Italy Vacation - Day 4

We are leaving Positano today so we decided to take an early morning stroll to watch the sunrise.  I can't put into words how much I loved this little town.  The calm, peaceful feelings I had while we were there are memories I'll always treasure.  The atmosphere was wonderful and I could see myself buying a house there and staying forever, it's my kind of place!  (I think Trent will agree with me on that score, but I can't speak for him for sure!!)

This is a view from near our B&B, but we're not stopping here...we're going all the way down to the beach.

They use those hanging balls for lights at night.  Instead of glaring street lights...you have soft, romantic ambiance!

This morning we noticed this secret staircase in the side of the cliffs surrounding the beach.  It was roped off, but curiosity got the better of us, so up we went to see where it lead.  I mean just look at this photo...can you blame us??

It lead us to this little cliff side pathway.  We both smiled at our luck to have discovered such a gem! 

I'm really glad we got up to explore this morning, it would have been a shame to have missed this.

It wouldn't have been right to be surrounded by so much beauty, on such a romantic trip without a little smooching!

This person gets to live here and enjoy these views every day!  Lucky Duck!

one of my favorite pics of Positano.

I fell in love with the cute little mailboxes all over Italy...adorable

Back at our room for breakfast, and just in time because the clouds were rolling in.  We didn't know then, but it would be the last time we'd see a cloudless sky for about a few days.

We said our goodbyes to Villa Mary and headed North to Roma!  The drive was about 2 1/2 hours with lots of beautiful countryside, modern buildings, old buildings, mountains and sheep.  We enjoyed the drive tremendously!

After checking into our hotel in Rome, we immediately set out because we found out a Van Gogh Exhibit was in town and we wanted to go!  This was our only chance because we had reservations and tickets booked for the remainder of our time in Rome.  We were so lucky, our hotel was so central and close to everything, the exhibit was just down the street at Piazza Venezia.

View from our room.

Ancient ruins in the middle of town.  These are what is left of Trajan's Forum, he was an emperor.

view of the Colosseum down Via Dei Fori Imperiali

This is capital hill.  We saw the Vincent Van Gough exhibit here.  I was almost giddy as we entered.  It was really nice to see his works.  We didn't get to see his most famous paintings, but the selection we did see was vast and beautiful!  Such talent.

Afterwards we wondered out onto the museums balcony and saw that you could take an elevator up to the Terrace of the Quadrigas (the top of the building) to view "Rome from the Sky".  Of course, we went up!  The unfortunate thing was that the city was pretty smoggy today, even the boy working the elevator commented about it.  We didn't let that bother us and had a great time overlooking Rome.

This is the Quirinal Palace, now the residence of the President of the Republic.  The column in the part of Trajan's Forum.  It recounts Emperor Trajan's great feats in battle - the best preserved column of its kind from the ancient world.

The Roman Forum, or Rome's ancient city hall area

View down Via Nazionale

We could see all the way to Michelangelo's majestic dome of St. Peter's and the Sistine Chapel.

This is Thea Quadriga of Unity by Carlo Fontana.  She stands overlooking the Via dei Fori Imperiali and is dedicated to unity of the Homeland.

We were taking pictures through the binoculars and we got this.  It has nothing to do with Rome, but I am in love with it!

St. Peter's dome through the binoculars

The Colosseum

It was pretty dark by the time we got back down to street level.  We wandered over to Campo De' Fiori which was a bustling piazza.  The people were young and hip, we were close to the nice shopping district.  We picked a restaurant and enjoyed!