Roman Holiday...Day 9....The Last Day. :-(

Our last day in Rome involved going to a few places we either hadn't been yet or wanted to go back to.  We had no agenda except for sightseeing and souvenir buying.  

One of the lovely sights on our walk out and about.  This building was completely covered in greenery.  I think it was Wisteria. 

We then headed over by the Vatican to the restaurant, La Veranda, where Josh proposed to me on 10.26.00.  It was such a sweet memory, and I am so glad we were able to be there again.  We would have eaten there, but I had seen some bad reviews that it wasn't what it used to be and we didn't really want to waste our money because it was a pretty expensive place to eat.  We were able to go in while no one was there and get some pictures though.  Hard to believe how far we've come since we were two college aged kids sitting there eating dinner that night.

Outdoor courtyard of the Veranda

Inside the restaurant....so beautiful.

We sat at one of those little round tables there in front.

 We then headed over to the Vatican and St. Peters to get some more pics there as well.  The sky was so beautiful!

And walked back through Piazza Navona

We then went to a church right next to our apartment called the Church of Minerva, I think.  It was much larger on the inside than it looked from the outside.  Josh wanted to see the famous Christ statue that was in there.  Very beautiful church.

The Pantheon

We then found this neat little embroidery store, so Josh bought a hat and had it made into a Modus Studio hat.  Really wish I would have gotten one too because it looks even cuter on me. :-)

We then headed back to the apartment to say our goodbyes to our wonderful apartment host, Giuseppe.  He came by almost every day (when we were there) to check on us.  He was always so kind to give us tips on train travel, places to go, etc.  That evening he was so gracious to even call and arrange for a taxi to pick us up the next morning at our doorstep to take us to the airport!  Super nice guy and if we are ever in Rome again, we will definitely stay at one of his apartments!

Giuseppe and I

 We then headed back out for our last dinner in Rome.  We decided to go back to our little favorite place, "That's Amore".  I got the fettucine alfredo with mushrooms on the side.  Josh got a steak and roasted potatoes.  For dessert, I indulged and got the tiramisu.  Oh. my. word.  It was as wonderful as it looks in this picture.

We then strolled back by the Trevi Fountain.

And enjoyed one last evening sitting at the Pantheon and eating gelato.  

Here's a pic of our little gelato place by the Pantheon.  They were sad to hear that it was going to be our last night there.  :-)

Here are some pics of our apartment....

Of course, we had to get some more modus koozie pics.....

Modus at St. Peter's/Vatican

Modus at the Pantheon

Well, that's about it!  The next morning we got up bright and early and headed to the airport for our long flight back.  Funny story.....as we were walking through the airport in Rome, I hear a voice yell out, "Carrie Siebert?!?".  Would you believe we ran into another couple that we knew from Bentonville!  I really felt like my mom at that point because we are always making fun of her for running into people she knows in the most random of places.  I have to say that I definitely topped her with that one by running into someone halfway across the world! ha!  Still can't believe we ran into you Randy and Valerie,  but it was nice to travel back home with you all! :-)

Wow!  What a trip! So thankful and blessed for the opportunity to go back and for the Lord keeping us and our sweet boys safe while we were gone.  We had so, so much fun and can't wait to go back again!!  Maybe next time the boys will be old enough, and we can take them!  A BIG Thanks to both sets of our parents for watching our precious boys for us while we were gone.  I missed them SO much!  They had a blast though on their vacation, so that made it a whole lot easier knowing they were so well taken care of.  

A piece of my heart will always be in Rome.  It's definitely one of the only places I've been that leaves me longing to go back.  Till next time Rome....

One more thing...
I made a list of my favorite memories of Rome, so I wanted to get these documented as well...
-The smell of the jasmine flowers-
-Even in the big city, still being able to see the stars at night-
-Being able to hear a violinist from our balcony playing classical music in the evening-
-all the beautiful fountains-
-how beautiful the monuments are at night-
-the outdoor cafes-
-hanging out with Josh and being content doing whatever without any schedule-
-eating gelato every night...my favorites were fragola (strawberry), caramel and panna ciacolotto (a chocolate with cream mixed in)-
-all the beautiful window box and balcony displays of flowers-
-how slow time goes while you are there-
-all the history there and the realization that you are in the middle of where so much of it started-
-19 Via Della Pigna (where we stayed)-

Roman Holiday...Day 8...Cinque Terre (part 2)

We woke up in Vernazza that morning and walked around some of the shops.  We then caught a 2 minute train ride to the next town of Corniglia.  We were too tired and sore to walk that part of the trail.  Plus some of it was still closed because of the flooding and mudslides.  The town of Corniglia is set up on cliff side mountaintop.

