The rest of the story...finally. Rome

So I apologize to all for such a massive delay in updating the blog.  Rome was so totally awesome!  Perhaps if we had a month we could really get to visit and digest the places we visited.  Trains in Europe hold to their schedules.  As we attempted to get on the train to go to Rome (all 10 of us with something like 14 pieces of luggage, stess smacked me in the face as I looked at a train car loaded to the gills with people.  Of course, we needed to navigate through them to get to our reserved seats which also were full of carpetbaggers.  After getting into our seats and settling all the luggage, we relaxed until we got to Rome.  Thankfully, our ride did show up (we were not 100% that he would) and whisked us off to our 5th floor penthouse apartment which was great (I'd highly recommend it to anyone...though you probably need to speak some Italian).  Our Roman itinerary included visits to: bus tour, the Coliseum, Palatine Hill, the Forum (almost...it was closing time as we were approaching and we were turned away), church in Rome, the Vatican museum (can you say  cattle herding?), Spanish steps, Trevi fountain, the Pantheon, San Peter's Basilica, the church of the bones, Villa Borgese, the Catacombs of St. Calixto, the Jewish Ghetto and the Mouth of Truth.  This is a quick list which could be expanded to include lots of great food spots and gelato.  I'll add the photos below because they speak better than words.
Before we go to the photos, a few anecdotal facts: 1. Ensure you stay together on the Metro (subway) or have a good back up plan...two of our group got separated from us (adults).  2. Ensure the kids are with an adult on metros and busses.  3. Go to the far ends of the metro to get seats...everyone comes down the stairs and waits in the middle to get on thus creating a situation where you're trying to stick 5,000 chickens into a coup with max capacity of 98 in under 38 seconds (really, we timed it.)  4. Expect to be treated like cattle in some locations if you visit during high tourist seasons.  5. You really can squish 5 adults and 5 kids into a bus that looks too full already...however, make note of fact #1.  6. New years in Rome is super cool...fireworks shows in 5 different locations visible from our penthouse...think a Macey's Day Parade with all the noise and hoopla at midnight.  7. Don't get off the bus too soon while en route to see the Catacombs because the road has about 2 feet of space on which to walk.  Songbird is now calling this the "Rome death march."  8. There is such a thing as too many pastries.  9.  Italian pizza with strips of salmon is not that good. 10. Beware! Random old men tend to walk around making odd noises...we saw one "bird whistler" and had one old gentlemen blow four raspberries in the faces of a number in our group.  Of the 300+ photos I took here are a few that show some things.