When in Rome, do as the Romans...

That classic advice leads to a wealth of options: Should we follow Augustus and Caesar, whose Rome is filled with spectacular ancient structures? Or Michelangelo and Da Vinci, whose city invites artistic pilgrimage? Maybe discover the romantic Rome or just the sightseers Rome?  The many charms of Rome await us!  Let's get real here - when in Rome you wash out all of your clothes in the sink because you sweaty through them, you wear sneakers even if they don't look good with your outfit (lesson learned for next time :), you drink lots of water from the numerous fountains throughout the city because you think you're going to die from the heat, you find any piece of shade you can and crowd into it, but most of all you forget all that stuff and have a fabulous time because you are in one of Europe's greatest cities!

We woke at 4:00 am at the Landhotel for a 6:20 flight out of Frankfurt-Hahn so that we had an entire day in Rome.  This had us pretty excited but we actually were more exited to meet up with our friends Matt and Korie from Nebraska that we hadn't seen since we moved to KC in 2010.  It was a quick flight to Rome and all went smooth on our first flight with Ryan Air.  We took a bus from the airport into Termini Train Station and then walked .9 miles to our hotel.  The day was already getting warm at 9:00 am!  Hotel Hiberia was great, in an excellent location within the center of the 5 major neighborhoods near Trevi Fountain, Pantheon, and the Colosseum.  We only had a 1/2 hour wait to get into our room which was nice since it was early then we headed up to Hotel Zara where Matt and Korie were staying, a 5 minutes walk away.  Their reception told us that it would be a few hours before they even reached the hotel so we took a stroll around the neighborhood snapping pictures. 

Scooters, scooters, and more scooters!

One of Rome's 5 Ancient Obelisks - this is at Piazza del Quirinale

There was a cafe right next to their place which was convenient to grab a panini and wait for them to arrive.  We saw them wander up to the hotel shortly after we got back there and it was so nice to see them!  After a few minutes of catching up we all set out to explore Rome!

Beautiful domes of Rome

"People's Square" or Piazza del Popolo

Trevi Fountain

Dave in front of the Pantheon

At the Spanish Steps

We covered a lot of ground that day about 12 miles worth on foot and boy oh boy were the feet feeling it...and it was only day one! Not only did we hit some of the major sight but we also experienced the wonderful drinking fountains, and the Gelato!  I couldn't be happier about my first gelato because it was delish!  I had hazelnut and the little cone in my left was hand was an extra treat put on top of the cup!

Later that afternoon we all went back to our respective hotels and showered off the dirt and sweat from the day.  We met up for dinner and went back to the Trevi Fountain area because we wanted to see it lit up at night. After filling up on traditional Roman food, antipasti, pizza margarita and Italian beers we weren't too sure we were even going to make it till dark!  Matt & Korie headed back to rest their weary traveling bodies and Dave & I continued to explore a few more of Rome's streets before stopping into a neighborhood bar where we enjoyed our favourite Erdinger (German - I know) beer and watched the 100's if not 1000's of scooters, mopeds and Vespas zoom by.  Everyone has them and they park everywhere and anywhere they can!  All of the women drivers wearing dresses or skirts didn't even pay any mind to straddling the scooter seat.  We didn't stay too long at €8 a beer!  We did about 27,000 steps that day (I love my pedometer!) so it was time to go, plus just because there was no sun it was still hot and we were doing it all over the next day!  Back at the hotel we chatted with a nice couple who was just a table away at the same bar, Todd and Ashley from Ohio. We just love meeting people from everywhere in the world no matter where in the world we are!

LINK TO DAY 1 PICTURES - Much more detail and my usual commentary in the pictures!