ROME

Our first night - Piazza Navona

It was a perfect night to eat outside - guitar player serenading us

 Famous Spanish steps - Trinita dei Monti church at the top.  This is the widest stairway in Europe

 Villa Borghese - Park in the northern part of Rome

 National Monument to Victor Emmanuel II is a monument built to honor Victor Emmanuel, the first king of a unified Italy.  Locals hate it and refer to it as "the wedding cake"

 Pantheon - means "to every god", built 126AD as a temple to all gods

 The oculus - 2,000 years later it's still the worlds largest unreinforced concrete dome.

 Trevi Fountain - legend holds that if visitors throw a coin into the fountain, they are ensured a return to Rome...we all threw one in

 Ancient ruins

 Look familiar? This is what the Arc de Triomphe in Paris is modeled after

 Colosseum - contruction started in 72 ADcan hold 50,000 people

 Pretty amazing inside....

 Vatican Museum - St Peter's Basilica famouns

 The Vatican - had a great walking tour

 Inside Vatican Museum

 Inside St Peter's Basilica - largest interior of any Christian church in the world. 

 Visitors who come to the Basilica traditionally touch and kiss Saint Peter's foot, it is literally worn thin. In the Middle Ages pilgrims who reached Rome, touched and kissed the foot of the statue and prayed to St. Peter asking that he be merciful and open the gates of heaven for them if they died during the pilgrimage. Dad didn't kiss it, but rubbed it!

 Outside in St Peter's square