Our last day in Rome was busy! Due to our late night partying at Cafe Caruso, we overslept and missed our 9am tour of the Colosseum. So we decided to visit the Vatican before they closed in the afternoon. After finally getting it together, we took the Metro (orange line) to the Vatican.

Right outside the metro stop, we were ran into some of the finest shopping Rome has to offer! The "Frada" bag man!! Anything you wanted was right there on a dingey white sheet! You can't beat this!

After some luxurious shopping, we headed into the Vatican Museum. The Vatican Museum is filled with its own pieces of history - emmaculate statues and paintings of important figures in Roman history. My favorite part of the museum was finally viewing the famous ceiling paintings of the Cappella Sistina (Sistine Chapel). It seemed like these paintings went on forever down hall after hall. It made me go check back to my history book (google) to see how long it took for such detailed artwork to be completed. It took the artists commissioned to paint the chapel walls less than a year, and it took Michaelangelo nearly 4 years to complete his famous paintings on the vault's ceiling. It is definitely astonishing to see such works....and also quite tiring as it seemed like the Chapel was a never ending maze of rooms and hallways! I think the Chapel wore us out more than Pompeii!

After our long journey through the Vatican Museum...it was time for lunch! We stopped at a pizzeria nearby and enjoyed our lunch on the outside. It was such a beautiful and warm Roman day! We took some pictures in front of St. Peter's Basilica, then headed for the Colosseum!

It was a short train ride to the Colosseum, and once you get out of the station it is towering right in front of you. We missed our guided tour, but were still able to enjoy the views of this icon of Roman time. I can't believe how structurally sound this place is, to have been built thousands of years ago.

It was almost 5pm and getting dark, so we only had time to visit one more landmark, the Fontana di Trevi (Trevi Fountain). I don't know too much background on the Fountain, but when you get there you see that it is obviously an big tourist location. There were tons of tourists taking pictures of the fountain. The story goes that you should toss a coin into the fountain and you will find true love or return to Rome! There sure were a lot of coins flying.

We knew we had a long traveling day ahead of us the next day...so we turned in early to get our packing done and get ready for our train ride to Venice!!

I enjoyed Rome...and since I tossed a coin in the Trevi Fountain, I am sure to return.