Breath Taking Rome!

Pictures? Yeah, right! It's 11:30 at night, we just got home from 14 hours of touring, our feet are killing us, we had too many mishaps and adventures to recount before bed and we took 367 pictures in one day!!! I will be HOURS downloading all those pictures... it's incredible.

We basically did Rome in one day because we had to rest last night - John wasn't feeling well and we were all exhausted and travel weary... So this morning we got up and left here around 8:30 this morning... found out the trains and buses were all on strike today - horrible, potentially vacation ruining news for us - on our one day to tour, most of Rome's public transportation was on strike. So, we took the one outer limits city train into town and figured - hey - we can walk a couple of hours, see some things, have lunch, then meet our tour guide at the Vatican by 1:30...

Not only did we get lost and back track a few times, we ran VERY short on time... we had to cover double the distance we'd already covered in a little over and hour and Caroline had worn the wrong shoes and had a blister. The streets are all convoluted and the map was mostly useless... but I must say, Rich did get us to the Trevi Fountain AND the Spanish Steps... But then we were stuck. It was either walk to the Vatican, or cancel our tour because no buses and no metro and no taxis were available... actually, taxis might have been available, but with 12 people we'd have needed three of them... so we ended up bartering for a price and hiring two horse drawn carriages at an exhorbitant price that whisked us through the city to the Vatican with time to spare... Jessica sat up front next to the driver and took pictures... she was in heaven!

Until we got to our destination and she began having a severe allergic reaction to the horse hair that had been flying in her face the whole ride. She was having trouble breathing and I had to get some antihistamines and inhalers in her... I had a little bit of benadryl with me but not enough. Of course the pharmacy was closed for siesta or whatever they call it - lunch - from 1-4 so I couldn't get any more medicine without coming all the way back to our apartment... another carriage ride?? .............we nearly quit the whole thing and had to bring her to a doctor or something, but finally the medicine kicked in so it was fine again...

Once we met up with our tour guide everything was FANTASTIC, but it's late and I can't tell you about that now and I can't post any pictures until probably tomorrow... Tomorrow we leave Rome for the Tuscany house. I don't know yet what our internet status will be... We are out in the middle of nowhere so it could be nothing... I hope to be able to post many many pictures....

We love you all and our blisters are happy blisters...