Wow is about all I can say! What an amazing blessing our family had. David and Jan gave our family a trip to Italy with Adventures by Disney over Christmas break to celebrate our 40th birthdays! We were so excited and thankful for their generosity.
We picked the girls up at lunchtime on their last day of school (Wed, Dec 19). We ate a quick bite at Chick-fil-a, came home to change clothes and finish a few things around the house, and then Papa picked us up at 3 to head down to the airport. We boarded just before 5, and we took off a couple of minutes after 6. We were on our way! We were super excited to have first class seats on this ride. We all happily set up with plenty of space around us.
We each enjoyed snacks and dinner on the plane, and then since it was an overnight flight, it was time to try and get some sleep. These are the lay flat seats, so that certainly helped.
We all managed to get several hours of sleep in which was very helpful. We were glad to safely land about 9 AM.
We were picked up from the airport and driven about an hour away to our hotel. With a 6 hour time difference, it was really tempting to climb into bed, but we knew we needed to press on for the day. We decided the first order of business was to get lunch, so we Ubered over to a restaurant where we all enjoyed some delicious pizza and pasta. It was a great way to start our trip! We wanted to stay out and about, and thankfully it was a gorgeous day, so we walked just down the road until we arrived at the Colosseum. We knew we'd visit with our tour group in the next couple of days, so we just walked around it and marveled at the size. Both girls love Latin, so they were already pretty familiar with a lot of the cool history they were seeing. It's awesome when history comes alive!
Arch of Constantine by the Colosseum.
After leaving this area, we turned and walked to the ancient Roman Forum. It was so neat to think about the lives of people who would have walked through this area in its heyday.
We had hoped to visit the Mamertine Prison at the end of the Forum since that's where Peter and Paul were kept when they were sent to Rome, but unfortunately, it was temporarily closed.
We kept walking along and came upon some beautiful statues.
We also saw the "Wedding Cake" monument to Victor Emmanuel II. We decided not to pay the extra fee to walk inside the gate and stand at the foot of it.
By this point we were all starting to get worn down. We decided to head on back to the hotel where we went the easy route and ordered a small room service while we all unpacked, showered, and just wound down. By 9 PM, we had all fallen fast asleep.
None of us woke up until our alarms went off at 9 AM the next day. We apparently needed the sleep! We ate a little bit of breakfast and then went to the hotel lobby to meet our Adventure Guides: Korey and Miki. They seem great! Korey has been with Adventures since their very first tour; he's from Utah. Miki has been with them several years now. She's from Italy which is wonderful; she has the language down and lots of history and knowledge to share. They gave us lots of tips on things to do on our free day before we met up with them and the rest of the group for dinner.
We started by hiking up the road to a beautiful overlook of the city. We were so thankful for another gorgeous day.
We then took Miki's advice and walked down the Tiber River to the Travestevere neighborhood.
We loved eating at this tiny local restaurant where we selected the type and amount of pizza we wanted along with paninis. Lily also discovered her love of orange Fanta here; she had it with almost every meal. This meal was SO GOOD.
Of course, we then took the opportunity to introduce the girls to real Italian gelato. Oh yeah, this was a good call!
Fun finds on our stroll.
Around mid-afternoon we made our way over to Vatican City to visit Saint Peter's. Even though Ryan and I have been here before, we had forgotten the magnitude and beauty of this cathedral. The way the sun shone through to light up the inside was really quite stunning. We enjoyed taking our time walking through each of the areas, including the catacombs.
Michelangelo's famous "Pieta" is absolutely stunning.
We had to stop and watch the Swiss Guards for a couple minutes along with admire this beautiful fountain on our way out.
We headed on back to the hotel and cleaned up for dinner. We were eating in the hotel dining room that evening, and we were seated with another family who were nice to meet; they had been on an Adventures trip before and spoke very highly of it. We went around the room to introduce ourselves. This seems like a nice group! At the end of the evening, the staff brought out these yummy little desserts to those of us who were celebrating birthdays. How fun!
Korey and Miki also gave us our first pins this evening. These are the trading pins that you see all over Disney World, and we would collect a new one each day. Getting a new pin for the lanyard actually became a fun little part of each day!
What a great beginning to our Adventure!
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