The eternal city! What a beautiful trip it was!

Hitting off some of the big Italian cities is part of our bucket list as we near the end of our time here in Sicily. Rome has been one we’ve been looking forward to. Patrick’s family was coming to visit for a few weeks, so we met them in Rome for a few days before heading down to Sicily.

We only spent 3 days in Rome, and it definitely wasn’t enough! There is so much to see and do! While we did have a lot of rain, it was still an amazing trip. 

First off, the Vatican Museum. This is where the Sistine Chapel is located. We initially were supposed to do a tour… but… we were like 10 minutes late and they left without us. We still got to have our breakfast right inside the Vatican, which was delicious, and then wander through ourselves. The kids could care less about the famous art work… but were totally fascinated by the real mummies located within. 

To be honest, with kids, the DIY version we did, and quasi following along with the Rick Steves Europe Audio Guide (you can download his free app) was totally amazing and sufficient. If we didn’t have kids with us, a nice long tour would be fascinating… but.. it ended up working out perfect for us without a formal tour.

We came back at night to see St. Peter’s Basilica all lit up. They just so happened to be having a tree lightening ceremony there, too. Just gorgeous. You could spend days and days wandering through all of The Vatican, the Basilicas, the shops and the history of Rome! 

The next day was Sunday, and since it was the first Sunday of the month, admission to the Colosseum was free. To be honest, I would have paid EXTRA just to skip the line, but, it worked out well in the end. It’s incredible how much history the Colosseum and all of Rome have. How much of history, engineering, etc that we do all of the world comes from right there. Did you know that actually very little time was spent doing the “roman gladiator” type activity that we think of? Instead, most of the Colosseum was used for education and entertainment. For ALL of the people of rome. It’s really pretty amazing. If we had more time, I would have done a family-friendly tour through the Colosseum with the company Joy of Rome.

That night we wandered other sites like the Trevi Fountain, Spanish Steps, and the famous shopping area. Here is where Teagan was treated like royalty in Prada and opened a whole new world of fashion for her.  

On our last day, we visited the Pantheon. The Pantheon to me was almost more awe-inspiring than the Colosseum. That fact that it was built around 25 BC, and it still remains fully intact today… WOW! 

We stayed at this cute little Air B&B style apartment I found on Booking.com called the Spanish Steps Miracle Suites. And it was seriously perfect for our family of 8. And while there is a great public transportation system in northern Italy (unlike down here in Sicily) we opted for using mostly Ubers. A little more pricey, but worth the cost for us. 

Overall, would HIGHLY recommend a stop in Rome. With kids, we scaled back the history of our trip and enjoyed lots of gelato, long dinners with lots of pasta, and wandering the old streets looking for hidden toy stores. 

We are not sure how much longer we are going to continue to do our PenPalz as our time here in Italy might be coming to an end in the coming months, but we will keep you posted!