End of the Trip: Pompeii to Rome...back to BE

July 31:

We caught the early 6:30 am bus from Minori to Pompeii, arriving at 7:50, a good 10 minutes before the ruins opened. We went into a café to get a cappuccino and talked to an awesome old guy who helped us order, warned us of dangers of traveling in Italy, and gave us a hard time about our future plans and reminded me how lucky I was to have a beautiful girlfriend. After finishing our drinks, we headed for the old ruins of Pompeii.
As we walked by the main church, a dog came running out after us and started following us. When we went into restaurants in search of a cheap lunch, the dog waited patiently for us outside. When we entered the old city of Pompeii and the ruins, the dog joined us. We gave her the name of Pompita and let her lead us through the ancient streets of Pompeii.

Pompeii was amazing, and I recommend it to anyone who is able bodied enough to walk around the cobble stone streets. I wrote a lot more about it but lost it for some reason when my computer froze, despite saving. Basically it was amazing and we spent a good 8ish hours walking around. We then caught the train to Rome via Naples. There were some hecklers at the train station and it was hilarious. We got into Rome circa 9 pm.


Rome:

Aug 1:

At our hotel in Rome, we started off with an uh oh here we go moment. After the long day, I got in the shower only to have the shower knob fall off completely. They switched us to a different room and we were happy to find everything in working order and no bed bugs.

The next day we got up early, cashed in on the hotel buffet breakfast and then headed for the center of Rome. The number of people everywhere was absolutely insane, and the man purse did work in keeping all our belongings safe. Being the tough manly man that I am, of course the first thing we went to was the coliseum. We signed up for a guided tour of the coliseum and the adjacent Palatine Hill where the wealthy Romans lived. A fun fact, the term coliseum actually came from slang/abbreviations/laziness. There used to be a huge statue of Nero outside the structure which served as a nice meeting point, so people said lets meet at the colossal statue of Nero, which turned into lets meet at the colossal statue, which turned into colossal and eventually gave way to the Coliseum. The tour was very informative and skipping the line to get in on your own made it well worth the money. The Coliseum was an impressive structure with its intricate underground hallway system, dungeons and cages, and sheer size. It was fun to go inside, but the best part of the tour was when we got lost and joined another tour whose guide was better and funnier. We went through Nero’s Hallway, saw Cesar Augustus’ palace, got a view of the Circus Maximus ruins, saw two of the three remaining arches, walked around the forum and on the old senate building steps where Julius Cesar was not killed, went to the Pantheon, the Spanish Steps, and of course got ice cream. We finished the day off at Piazza del Popolo, with more ice cream and watched a Michael Jackson impersonator dance.

Aug 2:

We started our second full day in Rome off at my favorite place in the city, Piazza Navona. The piazza boasts 3 awesome fountains, including my favorite, the Fountain of 4 Rivers, and by night is buzzing with people, performers and life. Next stop was Vatican City where we toured the art galleries, saw the famous Sistine Chapel, where no one listens to the countless reminders to not take pictures, and caught mass at St. Peter’s Basilica. I thought about baseball pretty much the entire time we were listening to the drones ramble on and I have since decided that that would be a good last church going experience for my life.

We left Vatican City in search of food, and ended up close to Piazza Navona again. We found a good restaurant to eat at and enjoyed a nice long meal. Afterwards, we headead back to Piazza Navona which was now full of life. At one end was the Miss Roma beauty contest, where the mainly not so attractive contestants were going through the rehearsals and what we think were Italian celebs began to show up. On the opposite side of the plaza were several really good street performers and people playing music. One guy impressed with an awesome rendition of Angie, which he played flawlessly even while holding a cigarette in his hand. Our last sight seeing in Rome was Trevi Fountain which was impressive, but hard to appreciate since there were half a million people standing around it.

Rome was quite an impressive city and the number of ruins and things that seem to be important is just flat out ridiculous. Everywhere you turn are reminders of the Roman Empire. I would summarize my feelings on Rome as such… It was nice to see Rome, but also nice to be done seeing Rome. Because there is so much to see and so many people trying to see it, it was pretty exhausting, but definitely a great way to finish out an absolutely amazing 6 weeks of travel.

Aug 3:

Travel days are always hectic, but this travel day was particularly crazy. It took us 2 hours to get from our hotel to the airport by public transport, then we flew for 2 hours, and then it took us another 2 hours by public transport to get from Charleroi to Opwijk.
Immediately upon arrival, we were told that we had an hour to pack up all our stuff because we were moving to Winne’s place in downtown Brussels after practice. After frantically packing things up, I went to practice, then hauled all our stuff into Brussels. What a day.