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Not by any deliberate choice of ours, we took a pretty creative route between Siena and Rome. We took a local bus from the main bus station to get to the train station, only to find out a few minutes later that we were going the wrong way. We hopped off, got some vague directions in broken English and general hand waves to the train station, walked a kilometre or so, stopped and waited at the right bus stop, got to the train station, took a train to Florence (away from Rome), took another train from Florence to Rome, changed trains twice, got out at the Prima Porta train station (northern outskirts of Rome), and then caught our shuttle bus from the station to our accommodation for the week - Camping Tiber Village!!! Sounds like fun, eh? 4 trains and 4 buses.
We opted for the campsite in Rome after our great experience in Venice, and although we weren't quite as close to the action (about an hour from the campsite to the city), it was cheap and clean! We had a pretty quiet first night, dining at the campsite's restaurant.
The next day we hit the sights.
We started with the Roman Forum, a massive collection of Roman ruins from as early as 500 BC! Makes Machu Picchu seem like a baby. Some of the buildings are in better nick than others; many have been built over or added to over the years. As with a lot of our sightseeing in Italy, the main fun seems to be in actually being able to match up what you see to the map in your hand, not always an easy task. A stroll uphill took us to Capitoline Hill ("the seat of Rome's municipal government" for a long time) - cool statues, a nice staircase by Michelangelo, and about three couples having wedding photos done there. Back through the forum, we passed the prison where Paul and Peter were apparently kept (fascinating eh?), on the way to the Palatine - a hill overlooking the Forum filled with more ruins and gardens. To the Colosseum (just next door), and I have to say I wasn't as impressed as I expected to be! It was a fairly grim day weather wise (bordering on rain) so the backdrop wasn't amazing, but it just looked fairly run down and tired! My first thought
was "this has nothing on the one in Nimes!" (see France part 2) That said though, I vaguely remember being pretty Roman ruin-ed out by that point in the day, and pretty lethargic.
So, on from the Big C we walked a few kilometres to the Circo Massimo, now but a big grassy patch, but once home to a massive arena, apparently similar to the one in Ben Hur in which they raced their chariots. Cool! More uphill walking took us to Aventine Hill, through a lovely rose garden, then to one of my favourite spots of the day, some landscaped gardens called Parco Savello. There's a fantastic view of the town and St Peter's Basilica from there - it was quiet, away from the tourist bustle; the sun was out by that time, there was lovely light and long shadows... everything came together. The best view of Rome hands down though, was through the keyhole of the front gate of a building called Priorato dei Cavalieiri di Malta. I won't spoil it by describing it in too much detail, only to say it's a surprising and very satisfying view of St Peter's, and if you ever go to
Old rock
Roman ForumRome, look through the keyhole!
I don't feel like I'm making ancient Rome sound all that exciting! Doing a long day of sightseeing can be pretty draining. Anyway, by this time we had worked up a fierce appetite, and I had planned our day to end in what the Lonely Planet described as arguably Rome's best pizzeria. Come on! As if I was going to miss out on that. We left Aventine Hill, mouths already salivating at the thought of that thin crust, fresh tomato sauce, mozarella cheese... but first we needed funds.
First ATM - card in, pin and enter, 200 euros please. Response - "The host computer is down. Try again later." Three tries on the same ATM. Same result. OK, of course it's just that ATM. Next ATM - card, pin, 200 euros please. "This ATM is unable to process this transaction." Sinking feeling beginning to take hold. Last ATM - more variations on ATM-speak, but saying the same thing - "You're not getting any money! No pizza for you tonight!" I was livid. I called Commonwealth Bank (it was 3am Sunday morning Sydney time), who kindly informed me that my credit card was $1000
over the limit, and as such I could not get a cash advance. What about my savings account? No, as it's linked to your credit card and you don't have a separate EFTPOS card, you can't access that.
I could hardly believe that I was in Europe and unable to access cash that was sitting there in my account. Lesson - if you're going to Europe, take a credit card and a SEPARATE EFTPOS card. European ATMs don't seem to recognise it when your savings account is linked to your credit card.
We had US dollars and traveller's cheques, but by that time everything had closed for the day, and I had to face the disastrous prospect that I was not going to get to taste Rome's best pizza. Elle was the spiritual one, reminding me that God had everything in control, while I sulked. I really wanted pizza.
Anyway, I brightened up with a bit of time, and we headed back to the campsite with 12 Euros in hand. This was the time for true budgeting. It took 2 Euros to get back to the campsite, and about another 2 to get some cold milk to
Musei Vaticani
Stairs at entry have with the cereal we had bought that morning. Didn't feel particularly Italian, but lesson well learnt!
