To view pictures from day 9 click here
So today was expose to be the day that Contiki took us the Vatican, but the train broke down leaving Paris, so we didn’t get to Rome until about 2PM. Because I had read someone else blog who took the same trip a few years ago had a similar problem with the train, I bought tickets for a tour for Day 12 so I was covered. But for the other people on the contiki trip who were heading home in a day or 2 they would not be able to see the Vatican (since the next day).
After we took a shower and freshened up out Contiki rep, took us to Trevi Fountain and that was it for her. The rest of us broke up for dinner since we had not eaten since Paris and had dinner. So since we were officially in italy i had to have a pizza. Was pretty good, not a big fan of the little green things though….
After dinner we randomly all met up back at the Trevi Fountain. I threw my 3 coins in to the fountain. I heard so many different version of what the coins are for, but at least one of those coins is to come back to Rome, and another is for love, the other one would change meaning for who ever you asked.
We then as a group decided to walk around Rome, just to see the site. The great thing about Rome is that it is very small city. If you are in downtown Rome, everything you want to see it literally walking distance from you, and the city is a great walking city with most of the small streets being more like large side walks for people to walk than for cars. The first stop after the fountain was the Patheon.
Sadly the Pantheon was closed and being repaired when we went by, but it was still pretty cool to walk past it. We hung around for a little bit and then headed off to Piazza Navona with it three fountains but before we got there we saw this guy. While everyone walked by i stopped and starred at it. Some local came by and explained who he was, but that not why i was looking at it. I saw the holy hand grande!!! Yes i don’t know if it is expose to be part of the statue or not, but in his hand is a painted holy hand grande. The rest of the tour group was like right, but one of the girls knew what i was talking about and went back to take picture of it.
We got to Piazza Navona this is were a bunch of painters and other merchants sell there wares. It is also were we were told the best gelato in Rome was. There were about 3 places with gelato here so we were not sure which one to go to, so we just picked one at random and it was pretty good. And that was pretty much it for the day, we were tired from the long train ride and went back to the hotel room to vegetate.
