Journey to Europe: Day Three Classical Rome & Catacombs and Crypts

Itinerary 

• 9:00 Classical Rome Tour
• 1:15 Lunch
• 2:30 Catacombs and Crypts Tour
• 8:00 Dinner

The one-way radios

Thursday we had a bit of trouble getting ready on time for the shuttle bus to come pick us up. Luckily Italians, most of the time they are not on the dot on time so we were able to get ready at a decent pace and get down in the lobby.

Though the actual tour didn’t even start until 9:00am. Our tour group was all given little one-way radios with an earpiece, so we could hear our guide while walking through the busy and crowded streets of Rome and the Vatican. 

The Classical Rome Tour was mostly a walking tour, covering major monuments of the city of Rome, like the Trevi fountain, where you can go throw coins in, and various obelisks found around. The tour guide said that every time Rome had a major earthquake or fire that the people would just build the next city on top of it. There is so much rich old history in Rome. It is a nice change from the new simplistic buildings in America. It is funny, because the guide said since they started the metro system, every time they go to excavate for a new route, they find something buried in time. 

Trevi Fountain

Our tour of classical rome tour ended at Saint Peter's Basilica, the biggest Catholic Church in the world, so big it needs its own city and where all the dead popes can be found. I would highly recommend it to anyone who is visiting Rome for the first time.

After the tour we went back to our hotel to freshen up after walking and to get some lunch at a little snack bar. I had a pizza panini that was really good. 

Ancient Column found underground 

Next up we had a tour through the crypts and catacombs under some churches. It was pretty interesting and eerie thinking about the dead buried in the shelving system that wends around for about twelve miles under the city. There was no pictures allowed on the tour, but they wouldn't have been good pictures anyway, it was too dark. Nice thing about being underground on a hot day was that it was very cool almost just wanted to stay in there for the natural air conditioning.

After the tour we got gelato (Italian ice cream) and headed back to our hotel to have a nap and rest our feet before dinner.

For dinner we were recommended, again by our favorite concierge Enzo, to a pizzeria. Where I had mushroom pizza, though I really liked the Margarita pizza that my parent's had, which was just like a normal cheese pizza with basil.

After dinner we tired to find the Spanish steps, but failed and decided to go back to our hotel and turn in for the night before we got ourselves lost.

The Pantheon

Obelisk in the Pantheon and the perfect spherical dome 

Reason they call it painter's square

Fountain in Painter's Square

Pretty picture of St. Peters from a far

The Angel's Castle

The Vatican

Inside St. Peter's

Journey to Europe: Day Two The Arrival

Itinerary for the day

• 2:00pm Arrive in Paris, France airport
• 3:45pm Get on connecting flight from Paris, France to Rome, Italy
• Get to/find hotel via Shuttle bus
• Get something to eat 

After a long pain-aching six-hour flight from Chicago to France, we finally got there. The France airport was very pretty but very hot; the architect was definitely going for style rather than comfort. It was a short two-hour flight from France to Rome, not as bad as the last flight.

When we got into Rome at 6:30pm, but had to sit around the airport and people watched, waiting for our Shuttle bus until 7:40pm. Then when the shuttle got there, our driver didn’t speak a lick of English, which was unfortunate, because all the other passengers spoke English too. Though he did get us where we needed to go and that is all that was important.

In Italy, there are no rules to driving, as long as you don’t get in an accident. It is very chaotic, I think I would have a heart attack if I had to drive here. There are more motorcycles than there are cars here and since there are no rules, the motorcyclist weave in and out of cars in these narrow streets Rome has.

After that exciting ride, we got to our hotel, it was a little after eight, but that is okay the Italians have a very different eating schedule;

• Light breakfast in the morning.
• A heavy Lunch around one in the afternoon.
• And then a heavy dinner around eight in the evening.

Mom & Dad walking to the restaurant 

For dinner our favorite concierge, Enzo, recommended a neat restaurant right around the corner down a little alley from our hotel. I had some kind of ravioli that was very delicious.