Day 2 of the sights, and we got up (what we thought was) early to line up to see the famous Sistine Chapel, which is one room of many in the Vatican Museums. We were especially pumped because it is free entry on the last Sunday of the month, and that happened to be the weekend we were there. Great if you've only got 8 Euros left to spend! There weren't too many tourists on at our stop (the second last stop on the line!) but as we got closer to the centre of the city, the train filled up with eager camera touting foreigners. Funny how being a tourist you come to despise other tourists. You could call it selfishness but I prefer to think of it as a symptom of something called Nasty Tourist Syndrome (NTS). We got off with a bunch of tourists at the Vatican Museum stop, and all followed each other, everyone walking fast enough to prevent anyone from overtaking you, but slow enough so as not to appear overly eager (NTS at work). We walked past
Map gallery
Musei Vaticani the front of the line, where there was evidence of people having slept overnight. Three corners and three long sections of the Vatican City wall later, we got to the end of the line, which I think must have been about 2km long. And it was an hour before opening time! I was pretty pessimistic about our chances of getting in, but we decided to wait. Wait we did, but when opening time came, how the line moved along! We were in through the front doors by about an hour after opening time.
Well, the Vatican Museums are massive. One of my favourite bits was a gallery called the Pinacoteca, which has a lot of pre-Renaissance artwork. But everyone is there to see the Sistine Chapel, and most of the time in the museum was a crowded snail's pace crawl through some amazing galleries towards Michelangelo's masterpiece. The Sistine Chapel is very cool. The skill, detail and effort you see on every wall (and of course, across the ceiling) is pretty incredible. It's quite a comic scene in there though. The place is absolutely jam packed with people. There are guards assigned to the room, it seems, to do
2 specific things - (1) tell people not to take photos (which usually involves a shout "No photos!" across the room, which booms impressively given the acoustics of the place) and (2) keep people quiet (which involves giving a very unquiet "SShhhhhh!!!") I would have to class this job as probably one of the worst in the world. Most tourists don't help the situation, succumbing to NTS and making a point of taking photos and chattering on.
We got some cash (woohoo!), ate some more gelato, wandered over to the famous Spanish steps (not quite sure what the attraction is - you can't really see the steps because they are covered with people), and then the Trevi Fountain (not bad as far as fountains go - lots of Indian street sellers about touting their wares - the squishy mouldable balls, and these rocks which make a very annoying zipping sound when you throw them into the air).
That night we went to church - one which was planted out of the Peixoto's church in Rio de Janeiro. It was a great service, and it was fantastic being in God's house again. The pastors kids took us out to
a local restaurant that night, and would you believe, the pizza was fantastic, and thoroughly made up for the lack of it the night before. They even drove us back out to the campsite (about a 40 minute drive out of the city)! We felt thoroughly blessed (again!) experiencing the hospitality of God's family on the other side of the world.
The next day we finished off the big sights of Rome. We did St Peter's Basilica (amazing, but after a while, all churches start to look the same), walked a very long way to a trattoria which was the "Author's Choice" in the Lonely Planet only to find it closed by the time we got there (didn't do too well with food in Rome), saw the Pantheon (pretty amazing structure - especially the domed ceiling with a great big hole in the top, deliberately there to let sun in, with holes in the floor to drain the rain - clever Romans!), and ate at the late John Paul II's favourite gelateria. I even tried his favourite flavour - glaceed chestnuts... didn't really do it for me though. We met up with our new Roman friends from church that
night, and went out for pizza Napoli-style (thicker crusts), which was arguably the best pizza I have had on this trip.
Stomachs full, our friends took us to the Colosseum, which at night redeemed any misgivings I had about how impressive it was. It really is totally different at night, much more grand and enchanting than during the day. It also isn't being crawled over by thousands of people! It was a perfect last night in Rome. It couldn't have got much more Italian, until one of our friends, a young Roman with a typical Roman nose, farewelled me with a hearty man to man 3-step Italian kiss. It all happened so quickly, like a blur, but I moved to the right side at the right time, and it all went very smoothly. There is a correct cheek to kiss first, but I can't remember for the life of me which side that is now. If you're ever embaced by an Italian man, just go with it!
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gabrielos
non-member comment
NTS @ work...
another sign of NTS... when you tell all your friends in australia that all churches look the same... i never thought i'd hear such elitist undertones in your speech! well, @ least you're spoilt for choice in beautiful italian churches! bongiornio!