Italy 2016- Pompeii

After two days in Rome, we headed down south and stopped along the way in Pompeii. This was one of my favorite days, and one that I wished I had done more studying up on before we actually got there! Walking the literal streets that were created thousands of years ago and completely absorbed by the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius was amazing. I couldn't really believe that they let us touch stuff and walk on the roads!

Pompeii was also the only place where you knew that you were at a "tourist spot" but you weren't crowded with tourists at every turn. It really was a whole city! You could even see the cart tracks that had been carved into the rocks by all the wagon/cart wheels driving over those same roads thousands of years ago.

The casts of the people buried by the ash were completely haunting. This cast was in a fairly easy to find spot, so there were a lot of people there looking at it. But later in the day, we had wandered farther away from other people and a friendly guide led us to a whole group of casts, including one of a mother and child. I can't even imagine what they experienced.

The tile mosaics were AMAZING. The detail in the artwork was beautiful, and it was even more incredible that they were able to uncover it so many years later and keep it in tact.

Let's just say that when you are vacation with the Fischer boys, there is a lot of photobombing. The girls wanted to take millions of pictures and you always ended the day with a few random ones.

Italy 2016- Rome & Vatican City

As busy as life had been living with Randy and Jenny and building two houses, when it was time for our trip to Italy, we were so excited! We took Ben to my mom for the first week and he spent the second week with my dad, and he was pretty excited for some one-on-one grandparent time too!

We left Salt Lake and had a layover in Toronto before heading to Rome! The Fischer boys aren't very graceful on airplanes, especially long flights, so we were thrilled to finally hit the ground!

We took a taxi to our apartment in Rome, literally minutes walking from the Coliseum. Randy and Tim picked up our van that would be our lifeline for the next 12 days. While waiting, Matt and I wandered down to the Coliseum, hauling our luggage around all the millions of tourists just to get a glimpse of this amazing place!

Our first pastry in Italy- we had to prepare ourselves for lots of those!

After we got settled in the apartment, we all went wandering around Rome. It was awe-inspiring to see the history. Thousands of years still standing there. Matt had to drag me from one spot to the next. I just couldn't soak it all in fast enough!

Of course the Pantheon was an important stop for us! It was in a fairly small square, but you knew you were in the right place because there were SO MANY people everywhere!

The Oculus

And a few blocks later we stumbled upon the Trevi Fountain! Again, SO MANY people in such a tiny space! I can't even believe we pushed our way to the front to get a picture.

Randy, being the king of travel apps and websites, found us a local spot for dinner in Rome. It ended up being one of our favorite dinners of the entire trip. Our first taste of ***REAL*** Italian pizza and pasta, and I quickly fell in love with pesto!

We took a long walk home and found this amazing bridge. The crazy part is that these bridges were everywhere! Every few minutes you would stumble upon something else that was just as amazing as the thing you just saw! I was literally in heaven!

We also found an amazing gelato shop just down the street from our apartment. I think we stopped there twice- maybe three times- PER DAY while we were in Rome!

Every day was a new opportunity to find new and delicious pastries! This shop looked directly at the Coliseum!

We absolutely loved our tour of the Coliseum! It was self-guided, so we just wandered and checked out all the different displays and levels. It was crazy to think of all the events that took place here. It was also humbling to think about the people who were part of this. It was almost eerie to stand there.

After the Coliseum, we spent some time walking around Palatine Hill, which was just a few hundred yards away. As with the Coliseum, the architecture was beautiful and astounding in size! I can't believe they built everything without modern machinery and technology!

I ended the trip with about a million random selfies from Timmy on my phone. None of us really knew how to use the selfie stick, so we all had to learn on these first few days!

Later that day, we took the train to Vatican City. This has been on my bucket list for FOREVER. We took a guided tour (which I highly recommend because it moved us through the lines much faster) and again, there were so many people there! We were just about touching everyone as we walked through each room.

One of my favorite classes in high school was Art History, and I couldn't believe my eyes when we walked into each room and saw these works of art that I'd studied right in front of me!

The enormity of the Vatican was the thing that I was shocked by most. I mean,  I knew it was huge, but I didn't really know how huge! There were worship services going on, but it didn't really feel like church. It was incredibly gaudy, and seemed to be more dedicated to the popes than to God. While I was inspired by the art and architecture, I wasn't as impressed with the lack of spirituality there.

We finished most nights with a sampling of more pastries! We had to share so that we could try them all!

Matt actually really enjoys history. I caught him reading about everything we were seeing more than once. He tried to pass it off as being funny, but I know that he was loving it!