Italy-Georgia Trip, Day 1-4

Alex and I took a 2-week trip to Italy and the country of Georgia to celebrate our 25th anniversary.  We left a couple of days after the boys got out of school.  Alex had a work trip in Venice, Italy, so we went in conjunction with that trip.  We flew out on Saturday afternoon of the 14th and arrived in Venice on Sunday evening.  

On Monday morning, we headed to Rome.  It was a little crazy trying to find a bus to the train station.  We also had to drop off and store our big suitcase in Venice so we didn't have to cart it around in Rome.  We each just took a backpack.  We did make our train and got into Rome in the afternoon.  It was really hot for our 2 days in Rome and we did a lot of walking.  We walked at least 8 miles on Monday, so it was very tiring.  We saw St. Peter's Basilica, which was really amazing.  We went up to the viewpoint from the cupola, which was a little bit of a feat just to get up there.  We walked up several narrow winding stairways. The view was pretty cool and the inside was also amazing.  We definitely needed gelato in the afternoon.  We had pizza for lunch and pasta for dinner.   

On Tuesday we had an appointment at the Rome Italy Temple at 11:15am to do some temple service.  We left early, around 9:00am, which should have given us about an hour to spare before our scheduled session.  We took the Metro a little ways, where we were supposed to get off and take 1 bus to get to the temple.  However... the bus never showed up.  It was showing arrival time to be an hour late. We waited for a while.  Eventually we took another bus, which would then feed into a 2nd bus to get there.  That bus was also delayed, so we didn't make it to the temple until about 11:20-11:30am.  We missed our scheduled appointment for an endowment session, but we were able to walk in for other temple service doing proxy sealings.  I really felt the Spirit there and realized we were probably supposed to do those for our anniversary trip.  We were reminded of the same covenants we made 25 years ago.  I was happy to finally make it (back) to the Rome Temple.  We visited on New Years 2018 when it was being constructed.  We had just learned that Alex's brother had passed away the day before, so it was a tender visit to the temple site, knowing the significance of the work we do inside.  I said I would make it back to Rome Temple sometime, and we finally did.  I loved seeing the olive trees on the temple grounds. The sculptures of Jesus and the Apostles were also really special. One cool thing about our experience trying to get to the temple was that we met a family from Lehi, Utah on the Metro who was also going to the temple.  The dad saw us sitting there, thought we were members of the church, and with no prior conversation asked if we were going to the Rome Temple too.  We ended up sharing our whole adventure of getting to the temple with them.  We had lots of time to chat.  I don't know why we were supposed to share that experience, but I'm sure it was hardly a coincidence.  Maybe we needed to have those conversations with this young family who had 3 boys and 1 girl.  

We had a couple of hours after the temple on Tuesday afternoon, so we decided to wander over to the Trevi Fountain.  We had also been there on our previous trip to Rome, and I thought we should go see it again.  It was jam-packed with people, so we just squeezed in one photo and headed out.  No coins thrown in this time, but maybe we don't need to go back to Rome anyway... 

We had an early dinner on Tuesday and took a train back to Venice (which was delayed 2 hours).  We did a lot of walking in the heat and waiting around in Rome.