View of Corniglia from the next town of Manarola

We walked around a little and then stopped at a little cafe that advertised an "American Happy Breakfast" plate.  I was up for a good breakfast, so I got that.  It was ham and eggs on thick sourdough bread with a side of yogurt.  I also ordered a hot chocolate and freshly (and I mean freshly) squeezed orange juice.  The hot chocolate was very different.  It was really thick like pudding and very rich.

the little cafe where we ate

the "Happy Breakfast" :-)

Beautiful fruit trees

looking off the cliff at Corniglia

After spending 1 1/2 hours in Corniglia, we headed back to the train station to catch the train to the next town of Manarola.  The trail between Corniglia and Manarola was completely closed so we had to go by train.  Manarola was a very neat town with a lot of neat shops and very colorful buildings.  Before our trip, I had researched Cinque Terre online so much, so it was still so surreal to me to actually be there looking at these places in person.  

backside of Manarola...a very zoomed in view from Corniglia

The heart of Manarola.

We literally sat on the trail forever just taking in the sight and the sound of the waves.

Josh sat there and sketched the view above for a while.  He got a lot of compliments from passers by. :-)

This scene below just cracked me up when I saw it so I had to take a picture.  

It was the nativity scene on the front porch of this house.  They must keep it up all year.  What was so funny was that on the left side with all the wise men, donkeys, etc., there were dolphins.  That was the first I had ever heard about dolphins coming to see Jesus in a manger.  We got a good laugh out of it. :-)

We then headed on the last stretch of our Cinque Terre trip/hike to the last town of Riomaggiore (it's actually the first town, but remember, we did the trail backwards).  The trail between these two towns is called the Via Dell' Amore which means the "Lovers Walk".  It was the easiest of all the trails.  Very much like a stroll down a winding sidewalk.  Very nice.

The walk is lines with tokens of all the "lovers" who have walked the path.  Most people leave a padlock attached to something along the trail, but we saw scarves, key chains, diapers (yes, gross), Kleenex, bras, you name it.  I had read about this before our trip, so I was prepared with a padlock and had written our initials, the date and our anniversary date on it.

We found a fence on the farthest point out on the cliff of the trail and Josh locked it in place.  I then threw the key into the sea.  Josh made fun of me and called it my "Titanic" moment like when the old lady throws her "heart of the ocean" necklace into the sea....funny, funny Josh. :-) 

Josh putting our lock on the fence

Our lock....on this side it said "JAS + CES  6. 2012"

On the other side it said, "10 years 6.8.02"

This corner  is where our lock is.

The trail.   It literally wound around the edge of the sea.  Beautiful.

As we were walking, we saw this older man and woman out on this rock edge fishing!  You can barely see them in this pic.

After about a 20 minute stroll, we found ourselves in Riomaggiore.  It didn't look anything like what I had seen in pictures, so I was a little confused and disappointed.  We decided to get back on the train and head back up to Manarola.  After waiting for the train for a long while, we finally noticed a pedestrian tunnel next to the train tunnel.  We felt so stupid.  Once we walked through that, I finally saw the Riomaggiore I had seen in pictures!

In this pic, you can barely see Josh.  He climbed down this rock (there was a very rough looking stairway).  In the above picture, you can see this same rock in the distance behind Josh.  In the picture below, Josh is the little speck below the tree.  :-)

Absolutely breathtaking views and colorful boats and buildings.  There were several neat shops too.

On my original plan for this trip, I had wanted to take a boat ride to the different towns, but upon seeing how rough the sea was and then seeing these little wooden row boats that said, "For Rent, no life jackets provided", I decided to pass.  I didn't realize we would have to row ourselves around!  Josh said he was a pretty adventurous guy, but even he wasn't about to do that....way to scary and dangerous!

.

This little guy was enjoying the view with us. :-)

breathtaking

We then decided to head to the train station and get back to the main train station in the town of La Spezia.  We were able to catch an earlier train, but walked around La Spezia for a little bit before we headed back.

La Spezia

La Spezia

On the train ride home, we rode through the town of Carrara.  We could see these tall mountains in the background that looked at first like they had snow on them.  We then realized that it wasn't snow at all, but a marble mining operation.  If you have Italian marble of any type in your home, chances are, it comes from these mountains.  Pretty neat.  

you can kind of see the mountains in the background.

giant blocks of carrara marble

We were then able to get back to Rome in time to hang out at the Pantheon and go to our gelato place there.  I just love our little evenings out in front of the Pantheon.  We got rested up that night so we could be up and ready to spend our the next full day, our last, in Rome. :-(