For our first family “overnight” trip, we decided to go to Rome.  We made it through Christmas and “most” of our presents arrived in the mail in-time.  Yeah!  We were within days of the big day and had no packages yet, but the postal system came through!  Since the boys and Mike had some time off school and work, we booked a dog/house sitter and headed to Rome for a night.  After looking at train prices, we decided to drive.  From our house, it actually took more than 3 hours to get there, so next trip may involve the train.  One of our destinations was off the beaten path, so driving made more send this time.

Our first stop, Gladiator School.  We were all sooo excited for this, to train to be a gladiator.  However, Aidan was getting over the flu and only made it through the first hour.  So Julie and Aidan sat out most of the fun fighting part.  For others trying this school out, I would recommend going to the 9am class.  There were less than 10 people and they had alot of “fighting” time.  At the 11am class, we had around 30 people and it was just too big.  A smaller class may have held Aidan’s interest more and he likely would have continued.  Lesson learned.

Regardless, the school was a very cool experience.  We learned a bit of Gladiator history and learned some cool moves.  Mike and Sean got to spar in a little mini-tournament.  Both lost, although I thought Sean won his match.  He clearly got the other kid.  Sean had on his intense game-face the entire training and was out to get someone! ha  You can see some of this in the photos!

After Gladiator school, we headed to the Colosseum.  We found a parking spot and had an overpriced lunch very near the Colosseum.  Mike then picked an orange off a tree in the street and had the funniest puckering sour face I’ve ever seen when eating it.  Of course as a proud parent, he had Sean also taste it to enjoy in Sean’s reaction. :p  Onward to our destination, we made it to the entrance of the Colosseum around 3pm and found a massive “line”.  I say line, but it was more a moving mass of people pushing their way to the ticket area.  Surprisingly, it only took us 15 minutes to move through the mass, every man for himself!  We got into the Colosseum with about 30 minutes to spare before closing.  It made sense, you would not want to be inside when it got dark.  Unfortunately, unlike the anfiteatro at Capua, you couldn’t touch much or explore in the catacombs.  However, the arena floor was gone so you could kinda see underneath.  The cost was a little expensive, 50 euros for the family to get in.  Well worth it for the trip, but next time we’ll just see a local anfiteatro for 5 euros and it will be more fun for the boys.

Since we drove our car, we made it back to our parking spot thanks for Google Maps and dropping a pin!  We headed to Trevi Fountain to throw our coins in and make wishes.  At this point, Aidan was really not feeling well.  In hindsight, he had the flu and we didn’t realize how bad he was.  Parenting award!  But we were in Rome so we headed to Trevi Fountain and threw coins in and made wishes.  It was quite crowded, so with Aidan not feeling well, we didn’t stay long.  We checked into our hotel and grabbed some dinner.

Day 2 in Rome started with a “segregated” breakfast.  We are not really sure what happened, but when trying to go to the continental breakfast room, we were told we had to eat in another room.  We were the only people there, and when another couple came to join us, they were told they couldn’t eat there and were escorted back to the main room.  At first we thought we were in the continental or “free” room, until upon leaving we had to pay 25 euros for breakfast. ha  Not sure what that was about, lost in translation…always an adventure.

We didn’t plan to stay long in Rome on day 2, but wanted to check out Piazza Navona.  As it was only a few days after Christmas, they still had a christmas market and carnival setup inside the Piazza.  In the Piazza, they used to have chariot races and would also fill it with water and have boat races.  It was setup with many vendor booths and a carousel, which Aidan LOVED.  Sean bought a gladiator costume and Aidan got a squishy tomato toy and both boys were very happy!  Next stop the Pantheon.  The boys were actually pretty impressed with the Pantheon and Sean informed us the pillars were Greek and were the highest ranking of stature!  He was right, of course. 😛 We grabbed some lunch, some gelato and found our car where we had parked along the Tiber River.  Not sure what we were thinking, but we had parked in an hourly prepay street section and totally spaced and didn’t pay the parking machine.  We got lucky this time, but will make sure we don’t make the mistake again.

Some pics from Rome……