Day 2, 3, 4...

(Not taken by me because we couldn't take pictures, but I figured I'd show you a photo of the Catacombe di Priscilla...which you'll learn about below.)

Wow...I have so much to tell...

Our second day in Rome...

After breakfast, we decided to go to Le Catacombe di Priscilla, which dated back to the Second Century AD and is ran by the Benedictines of Priscilla (nuns for those like me that wouldn't have figured that one out). Just getting to the catacombs was half the adventure, bearing in mind we were able to walk everywhere on our first day in Rome. So we moseyed down to the train station (il treno stazione) and after some typical touristic behavior, figured out which bus we needed to take and hopped on. Unfortunately, getting on the bus wasn’t even the hard part, it was trying to figure out which stop was the right stop and once we did that, we had to try and figure out which street was the right street to go down….obviously we didn’t have a map. Luckily, I’ve been trying to learn Italian for a little while now so my limited Italian knowledge came in handy. We actually had a kind old Italian man (God bless them!) walk us down the street and point to where we needed to go. So we found our way to Le Catacombe di Priscilla fairly well and made our way inside. I don't think it's the oldest catacombs, nor the biggest but we found it to be pretty interesting nonetheless! It was 3 miles long total, 40,000 tombs and 3 stories deep under the villa of the noble Roman family, Acilius Glabrio. Apparently early on Christians, Jews and other outcasts weren't allowed to be buried within the city walls of Rome so they had to bury them in catacombs such as this one. Apparently these tombs were made out of some sort of soft volcanic material. The body was wrapped in a shroud, laid in these small little burial tombs and then sealed with marble slabs. Unfortunately, the catacombs were raided many years ago and most of the bodies and relics were stolen. They do have a bunch of tombs though that are still in tack (body and all) and even a couple tombs just partially opened that have the bones still very visible. LOL....that was obviously a little creepy for us.
After visiting the disturbingly fascinating catacombs, we decided to go grab lunch and then head to Vatican City. Unfortunately, they close earlier during winter months so we weren’t able to see everything, but we’re hoping to go again at the end of our trip to see what we missed. However, what we did see was breathtaking! Even just standing in the Piazza di San Pietro, you are in awe! You see this place in movies, on the news and in books, but you never imagine you’ll be standing there. For one thing, the architecture is stunning, not to mention the history that it is founded on is again, mind boggling. One big fact that I learned that I didn’t know about the Vatican City is that it is its own sovereign country and is the smallest nation in the world. Guess you learn something new every day, huh?! Maybe someone else will be surprised by that information as well. After taking pictures (of course) and standing in awe for a while in the Piazza, we jumped in the extremely long line to get into the Basilica. Once inside, we were again in awe….which seems to happen a lot on this trip. It was just too much to put into word and really no amount of words would do it justice! Luckily, I did take a lot of pictures, but even those won’t fully suffice. I’ll be sure to share them with y’all though so you can see a bit of what we saw.
Afterwards, we strolled down the main street and happened to stumble upon the Castel Sant'Angelo. Yea, I know you’re thinking, how do you stumble upon a Castle? Well, Rome has built up so much that you don’t see many of the sights until you are right up on them. So we decided to check it out and wow were we glad we did! Apparently, it originally was a mausoleum (built around 130AD) for the Roman Emperor and his family. But later it was used as a prison and then as a castle and fortress for the popes. Obviously now, it’s a museum. :)
So that was an exciting find, which pretty much leads us to the end of day two.

Day Three…

We were SUPPOSED to wake up at 6am and catch the early train to Perugia where I had a special anniversary surprise for Mikey. However, considering how sick I’ve been on and off and how tired we both were, we overslept and didn’t wake up until 9am. So we kicked it in high gear, checked out of our hotel and jumped a train to 9:50am train to Perugia. Obviously, it wasn’t as easy as it sounds, but I’ll spare you the boring details. The train to Perugia was rather unadventurous, mostly because I was sick the whole way, but Mike was pleasantly surprised at what I had waiting for him once we arrived.
For our 7th year anniversary, I had booked a stay at the Castello Di Monterone, a beautiful castle in Perugia. It was built to be a military base (I’m not sure of the date it was built), but around the 13th century was bought by a nobleman. I’m sure there was more history to it than that but I was sick most of the short time we were there so I wasn’t really able to learn all that much about it. BUT it was an amazing place and we were glad we got the chance to stay there, even for a short time.

Day Four…

We woke up, ON TIME, this morning and checked out of our hotel to catch the train to Venice. The train ride was a bit of a journey (about 5 hours), but I think we are getting the hang of things around here and it’s getting easier to get from one train or bus to another. Luckily, I’ve been feeling “a little” better today also so that made it easier as well. Despite the rain we were greeted with when we arrived in Venice, we both really like it here so far! Once we checked into our hotel and dropped off our luggage we headed out, arm in arm, down the rainy streets of Venice to find something to eat. We found a cute little ristorante with some yummy minestrone zuppa….good for a weak stomach and a cold rainy night! And of course, Mikey had to try their pizza. His goal was to try pizza from every town/city we went to that way he could decide which had the best. So far….Venice. We’ll see if that vote withstands the rest of our time here. After eating, we headed back to the hotel because it was getting really dreary out, but not without first stopping along the way to window shop. It’s amazing to me that the streets here are so full of life and character, even in the rain! And there are so many shops! There are Venetian mask shops everywhere! And dolci shops (desserts) and places to shop for clothes & boots! :) Ahh…it’s great! I’ll definitely be taking plenty of pictures to share. I think we’ve found our favorite place!!

P.S. I promise I'll be sure to share pictures of all this ones I get home. I doubt I'll have time before then.