Good-bye Rome, Hello Paris

Colin and I discovered a couple of things while in Italy:  1. pizza, pasta, and gelati here is the most delicious we've ever had, and 2. we hate tourist-y areas with huge crowds and price gouging.

When in Rome, we didn't really do as the Romans...we did the tourist thing and visited all the must-see places.  Looking back, we probably should have taken the time to get out of the tourist-central area that is pretty much all of Rome.  The crowds, the aggressive peddlers, the price gouging, and the generally terrible service has really left a bit of a sour taste in our mouths. 

This is really an expensive city unless you know where to look, but even then it's still a bit on the expensive side.  Most restaurants you go to (especially near the tourist attractions) will charge you a mandatory service charge of anywhere between 10-15%, or a cover charge of about 2 Euro per person.  Plus if they give you bread, it's another 2 Euro per person. 

We also don't know what it is about our experience in Italy with service in general, but about 2/3 of the time it's been horrible.  For example, the reps at the service counter at the train stations have consistently been rude to us even though we've been completely courteous.  Many restaurants we've been to, the servers have looked at us like we were inconveniencing them in some way.  We've come to the conclusion that either Italians are not so hospitable, or they're just sick of the crazy amounts of tourists that come through every day.  We're hoping it's more the latter.

On a nicer note, the architecture in Rome is amazing.  It's difficult to believe the age of some of their structures and monuments because they're so well preserved.  The streets are so much cleaner than in Naples, and also much easier to maneuver than Venice.  The tour guides here in Italy are regulated and must be licensed in order to work, so we've found the prices for tours is one thing that isn't overpriced.  In fact, well worth the money at usually 8 Euro per person plus the entrance fee.

We visited the coliseum on Tuesday and were awestruck at how massive it was, and to think it was all built by hand...brick by brick.  Our ticket to the Coliseum got us into the Palatine on Wednesday which was where the Romans lived and worked.  It was basically just wall after wall of brick and stone ruins with marble columns interspersed.  Maybe we've done too much sightseeing, but we're feeling like everything is starting to look the same.  This 2,012-year-old brick wall looks just like that 2,027-year-old brick wall, which looks just like those 1,976-year-old brick walls over there.  It's really great that they're still in existence, but it's just so difficult to appreciate its importance when you're crammed into crowds and crowds of tourists, pushing and shoving.  It is crazy how sophisticated the architecture was thousands of years ago though.  Thursday we visited Vatican--the world's smallest sovereign state.  The art is just absolutely amazing.  It's unbelieveable the amount of money the church must have spent on everything.

We had rainy weather the first day in Rome, so we decided to skip Cinque Terre and make our train reservations to go straight to Paris...then found out the weather has been beautiful there.  Crap.  Oh well, we figured Cinque Terre is a place we should visit during warmer weather in order to enjoy its full potential anyways.  We'll have to make a point to go back during warmer months. 

After the 15-hour train ride, we arrived in Paris this morning.  We're here for 5 nights and after first day here, we're really liking it.  It is so multicultural here, and I'm loving putting all the years of French classes I took to use (though I am really rusty).  We bought a 4-day museum pass and will be blitzing through the next few days.  Then the plan is to go for a day trip to Versailles on Tuesday (thanks Lori for the suggestion).

The Vatican Museum - beautiful carving in red marble (that has been mined to extinction by the Romans)

The Fontana di Trevi - must-see at night...absolutely gorgeous

The Coliseum - it was raining and we weren't too impressed.



Pinocchio!

Fontana di Trevi again

Beautiful double helix staircase in the Vatican - actually 2 sets of stairs

Sorry the pictures are all out of order....it takes too long to try to organize them and I didn't think anyone would care. :)