We went to Rome with our grandparents (Mom-mom and Pop-pop) for five days (from September 9 – 13). We stayed in a Prati neighborhood near the Vatican in a comfortable four bedroom three bathroom apartment.

The apartment had a beautiful garden with fountains and turtles and large goldfish. It was interesting to see that turtles ate pieces of bread we gave them, but refused the nuts. The apartment was directly across from a supermarket and that was right on top of  a pizzeria and gelateria.

My favorite activity was gladiator school with the sword fighting and obstacle courses.  We went to the Colosseum one night after closing time and watched the sun set behind it, which was nice because the next day when we went to go inside it was extremely crowded.

Unfortunately it rained for three days straight, but I enjoyed playing in the rain because it does not rain much in where we live in Spain.

My favorite tour was the Vatican tour, because it was very interesting to see the Sistine chapel and Saint Peter’s basilica and some of the different galleries. In Saint Peter’s basilica, all the things that looked like paintings were mosaics, except for one. There were lots of optical illusions of size inside the basilica. One interesting example is the huge altar that is  under a dome. The hole in the dome looked tiny, but the tour guide said that the altar could fit through it with plenty of space. Inside the Sistine chapel, there were dark rectangles on the ceiling and the walls so you could see how it would have looked if it never had been cleaned.

My least favorite activity was the Capitoline museum, since the video guide was pretty much useless because it didn’t tell you where to go next, and it took a long time see just a few things.  I did think some of the statues were cool, like the Lupa she-wolf statue with Romulus and Remus.

Another thing didn’t like about Rome is that everything was crowded.  I guess it is understandable, considering that these are world-famous monuments we saw, but I still didn’t like it and I didn’t like being sick either. One day while we were there I was really feeling sick to my stomach, so after seeing the Vatican I just wanted to lay down somewhere.

One other misadventure was when we missed our first express train to the airport. It was stressful to be in such a rush, but fortunately we were able to take the next train and still arrived at our gate when it was boarding.

All in all, Rome was fun, especially playing with the turtles at our apartment in the rain!