After our marathon day of flights, we made it to Rome early – about 11:30am local time. Our flights were all uneventful, though it was a bit warm on the last leg (the long one). We both managed to get enough sleep to keep us going until a decent hour (almost 9pm currently). We took the Leonardo Express train from the airport to the main station in Rome and decided to try out the new Gorillapod. We had some trouble getting it to stay up straight and the next thing I knew, Amber had hung the camera upside down and was taking a picture.

She thinks she's funny.

After getting to Termini and walking to our hotel, we decided we had plenty of time left in the day to start exploring. We picked a direction and went wandering. The first major sight we came to was the Victor Emanuele II monument. This thing is massive. We climbed a bunch of steps, and then took an elevator to the top for some nice panoramic views of Rome. We stepped off the elevator and the camera died. Of course the batteries were in the other backpack – rookie mistake. Luckily, I had my phone so we were able to get a few nice shots anyway. I may include them later.

Amber managed a shot from across the square with almost no traffic.

After realizing how far we’d walked from the hotel, we decided we might as well keep going and find the Pantheon. We’d been struggling to find a good spot for it when we come back to Rome at the end of the trip, anyway. That place was pretty busy  for the middle of the day on a Monday, so I’d hate to see it during the high season.

The columns are actually shorter than originally intended.

After we finished at the Pantheon, we made our way back to the hotel with our feet starting to complain. We picked a place to eat dinner, only to walk over there and find that they didn’t open for another 30 minutes. At that point we were both pretty tired and hungry and didn’t really want to wait. In the end, we wound up at an Irish Pub for dinner. Our first real meal in Italy and it was from an Irish Pub. It sounds strange, but I don’t think there was much of an Irish touch on the menu. We ordered pizza and lasagna to share and both were quite tasty.

Now it’s time for a full night’s sleep before we head to Florence in the morning.