For all the activity on our street at night, the morning is the polar opposite. The is a small market a block or two away and as I walk over to pick up some bread, cheese, and a few other provisions for breakfast, I pass only one other person. When my plus one tells you that Italy is amazing, it isn’t the food or the history that she is raving about, it is that they stay up late and sleep through the morning.

Given the location, our space is surprisingly quiet, unless you count the very loud tiles that clearly came in bulk.

A small balcony hanging over the street below provides a perfect spot to fuel up, although I am deathly afraid of knocking something over with my foot and taking out an unsuspecting tourist below.

Sorrento has a very mellow feel to it and I think we’ll be happy to relax here for awhile after being constantly on the go in Rome. There are plenty of shops and cafes in the old part of town and just a short walk down the hill is a quiet little marina with a small beach and restaurants along the water.

And if lemons are your thing, this is your little piece of heaven, as you can’t walk more than a dozen steps without seeing lemon soap, lemon liqueur, lemon pottery and, of course, lemon gelato. We also see these desserts all over the place and force ourselves to try one out. It’s cake with a lemon (shocking) cream filling covered with more lemon cream. Need I say more?

Not much else to report…

Today is a travel day as we are saying goodbye to Rome and moving south to Sorrento on the Amalfi Coast. We have one more item on our list to see before departing though, St. Peter’s Basilica. As we are not part of a tour, we don’t get the benefit of skipping the line snaking around the Square, but fortunately it moves fairly quickly. It also seems there is a custom here where if slowly back your way next to the front of the line like you are taking a picture and then swipe away at your phone like you are sending it to your buddy, you automatically inherit that spot and can avoid waiting. So much to learn.

Once inside, we first head to the dome. Although completed after his death, the dome was designed by Michelangelo so it completes the trifecta of his most famous works here. The pictures down aren’t great because of the safety screen in the way but, if you look close, you can tell it’s a loooong way up (we cheated and paid the extra 2 Euro for the elevator).

From there, 200 or so steps lead to the cupola. Not so hearty when it comes to small spaces, my fellow traveler opts to sit this one out, missing the combination of tiny circular staircases and narrow passageways where you contort your body to match the curve of the dome to pass through.

The top is the highest building in Rome and a great spot to take a few pictures.

Back on the ground, we enter the main part of the Basilica. It is enormous. Far bigger than any other church we have seen (and anyone who knows my intrepid companion knows we have seen quite a few). On virtually every surface there are artworks and, like the rest of the Vatican, it is impossible to absorb even a fraction of it. My eyes are soon glazing over, which is probably for the best as it is time to gather our things and head to the train station.

To get to Sorrento, we first need to get to Naples, where we will transfer to a local line that covers that short chunk of the coast. The first phase goes quite smoothly, even allowing for a light nap along the way.

We’re in for a bit of a surprise as we switch over to the Circumvesuviana though. The train looks like a prop from the Fresh Prince of Bel Air and there aren’t near enough seats for the hour and twenty minute ride.

We’re not sure exactly what Sorrento has in store for us. Over the years, we’ve become much more comfortable flying by the seat of our pants, and here, we managed to dig up a no name place to stay last night on the Internet. As we roll our bags through a warren of streets so narrow you could hold out your arms touch the walls on either side, we know we’re in for an adventure. Three floors up, above a restaurant and a gelato stand is home for the next four days.

With a name like that who could pass up this tour? And the cherry on top? It starts at 10:30. That means time for a relaxing breakfast before catching the train into the city center. Our first stop is the Colosseum and the metro drops us off right at the entrance. Given how long ago it was built you can forget that it is surrounded by a major capital, but can you imagine walking out of the subway every day on your way to work and seeing this?

We quickly find our group and get a brief history of when it was built, why we call it the Colosseum (and not the Flavian Amphitheater), and how they managed to pull off major events like naval battles with real ships. It is a mind bending feat of engineering from thousands of years ago, even with much of it stripped away and used as material for other buildings over the years. Obligatory pictures below but they don’t do it justice.

A few blocks away sit the ruins of the Roman Forum. They are far less preserved, save for the few buildings that we converted to churches, but the history is interesting and the remains provide a sense of scale of what was the most powerful empire of the time.

We finish the first part of the tour with a short hike to the top of Palatine Hill. Legend holds that the city of Rome was founded here by Romulus and Remus in 753 B.C. There isn’t a whole lot to see, but a bit of altitude provides some good views of the city.

There is a three hour gap before the next leg of the tour starts, plenty of time to check out some new spots for pizza and gelato (how are people here not 500 pounds?).

On the way to our next meeting point we pass the Trevi fountain and get a taste of what we are in for. It’s a madhouse. What this place looks like during high season I can only imagine.

We start round two in front of the Spanish steps which, as it turns out were paid for by the French. Quite the marketing coup for the Spanish, so kudos to them.

From there it is back to the Trevi fountain and the classic “coin over the left shoulder” tourist move. Apparently, the city scoops us 3,000 Euros a week from the fountain that they then donate to charity.

Next stop is the Pantheon, the best preserved building from Roman times. It is sometimes referred to as a ‘perfect building’ as its height is the exact same distance as its width (meaning a sphere would fit perfectly inside). Nearly 2,000 years later, it still has the largest unreinforced concrete dome in the world and it wasn’t until the 1400s that any dome surpassed it in size (which sits on Duomo in Florence that we’ll see soon enough). Stripped of its marble and bronze exterior, the interior steals the show, leaving one dumbstruck at the ingenuity that went into building something at this scale.

