July 10, 2016
Right when we decided that we will visit Rome, I immediately searched for the Pope’s schedule. I was sad that the Pope didn’t have any parade scheduled for the whole month of July but I was really glad that he held Angelus prayers on every Sunday of the month. And so I scheduled our visit to Vatican on a Sunday to be in the presence of the Pope.
July 9, 2016
We only stayed a few days in Rome and with all the places that we had to cover, we had to make every day count! We started our venture into ancient Rome at the largest amphitheater that was ever built, the Colosseum.
July 8, 2016
Onto the last city of our Europe trip! We took the morning train from Florence and arrived after about an hour and a half. We were very excited to be in the historic city of Rome!
When we were on our train from the hotel to our first stop (the Trevi Fountain), we witnessed a local from Rome snatching a Korean’s bag right when the train doors were closing. The snatcher hurriedly ran and the Korean girl’s boyfriend forcibly opened the train doors and rain after the snatcher. It was a scary thing to witness on our first train ride in Rome so we got extra careful with our belongings after that.
July 6, 2016
We initially planned to just go directly to Rome from Venice and do a day trip to Florence and Pisa because I thought about how hard it was to move from one city to another with our luggage. But I wasn’t sure if doing a day trip to both cities would give us enough time so we just looked for a hotel near the train station in Florence and stayed there for two nights.
July 5, 2016
We felt like we already went through all of Venice the day before so we took the morning off from touristing and got ourselves some rest. We loved the hotel that we stayed in so we just staycationed. Woke up for our hotel breakfast and snoozed back to sleep after. lol
July 4, 2016
We started the Italy leg of our Europe trip in Venice. We took the 14 hour night train from Paris Gare de Lyon to Venezia Mestre Station. We shared the cabin with 2 other people and I actually felt safe the whole time. The conductor kept our passports after we boarded the train so that we can just sleep through passport control in Switzerland.
We arrived at Venezia Mestre station at around 9am the next day and checked-in early at our hotel. We stayed at Hotel Plaza, and it’s conveniently located across the station.
The Adventures of Ting Ting 