Day 7 & 8 - End of Rome

Our final day in Rome we wanted to lay our eyes on the Coliseum and the Roman Forum, so that is what we did. After waling to the Roman Forum we sat down on some old ruins and ate some bread while watching people pass by. My favorite pair to watch was an Asian couple. The girl made her other half take 5 billion pictures of her from every angle with every possible thing in the background. Of course she looked at every picture and if she wasn't happy with one of them, he would have to retake it. They made me laugh! The first time we were here we spend several hours walking through the Roman Forum and Palatine Hill. This time we just walked around for a short 20-30 minutes. It was so much more crowded this time as well.

The Roman Forum

Me Conquering a Piece of Land

The Coliseum lives right next door to the Roman Forum. We didn't venture inside but sat on a wall overlooking it for a while. When we got up to leave a girl stopped us and asked if we spoke English. I think she was representing a tour company. We said yes, and then she asked if we were going inside the coliseum. When we said no, she looked as if we had stabbed her through the heart as she said, "You can't come ALL the way to Rome and NOT go inside!" Of course, I said, it wasn't our first trip to Rome and all her pain went away.

Beautiful

The Pates at the Coliseum

The rest of the day we didn't have anything in particular to do so as always we just wondered the streets. We are lunch in a great little place called, AO ristorante. It was delicious. We each had a glass of Sicilian wine that the Sommelier suggested after we told him what we liked and what we wanted. To eat Michael had a basil, tomato pasta and I had a provolone, tomato pasta. For dessert we went searching for gelato and found a great place. We had the flavors of Baily's Irish Cream and Nutella. We had heard about "Nutella" gelato and just HAD to find it. Both were amazing, but the Irish Cream blew the Nutella out of the water. The Nutella was great,but I think I prefer Nutella in Nutella form as opposed to Gelato form. The Irish Cream though, was to die for!

Rome is literally littered with Cathedrals. We were in a quiet little neighborhood and I saw a rather bland looking church and smiled at Michael and walked up the stairs to go inside. He followed, my mouth dropped to the floor as I walked through the doors. It was absolutely breathtaking. This church actually quickly jumped up to my list of 5 favorite cathedrals and is probably in the top three! It was so unassuming from the outside. Yet, every inch inside of this place was covered in some beautiful something. There were only 3 other couples inside that were obvious tourists and another couple people praying. As we left I tried to find it in our guide book and in the 50 plus cathedrals covered in the book, this was not one of them! There isn't much information online about it either.

As always, the pictures don't do it any kind of justice at all.

Basilica Di S. Agostino

Back on my post of the Pantheon Marianne asked if we saw the "Elephant Statue" on the side of the building. We hadn't and managed to find ourselves back at the Pantheon, and this time when hunting for the statue. We thought we were looking for a teeny tiny little statue, but we realized we were wrong when we found him with an obelisk on his back. He sat in a square of a Cathedral and we hopped in there too. It was nice, but after seeing St. Augostino's, it wasn't as impressive. We did find a painting of Jesus showing off his muscles though.

You might have to click it to make it big to see it better!

Jesus showing off his guns.

Enormous Candles

We had a long day and wanted to get back to Myra's a little early so we could pack up and make sure we were all ready to leave in the morning. We walked back via the Trevi Fountain (and hopped in another church), got home, packed, ate and called it an early night and prepare our minds and bodies for the insanity that would start the next day.

Me and Trevi again

The Crowds

Cute Street

Our Temporary Residence in Rome.
The big window on the white building with one shutter open and the other is closed is where we stayed.

Check out the size of that front door!

So that ladies and gentleman, is the end of Italy. Hope no one got to sick and tired of reading about it! :)

Bella Roma Day 2

Wednesday morning came fast, especially since we didn't go to bed till quite late. Myra left early for a day trip for work and Michael and I slept in. When we got up, we headed straight out the door after of course changing to go across the street to a little cafe called, "Friends Cafe" where we got some coffee and croissants. It was good and fast so we could come back and take showers and pack up for the day and get on our way.

We started our "sightseeing" by walking from Myra's place to the Spanish steps which is about a 10-15 minute walk. When we got there we sat on the steps for a while watching the world go by.

Spanish Steps

After the Spanish Steps we walked around alot and found lunch at a cute little cafe. We ate outside under heated lamps, but the wind started to blow and it got quite cold. When we left we had the intention to go to the Pantheon, but since we just went the "general direction" and weren't really looking at a map to get there, we ended up by the river close to Vatican City, so went there instead. When we got there I had to use the restroom and Michael was convinced he remembered there being a restroom hidden on a wall on close to the entrance I wasn't so sure about this, but as we started walking underneath the columns it all came back to me and I knew he was right and there it was, a hidden and empty restroom! We sat on the steps in the square for a long time. The sun was out and I was in heaven. It was so warm I even rolled up my sleeves and helped my body make lots of vitamin D!

