Days 8 & 9 - Roma, Italia!

Day #8 had us rising and shining at 4:30am for our 5am taxi ride over to the airport. We had a short flight over to Italy (90 minutes).

Originally, we were booked on Air Malta. But they cancelled our flight without explanation, so Rich re-booked us on Ryanair. I've wanted to fly the Irish carrier for years for obvious reasons, so I was pretty excited to get the requisite cheesy shot of our son posing in front of his namesake carrier:

The flight went smoothly, and because we had our GPS (Rich), we quickly hopped a bus into the city and found our way to the main station. From there, we hopped on the subway to our apartment right near the Vatican City. And we loved our modern new digs after our more traditional home in Malta.

Our bedroom looked out over this cute courtyard. The Airbnb owners even had a mini scooter for Ryan to use.

Because we were eager to hit the road on a walking tour, we grabbed some cafe pizza for lunch and  made our way over to our first stop, Piazza Navona. I forgot one of the things I love most about Europe is that every other block seems to have a centuries old building that captures your attention. The oldest thing I know in Kona is my father, and he's still <100 a="" bit="" building="" looks="" old="" older:="" p="" tad="" this="" years="">

After hanging in the piazza for a bit, we quickly made our way over to the Pantheon and marveled at how long it's been standing (nearly 2,000 years!). Because it was later in the evening and slightly off season (is it ever off season in Rome?), we were able to get inside the building within 2-3 minutes of standing in line.

Once we exited and made our way over to the Trevi Fountain, we passed the most adorable shops- I wanted to bring back every pasta in this doorway for family and friends, but because so many carriers (even international ones) have such strict luggage allowances these days, we have to be content with Costco pasta instead. :-)

Well, except the upper right bag. I could do without the pasta penises. It'd be hard to explain to Ryan why eating pasta in the shape of his genitals is funny. Cause it's not. It's just...weird.

Ryan scored some Italian gelato...his treat of choice the entire trip.

We also passed one of those cute stores filled with handcrafted, wooden toys.

I think this is the largest chocolate fountain I've ever seen...

And last but not least, we stopped at the Fountains de Trevi for Ryan to make his wishes. Both we and my parents have been there before, but Ryan had not. And since there were only 2,000 other people packed around the fountain, we got out of there after about 15 noisy minutes.

I hoped we would walk over to the nearby Spanish Steps, but it was already dark, and we had a 1.5-2 mile walk home, plus we needed to find groceries for breakfast the night day. But for a first day in Italy (it was a very quick trip once I realized we didn't need more than a week in Malta), it was a good one!