First Time In ROME, ITALY 🇮🇹 Unbelievable Experience!

good morning everyone, here from the city of rome, the capital of italy. we just arrived here last night from sri lanka and it's going to be our first time visiting rome. you've been to italy before right? yes i have but probably like 80 years ago or more, i don't know. but not rome, only a part that is very close to france. i've also been to italy before but with my parents when i was younger. i don't remember exactly which places, i remember venice was one of them, maybe florence too. so really excited to explore this place. and we're staying in a neighborhood called monti, it's one of the main touristic neighborhoods. so you can already see just all the buildings are super beautiful. i think it's going to be one of those cities that basically everything that you look at looks amazing. and we're still in sri lanka time, so we got up at 6am, i think it's like 6 50 now and we're going to make the most of that because we know the sites get super busy, so we're heading out really early. right now we're going to the famous fountain and hopefully it should be a lot emptier. all right so we've arrived, about a 15 minute walk to get here. so this square is called piazza di trevi and that is the world famous fountain, trevi fountain. it's kind of crazy that there's already this amount of people at like 7am. but i think it gets way way worse than this during the day, but wow, really beautiful. yeah right now it's easily manageable. that is one massive fountain too, i didn't actually know it was that big. beautiful. so you can probably see all the coins in the fountain, i read that about 1.5 to 2 million euros are thrown in here every year, a crazy amount. i think it's like three thousand four thousand euros a day of coins. and the sculpture back there is supposed to be the god of the sea, neptune with his chariot, and this was built around the 1700s. vpn provider that we've been using for the past four years now. even when we are not on the road it is one of the most 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also includes a 30-day money back guarantee policy. oh wow look at the size of that thing. yeah as i said before like every corner that you turn just something majestic appears. in any other country that will be like the most famous church but here is just a normal church. yeah we're going to be seeing so many churches around here. so this is the pantheon building, we just found out that it only opens at 9am and it's 7.50am right now so we're gonna have to come back later on. i think we're gonna go inside of it. so that's a former roman temple but in 608 the emperor gave it to the pope and then it became a church. once again though just such a huge structure, unreal. so i think that is the hotel, imagine the view that you get from the room. yeah i mean head on right? yeah and imagine the price. must be super expensive, we'll show our room later on as always what's quite expensive for such a simple room but we are in the center around here, not too far from this place. so a lot of you know that the vatican is here within rome which is considered to be a country itself, the world's smallest country. so we're going to be heading there in the next video we got tickets. every building is monumental, it's crazy. it really is. yeah i'm not sure if we've ever been to a city that's like so monumental like carol said on this level, i don't think so we've barely seen any of it yet. yeah i loved paris and i loved london but maybe this is gonna be better? yeah i'm thinking it's gonna be by the looks of it got the nice little cafes everywhere in italy too, we went to one yesterday go to one at some point today. the many fountains of rome, you read yesterday that there's how many in rome? i think about two thousand fountains. two thousand fountains? and the biggest one is the trevi one. the one that we saw? yeah i think there are many. many other ones like this even this one's not super small really. you have these little police boxes on the left, seen a bunch of those around here too. maybe they're here to try to catch the big busters. yeah we've heard that that's a problem in rome isn't it? yeah i think in many european cities like the major cities so we try to be more careful, pretty much what we do when we are in brazil yeah these shorts have like a zip pocket on the front so i put my wallet in there, should be fine so this is another one of the most famous squares, piazza navona, built on the site of a first century stadium so that's why it's kind of like an oval shape. i don't know if this is where they do like those chariot races, i'm not sure. like you saw in gladiator. unfortunately all the fountains here are under construction right now so you can't see them properly got a massive obelisk there, i think that's an egyptian one, the hieroglyphics. yeah it is we also went to istanbul in turkey and they had the egyptian obelisk there, didn't know that there'd be one here. got a bit of a shot of the fountain, no water in there right now and behind the fountain you have this church saint agnes, another 17th century one it's supposed to contain the skull of saint agnes inside. so i think there's like three big fountains on this square but this one's also under reconstruction and we just saw this brazil flag there and that is the brazilian embassy. yes it is. so carol was from brazil in case you don't