Our hotel also upgraded our room with no extra cost to the hotel suite, which has a sweet balcony over looking the narrow busy streets of Rome. Though tragedy struck when Alec, my younger brother found he was unable to charge his portable game device, his 3DS. The charger would not work with the converter that we had bought for charging our electronics. He went into full teen depression mode, knowing he would not be able to play any games for the remainder of our stay.

After dinner we crashed and burned. Very exhausted from traveling.

Journey to Europe: Day One Airports and Planes

Itinerary for the day

• Drive to Chicago O'Hare Airport
• 5:10pm 10:40pm Get on Flight from Chicago to Paris, France

Long Flight

• 9:45am 3:30pm Get on Flight from Paris, France to Rome, Italy

The drive to Chicago went okay, lots of Semi getting around Chicago. Trouble fell when we got to the Delta check-in, where we found out our flight had been cancelled. We all had a mini-heart attack, but found they had booked us on a later flight because the flight to France before ours was cancelled due to Plane trouble. So they put all the people on that flight on our flight and had to put us on the later one. 

Good thing tomorrow we are not doing anything, because we knew that we'd have some flight problems. We'll probably get to our hotel in Rome around 8pm their time tomorrow.
But for now we are waiting in the airport terminal wasting time until 10:40 to get on our plane to France. Downton Abbey season 3 time!

Journey to Europe: The Preface

Perhaps they are not stars in the sky, but rather openings where our loved ones shine down to let us know they are happy. - Eskimo Saying

In the time leading up to leaving for Europe many people have come up to me and expressed their excitement of traveling to a different country by asking a silly question like, "Are you excited to be going out of the country?" Or they would say, "You are so lucky to be able to have the opportunity to go to different countries with your family." Which I am, but my family and I wouldn't be able to go on this trip if it wasn't for them being working parents and for my grandparents, Carl and Lorna Montgomery.

My Grandparents loved to travel wither it may be a station wagon with wood looking panels on a Sunday drive exploring the Lake Michigan coastline - And grandpa loved to take Sunday drives - Ending up at the House of David for a train ride and ice cream. (Grandpa lived for chocolate ice-cream.)

Or a Holiday Rambler Travel Trailer and took my mom and uncle on camping trips exploring Michigan, Tennessee and Florida. They even joined a camping club and went with other families to Frankenmuth and even the Upper Peninsula. Eventually my mom and uncle became teenagers and camping became annoying to them but not to grandpa and grandma they kept on exploring.

Or motor home the got to borrow from grandpa's boss called the Cortez. Which he lent to my Grandparents and family to take their first long road trip to Florida. One year they took a Cruise to Alaska one year and loved it.  Grandpa and Grandma loved to drive and explore the United States. They always wanted to travel out of the country together, my grandpa got to from being in the army, but they never got to go together. My Grandfather's health decreased and he had a bad heart.
In 2010 my grandmother was diagnosed with non hodgkin's lymphoma, with a mass in her abdomen. She was strong and got through chemotherapy. One night in May of 2011, less than a month from my high school graduation my grandmother had a spell and was admitted into the hospital. While she was in the hospital my Uncle who lives in Florida looked after my grandpa.

Since Grandma had been sick, she was not able to take care of my grandpa. A week or two went by and my Grandpa's health got worse and on the 16th of May he passed away in his sleep at my Uncle's house.
My Grandparents had been married for 53 years when my grandpa passed. My Grandma knew it was his time and was sad, but she still fought on to get better. Eight days later I was getting ready for my awards ceremony where I received an award achievement for my work in 3-D. My family got an early morning phone call from my Uncle saying my Grandmother had passed away in the night in her sleep.
The story my family came up with was that Grandpa wanted to get heaven ready for grandma and be there for her when she got there. And that there love was so strong that it brought them there together in a weeks time. 

My family and I are so blessed that we get to go on this trip to Europe, because my grandparents enabled us to and wanted us to. They wanted to see the world and they will get to through us with them in our hearts. There is not a day that goes by that I do not feel the presence of my Guardian Angels. 

“To live in hearts we leave behind is not to die.” 

― Thomas Campbell