The Meier's German Adventure

This morning we woke up and rode the metro to Vatican City. We entered the Holy See and were awestruck already - we were at the Vatican! St. Peter's Square was beautiful. 140 statues of saints designed by Bernini decorated the colonnade. Once we soaked this in we immediately headed for the famous Dome of St. Peter's. The first part of the ascent takes you to an upclose view of Michelangelo's dome from the inside. It is 53 meters above the basilica floor and gives you a quick peek at Bernini's baldacchino. The next part of the climb goes between the two superimposed round vaults which make up the dome. When you come out onto the balcony you are rewarded with an unforgettable panorama of the Eternal City. It was beautiful.

Overlooking the forum. After we explored the Forum, we found a great restaurant on our walk back to the hotel. It was only 4:30 in the afternoon so we were very early by Italian standards and we had the restaurant to ourselves - yum! From dinner we strolled back to hotel and picked up some wine to enjoy before we all got some much needed sleep.

Walking around the Roman Forum. Once you walk out of the coliseum, you are directly at the Roman Forum. In Roman times, this was the center of civic and economic life. There is so much to look at here! Everything here is something of significance from the Arch of Titus, the House of the Vestal Virgins(the Roman Empire's princesses), the immense Basilica of Maxentius, and the Temple of Julius Caesar. It was so cool that you have access to everything! There were so many pieces of columns just laying around everywhere. The Forum is still undergoing archaeological digs to this day. Its unbelievable to think that until the 18th century all of this was buried! It sits well below today's current street level. To put it all in a strange perspective, Dad casually mentioned that when the castles in Germany were just being built, this area was already 1000 years old - cool.

The Coliseum was awesome! We were all very impressed. We explained to the kids that this has been around for almost 2000 years. Started in 72 a.d. Plain old 78. Still hard to comprehend as an adult. We walked throughout the inside of the coliseum, both the upper and lower areas. Kailtyn was very excited because she counted 3 cats just hanging out on the floor of the coliseum. This was only our first stop and it already made up for waking up at 3 am to catch our flight!

We went to Italy! Today we all got up very early and flew down to Rome! We even managed to do a little sightseeing form the plane before we landed! The flight offered a beautiful view of the Alps and just before landing in Rome, Scott and Grandma and Grandpa were able to see some of the ancient aqueducts from their window. We checked into our little Italian hotel by 11 am and immediately set out exploring. Our first stop - of course, was the Roman coliseum. After seeing it for years in pictures and movies it was unbelievable to actually be there and to touch it!