Last on the list is Piazza Navona, one of the many plazas in the city center. It is a hub of activity with people milling about and various performers entertaining the crowd, but the main attraction is the Fountain of Four Rivers, one of the most famous of Bernini’s works in Rome.

Like yesterday, we’ve put on a lot of miles and decide to find the train and head back to the hotel. Night has fallen though and we quickly find that Rome has a completely different vibe once the sun goes down. The crowds dissipate, the narrow, cobblestone streets light up, and the sidewalk cafes buzz with conversation. It’s how I imagined Italy and, before we know it, we’ve walked all the way back to St. Peter’s Square. We’ll be back again tomorrow to see the Basilica, but tonight we’ll just soak it all in.

For as unorganized as we are this year, the one thing we heard pretty consistently from people was to book tickets to the more popular sights in Rome in advance and skip the lines day of. From the comfort of my couch in Redmond, getting into the Vatican before an hour before it opened and having breakfast in the courtyard sounded like a pretty good way to beat the crowds. At 5:30 in the morning, still jet-lagged, the plan feels a little less solid.

Nevertheless, we’re out the door early and through the streets of a still very quiet Rome to meet our group.

In practice, the breakfast doesn’t get us into the museum itself before it officially opens but it does give us a head start as we are already through security and fairly deep into the complex by the time everyone else starts coming through the gate. The peace doesn’t last long though, as we only manage to get through a gallery or two before the horde descends, particularly the groups power walking straight through to the Sistine Chapel.

Even without the crowds the place is overwhelming. It really is a collection of museums all connected together and, were it one’s thing, it would definitely be easy to spend our entire time here looking at all the different pieces of the collection (the ones that are on display anyway). Tucked into every corner and crevice are amazing works of art, often by history’s greatest artists.

And where open spaces do exist, the buildings themselves are the art, comprised of soaring domes, decorated galleries, and intricate mosaic floors.

It’s all too much too much to absorb and impossible to convey in just a shot post so, like the power tours, I’ll skip right to the highlights:

This room is in one of the old papal palaces and was decorated by Raphael early in his career.

Down some steps, in a set of rooms abandoned after the rein of the Borgia popes is a collection of works by more recent artists such as Rodin and Van Gogh (turns out being the Pope is a fairly good gig as you can just ask for donations to open a new gallery and priceless pieces just roll in).

And, of course, both the roof and wall of the Sistine Chapel that were painted by Michelangelo (that make you completely forget works by Botticelli). The catch is that you can’t take any photos in the chapel, with Fuji somehow managing to snake the rights to reproduce them. Google comes in handy here if you want to see pictures.

Normally the tour we are on ends in St. Peter’s Basilica, but today the Pope is in the house and speaking to the crowd in the square. For us, that will have to wait another day, so we head for exit, past the mass of humanity still streaming in (the line to get tickets is 3 hours long, stretching down the block like a Disneyland ride.

Having started early we are back on the streets by 11:00am. With nothing specific on the agenda, we cross the river and spend the afternoon wandering through the streets of the city center. Plenty of gelato is consumed (the Lindt shop next to the Pantheon is top of the list so far) as is the occasional pizza. The proportions are probably still out of whack, but we convince ourselves that we’ve earned it 🙂

By the time we finally head back to the hotel, we have little left in the tank save for a glass of wine and a book on the balcony. Tomorrow we’re right back at it with a guided tour of the city center, putting into context many of the things we happened by today.

You would think that as we get older we would get smarter too. As chaotic as it was last year to leave for Costa Rica just days after packing our entire office into a storage locker, we’ve somehow managed to have even more going on as we pack up and head off again. Nevertheless, to celebrate my fellow traveler’s 29th birthday, we’re tackling a long time destination on her bucket list – Italy. We haven’t focused much on Europe as we generally travel later in the year when the weather isn’t very appealing, but this time we’re moving things up a month to make it all work out. The hope is that we’ll still get warm, sunny days while skipping the worst of the summer crowds.

One nice thing about Europe is that there are plenty of flights to choose from and no real need to make a lot of connections. Our itinerary takes us through Frankfurt, with a quick layover before connecting into Rome. We arrive shortly after noon local time and, as promised, it is blue skies and mid 70s (suck it Seattle!).

While it is the end of the high season here, we discovered it is still quite busy and, because we end up planning so late, hotels in Rome are pretty full (and expensive). We ended up about a mile from the Vatican, which is a little further out than we hoped, but very close to a train station that connects us with the metro.

Now after waiting almost 20 years to come to Italy, and with all of the sights to see in Rome, the challenge is where does one start? What epic experience is worthy of all the anticipation? The Colosseum? The Sistine Chapel? Maybe the Pantheon? All good options. But surpassing them all, at the top of our list is – the 4 hour nap.

By the time we are finally back in motion, the trip the the city center seems awfully ambitious so we strike out in search of our first Italian food experience in the area near the hotel. Google leads us to a small, local trattoria that does not disappoint (save for the Roman bacon that is 96% fat). Prosciutto, cheese, pasta, it’s all good, and a great way to spend our first evening of vacation.