know and i'm half brazilian so we had no idea that the brazilian embassy was on this square and then once again another church i think, a bit of a different style that one. so out of curiosity i just did a search on how many churches there are in rome and it says there are 900 in the city, making it the city with the most churches in the world. being where the vatican is though i could have imagined that it would be the place with the most churches in the world so we stopped at this cafe on the square, got a snack and a coffee so i got this latte macchiato, seven euros, a chocolate croissant that's five euros. what did you get? tuna panini. panini i think it's italian right? like this type of bread for a sandwich and this was 10 euros and i also got an orange juice for eight euros. yeah these are obviously touristy prices since we're right on that main square. i think the majority of the coffee names are the italian names like cappuccino. yeah i think so. macchiato, espresso. maybe yeah. yeah i think it's all italian names. yeah this croissant is really delicious, i always like having croissant and a coffee in the morning. sometimes i buy croissant for home too, to eat at home. how's the panini? quite good and the orange juice is really good because it's very sweet heart of rome. got like a rowing team here. yeah it looks pretty nice because there's walkways, places you can cycle on the side. bridges look cool too, the arch bridges, famous roman bridges. so i think we're going to be exploring more of the other side of the river in the next video. yes because i think that's where the vatican is so we'll just do everything in one day, it'll be easier. absolutely perfect day too, this is like the best weather ever. yeah it's not too hot, it's not too cold, it's sunny so it's like the perfect weather because i think it makes a big difference because i remember when we went to paris it was like a very bad weather day and i think it changes your perspective about the place. when it's sunny everything looks better. yeah we're also here during the shoulder season so it's not going to be so busy. we always love coming to europe during the shoulder season, we very rarely come here in july and august when it's the school holidays because then it's scorching hot in a lot of the places and just super busy. more expensive too, non-stop beautiful buildings. so this would be the main entrance to the castle, look at these angel statues all the way down, a row of them. i only just realized that we mentioned the vatican on the other side, so that is saint peter's basilica there, the famous one, so that is the to the pantheon now, now that it's open. so it costs five euros per person to enter, i think it's just this big room, i don't think you can go into any other rooms. massive dome, the dome actually looks kind of new on the inside. yeah that part yes. the top part, might be a restoration so i mentioned that this was handed over to the pope in 609, online on the site that i checked said emperor hadrian but there was a sign out there that said a different emperor so i don't know. but the original roman one was from 27 bc so that's when it was founded, established way way before. i think this is all marble isn't it? yeah. marble walls, got some very faded paintings. this right here is a tomb of one of the kings umberto i, king of italy. and the queen oh the queen's in there too. yeah margarita savoia. what date is that? 1800s so quite recent compared to all the other things that we're seeing around rome so we just came through some pretty awesome squares here, there's actually a news group something going on in these squares over here and then on this side seems to be a mall i think it's an old building just converted into a mall now everything really is just unbelievable isn't it? yeah i think this is more like a mall shopping mall. yeah i think it is but it looks like an original old building so these are called the spanish steps and this is called piazza di spagna, the spanish square once again another beautiful fountain, probably the second nicest fountain that we've seen after the trevi one. yeah real nice view. and that church up there i think it's like a french church there was a french settlement at the top trinita dei monti, don't know if i'm pronouncing it correctly probably mispronounced a lot of places here already, do my best. so even though they're called the spanish steps they were paid for by the french and built by the italians, so i don't know if they're called the spanish steps just because the square down there. so these steps were constructed in the 1700s just like a lot of places that we've been visiting today, a lot of them seem to be from the 1700s and for centuries it's been a popular hangout spot especially for artists since it's so beautiful. it's a pretty nice view. yeah the the domes of the churches in the background, got some and right now we're outside the colosseum, so that is one of the seven wonders of the world we're actually not going in there right now, we're going to the forum of rome, which is that it over there in the distance? i think so, should be it. yeah but i don't think we can get to the entrance this way, i think we have to go around the colosseum which will be pretty cool because we'll see views of it all and then we'll enter the forum and later on we're going to be entering inside there, our ticket is for around 3 pm. so