Smile with the Rising Sun: Off Again

Aug 28th, this means we have been in Greece for 12 days, guess that means we are off to another country.

This little girl is very excited!

She was used to our international flights and every time a flight attendant walked by said "It's food time!" and "where my movies?". Sorry baby, the flight isn't even 2 hours, no movies or food.

We landed in Rome and had 24 hours to explore before we got on our cruise ship.

We dropped off our bags at the apartment we rented for the night and whipped out Rick Steves' Mediterranean Cruise Ports book and pulled up his Heart of Rome Walk. Since the metro station was able to drop us off near the Spanish Steps, we did the walk in reverse.

Unfortunately the Trevi Fountain was under construction but it was still amazing.

We walked through a shopping building, Cross Via del Corso, it was simply breathtaking.

Up next was the Pantheon. Everything about it was amazing, the square that it was in was full of people and good music.

I was very happy that we brought the carrier for our little lady, it was a LOT of walking on this trip. But she was in a very Mommy mode, and I must have carried that girl over countless miles and in three different countries. OUCH did my back hurt by the end of the week.

After the kids had walked through a lot of old Rome we decided that Rick Steves' was right, everyone needs to stop in Giolitti's, Rome's most famous gelateria. Everyone got a cone of gelato, it was pretty amazing. Sean and I agreed, Charlotte's ability to choose ice cream based on color has somehow made her the ice cream savant, she always ends up with the best one. This time she had black cherry since it was purple in color, and it was amazing.

After our little gelato break, it was off to the Four Rivers Fountain.

We stopped for a few minutes to watch street performers in the Piazza Navona before walking to Pizzeria da Baffetto 2 for dinner. After spending a year in DC and the high cost for everything, a lot of laughter happens over the tabs for restaurants and taxis. Our dinner only ended up being about 30 euro; an appetizer and 3 pizzas later. We had fun enjoying Roman-style thin crust pizza before getting a taxi back to the apartment.

We didn't get much sleep that night since we didn't think the A/C was working. We got a good laugh the next morning when we found the remotes for the A/C in the other room. Lots of laughs and learning have been happening in the past few weeks.

The morning brought a neighborhood cafe for a snack, and more laughs, the kids DO NOT like the water in Rome, it's served with gas! LOL, bubbles in water aren't their thing.

Our ride was going to take us to the ship later, so we walked our bags to the office of the lady we rented the apartment from and started our walk to the Colosseum. It was a lot of walking but at least it wasn't too hot yet. It was also great to discover that for sites like the Colosseum, you don't have to pay for kids!

Ryan really liked the pictures that showed how the arena floor worked with the platforms and trap doors.

Hard to get one family photo, so guess we are settling for family pictures in two parts. :)

These crazy kids liked the benches that were around the second platform of the arena.

After the Colosseum we walked back up for lunch at a local restaurant. Two themes of this trip; me carrying Charlotte with her falling sleep, and amazing food!

After lunch we ran to get our bags then catch our ride to the port. Next stop, All Board the MSC Divina. This ship is amazing! It was only built in 2012 and already "refurbished" once.