Europe, 9 May 2012

Today was the finish of a long travel day. We landed at Schippol airport in Amsterdam only a few minutes late after leaving Houston almost an hour late. Schippol is a very large airport which even has a small branch of the Reikes Museum in it.

After lunch, we boarded a plane for a relatively quick flight to Rome. That is compared with the trans-Atlantic flight. A bit of the Alps showed through the cloud cover as we passed over Switzerland, and farm land was visible as we approached Rome.

After retrieving our luggage, we boarded the Leonardo Express (it's da Vinci airport) for the train ride into Rome. The train was a bit crowded, but we both found seats. Termini Station is the terminus of the train, and about a half-mile walk to Hotel Italia, our base for the next couple of days.

Victor Emanuel Memorial & Roman ruins

Since we had been up a long time, we took a brief rest before heading out to explore a bit of Rome. The goal was the Coliseum at dusk and dark, different from our view last time here.

Victor Emanuel Memorial

On the way we stopped at the Victor Emmanuel Memorial and walked through a bit of the old Roman ruins we had not seen before.  We arrived at the Coliseum just abut sunset, just as planned. A few pictures in the sunset and dusk along with some of Constantine's Arch.  As we walked around the Coliseum we came to several sidewalk cafes, and stopped at one to have dinner. It was a good prix fix six course Italian meal.

Constantine's Arch

Coliseum from the West

Coliseum East End

Our plan had been to take more pictures of the Coliseum after dark with lights on it, but about nine o'clock, the big lights went out. Some lights stayed on so we were able to take a few more pictures after dinner with some interesting effect.

On the walk back to the hotel, we did a bit of "Rick Steves" and took some wrong turns and saw more of some neighborhoods than planned. Tomorrow the plan is to revisit some sites, and head into a new neighborhood or two.