i didn't know that we'd already be seeing it on our way to the forum it's only like a six or seven minute walk from where we're staying so we really are in a great location, so close. so we're now on the opposite side, this wall is a lot smaller than the one back there, the one that we showed before. it actually looks like that was a outer layer. yeah i don't understand it but maybe later on we'll find out why it's like that once we read the explanations about it. but it's crazy to be here and it's so big. yeah and i don't know if i mentioned but that is the final wonder of the world that we need to see. we've seen the other six before, well i guess we've seen this one now so we've seen all seven now. maybe later on we'll talk about which ones we like the most. yeah because we need to see it inside to see if this will beat all the others and we'll tell you guys which one is our favorite one from the seven. wow look at this right in front of the coliseum, some sort of ancient gateway it looks like. yeah that is super cool, got the images of the angels we're officially inside the forum now, so we got the ticket online which is a lot better because the queues were massive back there and it was 18 euros but it's a dual ticket so that also gives us access to the coliseum. yeah and just so you know i bought these tickets i think around two weeks before and the tickets for the coliseum and the times were already becoming sold out so you need to book it in advance for sure. so the forum is the main square in ancient rome, so this was like the center of day-to-day life in rome. a lot of it is heavily damaged right now, still quite a few of the structures upright though, these ones here the building back there but then you get other ones like this that are heavily damaged. so this would have been used for numerous things like a marketplace, public speeches, elections, criminal trials, there are also gladiator matches within here and it's also a place that triumphs were celebrated. so triumphs are basically when a roman military leader had won a war outside of rome or in another country and he would come to this square and there'd be like a ceremony for him, a public celebration. carol's listening to an audiobook yeah. rick steves. yeah it's for free and i read some people like on the review saying that it was good because it was free and also it has a lot of information. now i'm listening about that arch over there. yeah the one that we entered through. arch of titus. arch of titus. so the audio guy said that the arch back there was built to celebrate the victory over israel, the roman victory and apparently they also brought back 50 000 jewish slaves during that victory. yeah there really are just like so many buildings and structures around here. i can see people all the top of that one. so we'll head up there later on. so the history of this place began around 8th century bc, so way before the roman empire, that was the beginning of the roman kingdom. so the first king of the roman kingdom was called romulus and that is why rome is actually named rome, it's named after him. so that was around the 8th century. i think the roman empire only officially began around 27 bc and that was around the time when they started dominating the majority of europe, north africa, middle east so i just mentioned romulus the first king, this is temple of romulus. we just entered there now it's like a museum inside, had some nice paintings built in 307 a.d. so this sign says that it was originally a roman temple, which is obviously the part where you can see the columns in 141 a.d. and then around the 7th century they made it into a church, so that's why the part behind clearly looks like a church, a mix of both. i suppose a bit like the pantheon then. yeah yeah. it's a temple and then a church. i think we haven't seen that this type of like constructions anywhere else where there's like a temple in the beginning and then the church inside yeah in other roman sites throughout the world, i don't think we have seen that now. so this ruin in front of us, it's very busy here right now because that is the temple of julius caesar maybe the most famous emperor i guess, i don't know it seems to be the guy that i heard about the most in my life anyway, julius caesar, he was assassinated, i know that. so i was just listening more about that the temple of julius caesar and apparently he was burned there, his body. like cremated. yeah after he was assassinated in 44 bc i think and yeah that's why they have that kind of, it's like a little memorial or something. so we've got yet again another completely epic arch, this one is called the arch of septimius severus, erected in 203 ad, celebrate the victories of the emperor and his sons over the parthians in ancient persia so now we got one of the viewpoints, this isn't even the main one that we could see before it's like a side view, so these buildings are obviously outside of the the forum, it's really green on this side of the city, the hills in the background yeah this is the best view, it's almost a full shot of the colosseum, you can see basically more quiet road, colosseum is just down there, about two minutes away walking. so i went for the classic margherita pizza, i already had a bite here, 11 euros. and what is yours? my favorite is italian food which is the gnocchi and this type is a gnocchi assortiment, i think that's how it's called