Fall Break Part I: The Eternal City

The kids' two-week (!) fall break from school just ended.  This is the first of three posts about our fall break adventures, which started with four days in Rome.

Inside the Colosseum

Arch of Constantine

Palatine Hill (where the Emperors lived)

With our guide, Guiseppe, at the Roman Forum

Walking up to the Pantheon

(Ami is in jeans and Matthew is in red pants)

We finished off the day with a run in the Circus Maximus, where the chariot races were held.  Well, the kids ran.  Mark and I walked.

And that was just day one!

On our second day, we visited Rome 3-D, an interactive museum near the Colosseum.

We'd fit right in to ancient Rome

The gladiator's life is spared!

Eating gelato (which we did a lot of in Italy) in front of a fountain at Santa Maria Maggiore

Learning how to be a gladiator at Gladiator School

Hanging out at Trevi Fountain

Whew!  That was a long day!  Onto day three.

We started day three visiting the catacombs.  No photographs allowed.

In the afternoon, we took the bus to another country: Vatican City.

Mark and the boys outside St. Peter's Basilica

Waiting on line to get through security at St. Peter's--where they confiscated my Swiss Army knife!  UGH!

Actually, rather than confiscate it, they allowed me to hide it under a garbage can near the security scanning machines.

Would it still be there after our visit?

Swiss guard posted outside St. Peter's Basilica.

He wasn't impressed that we were from Switzerland.

The knife was still there!  Yay!

Day four and it is time to leave Rome.  But there was still one more site on our list:  Michelangelo's Moses, which was located in a church (San Pietro in Vincoli) just up the street from our hotel.

We headed for the train station thinking that was the end of our Rome adventure, but at the station we encountered a loud demonstration, which we think (based on Google Translate) was a demonstration by railway workers involved in a contract dispute.

Arrivederci, Roma!