Michael Crossing Over the Bridge

Tiber River

St. Peters Square and Cathedral

I LOVE this picture.
Michael and the two nuns.

I'm in green, sunbathing

We decided we would try to go to the Pantheon again, so after reading a map we were on our way and this time made it there. It was about a 45 minute walk or so, but as Myra will attest to, we can out walk anybody in fact in Paris in 2002, she gave Michel the nickname "Walking Nazi'. The Pantheon was just as huge as I remember. It is such an amazing building and to think that the building that is there now has been standing there since 125AD blows my mind.

Pantheon
Can you find Michael? He is hard to miss ;)

It was starting to get later and later and we needed to meet Myra back at the apartment at 7:00. We knew we had a long trek back home so we got some Gelato for the road and headed back. Our plan was to go to the Spanish Steps and then from there back to Myra's house, until we saw signs for the Trevi Fountain (which is relatively close to the Spanish Steps) so, made a detour to go there instead. We spent a few days on our first trip sitting by the fountain eating lunch. When we were here in 2002 the fountain area seemed so empty, there were usually only about 20 other people there with us. It was the end of February on that trip also, so I don't know why this time, there were so many more people. We didn't sit on the steps in front of the fountain but on the wall to the side of it. I found a little corner that I fit in perfectly and Michael stood and researched the map to find the best way home. This time, we made it all the way home with no stops. We were gone from 11:00am til 6:00pm. It was a lovely day of walking around the incredible city, taking it all in and enjoying ourselves.

Coffee Flavored Gelato

Trevi Fountain

This is look like when I walk for 6 hours. Tired!

In the evening the three of us went to the grocery store to stock up on food for the party that was happening the next night at Myra's place. We loaded our backpacks down with 12 bottle of Procceco and tons of food. We also got some pasta, bread, and pesto for dinner along with a jar of instant coffee so we didn't have to run out the door so fast the next morning, breakfast for the morning and a toothbrush for me because mine is sitting in our cabinet in the bathroom in Lyngby. oops. We ate our food, drank some wine from Macedonia and had a lovely evening.

Cooking Ravioli stuffed with Ricotta and Spinach

Paris Randomness and Depature

Our last morning in Paris came quickly. We had enough time to get up and enjoy another yummy breakfast at the hotel before checking out and making our way back to the airport.

Breakfast Dining Area

Breakfast consisted of a basket of fresh bread and croissants, cheeses and meats for the bread, hard boiled eggs, and other odds and ends. They brought each of us the cutest little individual glass jars of coffee and each a giant coffee cup!

View from our Hotel Room

View From Hotel Room

Our way to the airport was pretty uneventful. We got to the airport got checked in and went to the SAS lounge. I think Paris is one of the worst airports if not THE worst airport I've ever seen, so getting to use the lounge was a very spacial treat. When we were flying over Denmark I happened to look out about the time I knew we were landing soon and as I was looking I could harldy believe my eyes! I saw some buildings called, "Høje Gladsaxe" which were down the street from where we lived the first time we were here. I knew Lyngby was just North of it and then all of a sudden I saw the green roof of the Lyngby Town Hall and the Christmas Tree. As fast as I could I took a few pictures. When I was flipping through them after we passed I was happy to see I actually got our flat in one of the pictures along with all of "our" other landmarks of Lyngby! To give some idea of the scale of this picture, right above the word Lynbgy there is a white C shaped building. That is where our gym is and a mere 2 minute walk from our flat.


We got back home about 2pm and unfortunately, because Michael and his group are in crunch time, he had to call into a meeting at 3pm. So he literally went right back to work. At least he was able to call into the meeting from home. He was so grateful for the one day break.


We have what we call the "Pate Picture". When we were in Tokyo Michael took the camera and pulled me close and snapped a picture of us with the Emperors Palace grounds behind us.

Since then we take that picture everywhere we go with a backdrop that we like best from that city. Somehow we ended up with two from Paris. (Actually 3 if you count the Christmas Tree Anniversary Picture)

Pate Picture with Notre Dame

Pate Picture with The Eiffel Tower

I did some comparison shots of Michael in December 2002 in Paris and Michael December 2008 in Paris! He has grown a neck and lost all his hair.





I'm sure in our lives we will make it back to Paris again, or I certainly hope so. How can a city be SOOOO beautiful??? Since we have only been in December perhaps we might go see what all the fuss is about with "Paris in the Springtime". I can only imagine it is amazing. Paris was the first international city (besides copenhagen) that Michael and I have re-visited together. I have done Moscow twice and him Tokyo. It was a nice change to really be able to enjoy the city in a different way.

