Sara Varga's Story
We arrived in Rome on May 30th and had the pleasure of spending 3 days in this beautiful city. On our second day, 2 of my classmates and I decided to take a guided tour of Vatican City. We spent two hours exploring St. Peter’s Basilica and had the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to walk through the Holy Door, which is only opened every 25 years. After exploring inside, we spent some time shopping in the souvenir shop and taking pictures outside the basilica.
After getting our “Instagram” worthy photos, we headed back towards our accommodations to meet up with the rest of our classmates, as we had another guided tour scheduled for that afternoon. Our walk back from the Vatican was a bit eventful. We had exited the city on the opposite side we entered and found ourselves too far from the metro but closer to our accommodations, so we decided to walk back. We did not account for the fact that this walk would be entirely uphill. We were all exhausted and silently struggling, until about halfway through, one of my classmates said the magic words “An uber is only 10 euros,” and we were saved.
Once we arrived back at our accommodations, we had a quick snack and headed back out for our next tour of the day. This tour was one of my favourites of the trip, as we got to see one of the world's wonders, the Roman Colosseum. Walking through this ancient piece of architecture almost felt unreal; it was incredible to think that people had walked through the same halls hundreds of years ago. Our guide was very informative and shared many historical facts about the Colosseum and the surrounding areas. One of my favourite facts emerged near the end of our tour, when we had the opportunity to explore Palatine Hill. This is one of the oldest parts of the city and the origin of the saying “All roads lead to Rome.” In the era of the Roman Empire, a network of roads was built that stretched for 400,000 km, and all of them led back to the capital of Rome. Seeing the Colosseum was an amazing experience and another thing I can check off my bucket list.
I will forever be grateful for the opportunity NSCC provided me; this trip was an excellent way to wrap up my college experience.