angelo on the Tiber River, then crossed over to an old ruin (100BC) that existed of 4 sites, one of which Caesar was killed. It was very close to a crazy intersection where many others have been killed in recent years.
  
• Hiked along the river for a while, connected to Piazza del Popolo. This was an early 'gated Entrance' to the city. Very active place ...
• Took side street to the Spanish Steps. This is a street of very exclusive shops (Gucci, Chanel, Armani, etc.).
  
• Then on to the Trajan Column (carved history) of the Dacian campaign AD103 in presen day Romania. Since Marco is Romanian, this is significant to his heritage.
• On to Victor Emmanuel Monument (... Italy's first king)
  
• Then to the Pantheon. Got a great 360 pic inside this amazing structure. Construction began in BC and was left alone by the barbarians as it became a church dedicated to the martyrs just after the fall of Rome.

Stopped at several little cafes to snack, and had dinner at an outside restaurant where we ordered pizza, spaghetti (with varied cheeses), and a local wine. Our server was aspiring to become a marathoner. One of his other jobs is a 'running tour guide' which is apparently becoming very popular. Unfortunately he couldn't keep up with us so we shared some of our training secrets :)

Found a great Internet-Telephone shop, so called our wives (15 cents/minute).

Returned by dark and Marco had another computer question on installing DVD software for his computer. My Italian is getting better by the hour. In exchange for services I am able to transfer all our pics from the cameras onto Flash drives and update this Blog. He's off to the movies with a friend, so we'll hold the fort down.

More fun planned for tomorrow --- Rome T&F meet at the stadium. Eric --- thanks for letting us bring Bowermans book over here. It's worth the extra weight and we're getting pumped for the meet.

Picture's of the Day:

1. Traffic Jam

2. Steve beside typical car (called a SmartCar)

3. Trevi Fountain

4. Trajan Column (imagine carving this. Much like a totem pole)

5. Lots of scooters ...