So where to next???
Did somebody say Bella Roma??

In Dublin's Fair City, Where Girls are so Pretty...

That was the fastest trip ever. We aren't use to only going somewhere for 2 nights, but it was a lot of fun, we never got bored and we stayed busy...that is, if you can call drinking, keeping you busy. When in Rome right? :)

We flew business class over to Dublin so were spoiled from the start with the SAS lounge and the nice seats, food and drinks on the plane. We got in about 6:00pm and went straight to the hotel. We did something a little different on this trip than we usually do. We stayed close to the airport at the SAS Radisson on a package deal. We had 2 days of free transportation to and around Dublin, a one day pass per person on a hop on hop off bus, a free meal in their nice restaurant, free breakfasts, and a business class room. Since it was pretty last minute we decided to give it a try and it worked out great. The first night we got in and at dinner at "Potters" I had a fantastic slab of thick, juicy beef with wonderful potatoes and Michael had a huge piece of grilled salmon with vegetables. He tends to order fish in a restaurant that he thinks will have good fish since he never gets any at home. :) After that we watched some TV and went to bed.

Saturday we got up early, ate breakfast and headed into Dublin. We got on the hop on hop off bus. We have always kinda made fun of the hop on hop off buses, but it was free and we didn't have many days in Dublin so seemed like the easiest way to get from point A to point B and see lots of stuff. It wasn't so bad after all. The guide was really funny, we saw a lot of places from the bus we might not have seen, and since it was a 24 hour pass that took us to all the top tourist spots it worked out great. We got on and rode for about 30 minutes as we knew our first stop we would get off at was the Guinness Brewery. I had reserved our tickets before arriving in Dublin and I am so glad we did. It was only about 10AM but the line for the tickets was pretty long already. Since I had reserved ours we went straight to the Customer Service Desk where there was no one got our tickets and started the tour (which was self guided). This was our third brewery tour so we didn't spend much time on the beginning of the tour where you learn about how beer is made. You can only learn about it so many times before it gets kinda boring. The rest of the tour was interesting and really well done, but we rushed through the entire thing. We spend a little time in the room with the history of the advertising and about the actual Guinness Company and finally made it to the Gravity Bar to claim our free Pints of Guinness. We were both a little nervous about this as the only other time we had had Guinness we weren't fans at all. To our delight, it was heavenly! The stuff we had before was the Guinness Extra Stout and was really hard to get down. The regular Guinness Draught, was by far 10000000 times better :)

After the brewery we got back on the bus and drove around for about another 40 minutes until we got to the Jameson Distillery. We grabbed lunch at a pub before going to that tour.

This tour was great. It was a guided tour, the tour guide was funny and I was one of 6 people that she got to do a Whiskey Tasting of 5 types of whiskeys. Everyone else only got one glass. After it was all done, I got a little certificate saying I am a "Certified Whiskey Taster". Michael is a whiskey man and I'm now a certified whiskey taster so we couldn't leave without a bottle. We went for some pretty good stuff. The bottle had some "pomp" to it, because it was one of their better and rare bottles that they make. Our bottle got registered by its number in a big fancy book. So if you go here, we will tell you our bottle number and you can go see our name. It gets put in the book by a calligrapher, so it will look pretty.



From there we hopped back on the bus and got off by the river front and wondered to an area called "Temple Bar" It is a cute area of nothing but restaurants and pubs. We ate dinner at a place called "Mexico to Rome", took our classic picture we always take, walked back to the bus to take us back to the hotel and headed back up that way. We dropped all our stuff off in the room then went downstairs to the hotel pub for another smooth wonderful pint of the black stuff. Mmmm Guinness. (We are big fans now)

Our Classic Picture

Sunday we spent walking around Dublin for about 6 hours. We had thought about going to the coast to a little fishing town, but decided that we weren't sure how much time it would take so opted to head back to Dublin. We didn't really do anything but walk and walk and walk. We found Dublin to be a pretty small city as it didn't take very long to walk from here to there and back again. We stumbled upon a few cool things, had some coffee, ate some lunch and went back to the hotel to grab our stuff and head to the airport to come home.

Gulliver made of Sand

The Tart with a Cart as she is known by the Irish. AKA Miss Molly Malone

Tourist Center

Me with a Church connected to the Dublin Castle. (which really looked more like a palace or big mansion)

Michael in front of a Pub

Cool Yellow Door

Michael acting like an orangutan

A Church

In short, Dublin to me, is a city of pubs and colored doors. It was fun to have a short weekend trip for just 2 nights even if it meant sacrificing knowing the city as well as we know many others. My tip for Dublin, Don't miss the Brewery or the Distillery. They were by far the highlight of the trip!

All of our pictures are in this album below.

Dublin August 2007