My Italian Adventure Part 3

The last stop in my Big Italian Adventure was Rome! 

Our first stop was the Colosseum. It was huge and very crowded. I figured that if we went the end of October there wouldn't be many tourists, boy, was I wrong. 

The inside of the colosseum was much more intact than the one in Croatia but it was still very difficult to understand what it would have been like in it's day. 

Apparently there would have been a floor but there would also have been a way to fill it with water and have mock ship battles. Don't ask how, I didn't read any further. 

We enjoyed seeing it with our good friends, the Frazier family from Texas.  

It was an experience and I'm glad we went. Honestly after seeing so much history in Europe it takes something really special to inpress me. The colosseum was neat but I don't think i'll ever wanna go back. I checked it off my "wanna see" list and that's that. BTW, bottle of Coke was $6!! 

The views out of the city was amazing. There are so many ruins, really everywhere you look there is something photo worthy.

The amount of detail they could acheive out of cement and stone,  2000+ years ago is amazing. 

Look at the done of the building in the background. Amazing. 

You know the old phrase, "All roads lead to Rome", well it's true. They do all lead to Rome and then they MERGE! The traffic in Rome was the worse I've ever seen and I've been to lots of places. 3 lane roads are used as 5 lane roads. They create lanes. It's unreal and the yield sign is obsolete in Rome. Most of the cars are small, (I'm sure because of the traffic and parking) but this little blue thinggy was so cute, I had to share it. 

We decided that we were a little hungry and decided to find some American eats. So we headed to the nearest McDonalds.

We were tickled to see this bike on the side of the road. The bike apparently was left there a little too long. I feel for the owner, it's gonna be a difficult ride home.

You know Pinocchio  was from Italy so the kids enjoyed getting the pictures made with him. Little Caleb had a ball. 

Hannah and Bridgette had to get in on the celebrity photo shot too. 

Really one of the only placed that I HAD to see was Trevi Fountain. They say if you throw a coin from your right hand over the left shoulder and make a wish your wish would come true. 

That foundation takes in more than 3000 Euros a day just from coins being thrown in.  

The Scala Santa are according to Catholic tradition the steps that Jesus took on the way to the pratorium of Pontius Pilate. As with all Catholic tradition you have to take it with a grain of salt. I was excited about seeing anything that Jesus touched but after being there and seeing the sheer bondage that the Catholic church has managed to chain it's people with I realized it's probably just rumor and lies like most of the artifacts the Catholic church claims, I was disappointed.

It was heart breaking to see all these people from around the world climbing the steps on their knees. At the bottom of the steps there is a huge plaque that listed the said details about the stairs and the indulgences (allowances to sin) that you would receive by climbing these stairs on your knees. Also the stairs have been covered in walnut wood to protect them from use but in the wood there are little circle cutouts covered in glass. Beneath the glass are bright red spots that are said to be the blood of Christ as he climbed the stairs. For one thing, after 2000 years the "blood" wouldn't be red anymore so obviously someone got happy with the red paint and for another, many people climbed those steps to be judged by Pilate.



After seeing all the Catholic heresy we decided against going to see Vatican City. The fact that this small city could chain 3/4 of the world's population in false religion is sickening and unbelievable. 

We decided after the rat-race of Rome we needed to get away into the quiet and breathe a little. We headed up to a local lake encircled by mountains. It was a lovely day sitting my the lake drinking coffee was just what the doctor ordered. 

We left Rome the next day to drive back to Croatia a day early. We stopped in the coastal town of Opatije to enjoy some "real" pizza and relax a bit.  BTW, the pizza in Italy wasn't good at all. I was so surprised to know that Croatia had better pizza than Italy. Go figure. 

The one really good thing we did experience in Rome was getting to attend church Homan family in Rome. They are good IFB missionaries working in Rome. They've been there 7 years and it's a hard work but they've been faithful. Can't think of too many places that need a missionary more than Rome. 

Rome was our last stop in our Italian Adventure and it was very interesting and I'm glad I saw it but I don't think I'll go back. I'll check it off my list and remember it as a real adventure.