When in Rome, you must see it at night!

We stayed in another Airbnb, but this one had no "kitchen".  We were there for a week, and the boyo got to see the Coliseum as well as the Vatican.  St. Peter's basilica was finished by Michelangelo, and so he got a dose of architecture, statuary and paintings by the great master for his Art History class.  The Forum was amazing, as always, and we spent only 20 minutes in line with the "skip the line" tour we purchased for the Coliseum.  It's pretty impressive what you can do with tons of time and a bunch of slaves.  We did visit the Trevi Fountain, which really is amazing at night.

When the Roman church took over, they wanted things done fast, so they started ripping apart the Coliseum to use the blocks and marble for their new churches.  Pretty slick. The Coliseum was used for entertainment by the Emperors of Rome, for housing and even retail in subsequent years, and it was a pretty outstanding archaeological dig to return it to the state it is in now.  The bottom levels were all underground and had five feet of standing wastewater in them.  Eww.

Eating meals out became pizza, pizza, pasta, pizza to save on costs.  Croissants and cappuccino for breakfast.  Tons of starch and not enough fruits and veggies.  We did have the good karma to be on top of a street with a twice weekly market though!  Loved that. And the tomatoes were all excellent.  After awhile though, even pizza gets old.

At the last minute we amended our planned train trip back up the Amalfi coast for two reasons.  One, we need to work, and two, boyo needs to study.  As it turns out, he is far behind and sketchy internet in Rome didn't help at all.  We spent the last two days in Ciampino in a hotel near the other Rome airport.  It had a pool, but sadly, it was not heated.  Onward back to Paris for some blitzing of work and school calls and solid internet, which was also missing in Italy.

We didn't hear back from the Paris airbnb host, ending with a second choice that had "Instant booking" for housing for the next 9 days.  I know my anxiety is doing ok when I don't yet have a place to sleep for the night and I'm totally not worried about that:)  Couple of lessons learned.  One, stick with CDG airport in Paris.  Two, book in advance as much as possible.  Three, you get better train and flight prices with a two week notice.