Day 16 Bernini, Churches and lots of walking!!

We started the day by taking the bus to our reservation at the Borghese Gallery. Traffic is insane here in Rome!  We are so fascinated by watching the semi-organized chaos of traffic here. It felt great to be on a bus!  It's nice being bigger than everything else out there!  The Borghese is one of my very favorites!  It has a bunch of incredible Bernini statues and he is my favorite!  We got a great surprise that 2 weeks ago they started a special showing of Bernini's works and brought in around 100 other pieces of his from around the world. It made an amazing museum even better in my opinion!  It was a lot to see. But we loved it!  I hope we can keep the pictures to a reasonable amount while here in Rome. It's gonna be tricky!  Bernini's Apollo and Daphne statue is one of the great pieces of art I've ever seen!  After a couple of hours there we started our long day of walking!  We walked all the way to a couple of my very favorite churches in a city of SO many great churches!  Santa Maria Maggiore is such a beautiful place!  The mosaics are Really old and so bright and colorful and perfect looking still after all this time, I mean like 1500 years for some of them!  Watching Emily pray in front of the pieces from Jesus' Manger was really special to me!  That made it even more powerful!  Then, around the corner we went to a tiny church called Santa Prassada. It's famous for its 9th century Byzantine mosaics, the finest of its kind in Rome. It's one of those hidden gems that you feel like you really know something when you go there!  So awesome!!  After that, we took the bus back to our adorable apartment, climbed our 2 flights of steep stairs to get there and talked to our parents and relaxed for a few before adventuring out for dinner at a really cute place less than a half mile from our apartment. It was run by a team of young hard working kids and they did a great job!  They made us feel very welcomed and comfortable, the food was fantastic! And it was a great price!  Especially for its location right by Campo De Fiori.  After that we did a short night walk through the heart of Rome!  Emily got to see Campo De Fiori and Piazza Navona for the first time. What fantastic places. I love being able to share that stuff with the love of my life!  We came home pretty early. We have a big day tomorrow!  Our first cooking class!  It's a private gelato class!  Who knows? Maybe next year I'll have some gelato on the menu??? 😜😃 Hope your day is as fantastic as ours has been. We are exhausted!  Thanks for following our journey. It really means the world to us!  Don't forget, next year you all can come with us and share in these experiences!  What a blast that'll be!