and it's with a tomato sauce and cheese, it's really really good. how much is that one? 13 euros yeah i think i've seen this kind of pizza for 7-8 euros in other places but since we're so close to the colosseum that's probably why it's that price. it's all good, really good. so we're now at our final stop for this video anyway, the colosseum, the gran finale. yeah so as expected there are loads of people here but since we had the ticket beforehand the queue wasn't big for us. i think the tour groups have way bigger queues than if you're just coming by yourself. all right now you can see everything, it's huge. so carol's guide said that this would have all been painted white in the past, i'm gonna try and imagine it with a white color. so they started construction around 72 a.d under emperor vespasian. i think we saw his tomb or a temple, vespasian temple in the forum. yeah it was a temple i think. but then it was completed in 80 a.d so in only eight years to build all this under his successor titus. and they used 60 000 jewish slaves to build it so maybe that's why they were able to build it in just eight years because 60 000 is a hell of a lot of people, but even so still pretty quick. i thought it would that apparently this is still the biggest standing amphitheater in the world, even though it was built like almost 2 000 years ago, still the biggest one. could hold up to around 80 000 people i think which is more than a lot of stadiums even nowadays, modern stadiums. and carol's guide said that there would have been a sandy floor on top of here, so what you're seeing down there is actually underground. i think you have to do a different kind of tour to be able to walk around the underground part. i don't even know if we can go to the bottom floor without a ticket, we'll have to find out. i definitely don't think we'll be able to go up there because there's barely anybody up there so i'm guessing that the people must have sat here somewhere, some of this must have been covered i guess and the seats must have been going down. it's hard to tell where it was, over there it's still covered actually. and you said that the audio book said that they had like a hundred day celebration. yeah when they opened it they made this event which lasted 100 days and apparently during that time 2 000 men died and i think 6 000 animals also died, crazy number. it's like one people dying every five minutes or something. that's what it said. yeah. yeah so it must have been events every single day. some of you have probably watched the film gladiator so yeah this is definitely like gladiator vibes and in that film it showed them fighting against animals like lions or fighting each other even so yeah that's how it would have been back then for entertainment, pretty underground part. kind of creepy knowing how many people died here. yeah it's weird that they built this majestic thing to just kill other people for fun. i think they did have other normal theatre shows there though, it wasn't all the bloody battles, they had drama shows too so i'll now show you the studio that we're staying in, this is 133 euros a night which i think is considered pretty cheap for the area that we're in, right in the historic centre. it is a small little place so the bathroom is through this way, pretty good bathroom. and then we do have a kitchen so we've been able to do some cooking. also got a washing machine that we use to clean some of our clothes. got the microwave, the internet here is ultra fast, probably some of the fastest wi-fi we've ever had. and then we've got a little living room, been able to have our meals here and this is kind of clever what they did here, so they put the bed at the top. i think originally these walls would have been here and then i guess they just made this wooden base to create more space. it is a bit sketchy going up though, not for everyone, this is a bit wobbly. seems a bit flimsy too, the wood, but still comfortable. and it's an ac room and then here there's just some other things, ironing board, things like that. and overall it's been really spectacular these first few days in rome. as i mentioned we are going to be visiting the vatican tomorrow, so extra excited for that. and i mentioned that we talked about our favourite wonders of the world, so i think for me number one is still petra in jordan. i don't know what your favourite is. yeah i think i'm between petra and machu picchu in peru. i also loved machu picchu, so it's hard to choose my number one, but one of those two. yeah but they're all absolutely incredible, i mean they're all wonders of the world, so they're all really good. i suppose it's also a bit unfair because petra is a full-on ancient city that takes multiple days of exploring to see everything, whereas some of the others like taj mahal or the coliseum, it's just a couple of hours and you see it, so that's why. i think i also love petra because it's like you're entering another world, everything's orange. i mean that's the country where dune the the movie was filmed because it literally looks like another planet, so yeah i think that's why petra is my favourite. but yeah the coliseum is still absolutely unbelievable that they made something like that almost 2 000 years ago. so if you like this video just drop a like as usual to support us, subscribe to see more videos like this, follow us on instagram and we'll see in the next one