Our route
I found the train grafitti especially interesting
The view of the tuscan countryside from the train was just as I had imagined.
The train barista making me a cafe macchiato.
We made some friends on the train....
These girls are studdying abroad in Tuscany with a group through their college in North Carolina.
They made me jealous with stories of the food chemistry and artisan bread baking courses they have been taking in Italy.
These are the two Melissas. They are from San Diego. They are spending a couple of weeks together traveling through France, Italy, and Greece. Melissa(on the left) just graduated from UCSD, and Melissa (on the right) attends a college nearby in San Diego. They told us all about their visit to the Paris Disneyland which has an extra elaborate Cinderella's castle with a very realistic smoke breathing dragon beneath it.
We expect to be welcoming all of our new train friends in Santa Barbara in the near future 😎
We arrived in Rome and found our hostel/hotel just a few blocks away.
We are staying at "The Beehive", an urban hipster hostel owned by an american couple. I had heard about it on "the iceberg probect", an Italian language learning website and podcast.
The room is clean and pleasant, but it is tiny, and the bathroom is smaller than I thought possible. The area around the hostel is very sketchy. I would be nervous about walking alone. I guess that is what comes with a central location near the train station. Lucky for me I have a big burly husband to walk next to 😉
After checking in we went to explore. We took a metro to the area near the Colloseum to find a late lunch. We found this little hole in the wall place serving pizza by the kg. The family running it was very interesting to watch; the girl at the counter totally reminded me of an '80s Madonna
Good pizza😋 and a super afforable lunch.
Then we walked about 2 blocks over to the Colosseum and looked around.
It is pretty amazing to be standing right next to such an iconic historical monument.
We decided to book tickets for a hop-on/hop-off bus that goes all around Rome.
We rode the bus all around the city for the next 2 hours, listening to the audio commentary of the city's sights.
Vatican City is across the bridge
Then we got off of the bus and explored more by foot, walking through narrow stone streets, and we made our way to the Pantheon and the Trevi Fountain.
It looks so inviting. And it is so very hot out. It took every ounce of self control I have not to jump in and go for a swim. 
We were ready for dinner so we found a restaurant recommended by my guidebook: "Miscelanea". It was very good and affordable and the portions were generous. We ordered way too much food. The whole dinner with wine was only 40€
They have a house specialty wine that they serve to guests as an after dinner treat. It is called "Sexy Wine". I thought it tasted like a black cherry wine cooler.
We walked back through the streets which were all lit up and full of people. There was a lot going on and the energy was high. Rome is an active place at night.
Then back to our hotel after a long day.
We had a fun first day in Rome!
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