Roma, Day I

Well, this is quite overdue for an update, so here goes, my trip to Roma, to be followed by my trip to Firenze, and finally Paris.

My trip to the great city of Roma began very early in the morning, catching the 4:50 a.m. Train from Freiburg to Basel, took a connection from there to Milan, and a second connection from Milan to Roma. The train ride was nice enough, and comfortable enough that I got a little sleep. We arrived in Roma somewhere around 2:30 in the central station. Thankfully our hostels were relatively nearby, five minute walks each, so we didn't have far to travel with all of our bags. Packing for an extended trip isn't fun, but I stuffed all my clothes in a big travel bag and it worked out well. For getting to Roma at 2:30, we managed to see quite a lot.

We grabbed a quick lunch at a little pizza restaurant near Sara's hostel before we began the day. We decided to walk from the train station to the major sites of the city. We walked by the Republic Place and saw several fountains, all of which were really nice. It's weird seeing elaborate sculptures and statues in the middle of the street. Our main destination of the walk were the Spanish steps, and we ended up coming upon them from the top of them. Right near them, though, we saw an old church that we peaked in and got to witness a Mass being recited in Latin, which is something I've always wanted to see.

The Spanish Steps are quite an interesting place. I would have enjoyed them even more if it weren't for the very awkward event that caused us to hurry down them in embarrassment. A man came up to Sara as we began to walk down the stairs and told her she was very pretty while handing her a rose. He continued to to follow us, giving Sara a total of three roses and telling me how lucky I am. It's weird to travel alone with Sara, simply because everyone will pretty much assume that you're a couple. To have a man give her roses and tell me how lucky I am was just too much awkwardness. But oh well, we survived.

After the Steps, we made our way around the city, seeing some mausoleum and seeing the Pantheon, which unfortunately is half-covered in scaffolding (a trait common to nearly every single structure that you'd like to see in Europe) and was closed at the time. We finally made it to the Trevi Fountain, which was where Sara really wanted to go. It's quite a beautiful fountain, and the illumination at night made it even more so. It made for a good ending for our first night in Roma. We got dinner at a little Italian restaurant where I got delicious salmon pasta. We then made our way back to our hostels and called it a night. Not a bad first day at all.