Rome in a Day


Advertisement
Italy's flag
Europe » Italy » Lazio » Rome
October 15th 2010
Published: October 23rd 2010
Edit Blog Post

Well today was our full day visit to Rome. Since I’d never been here we wanted to see as much as possible. John had been here as a child and again with friends about 25 years ago. He wanted to see the Sistine Chapel since it was undergoing restoration on his last visit. We had to meet in the showroom about 6:30 a.m. for our Eternal Rome and Vatican Museum tour scheduled for 12 hrs. We headed out on bus #1 for Rome which they said would take about 1 ½ hrs from Civitavecchia where we were docked. We had a local guide named Marcos but would pick up a Rome guide when we arrived there. We did make a short pit stop along the way at a gas station type rest area so managed to get a coke for the caffeine we’d need for this early tour.

Seeing the ancient ruins amid the bustling modern day Rome is a juxtaposition that at first seems unnatural to Americans who rarely have the opportunity to see buildings dating before the last century. And weaving through this modern city are the remnants of a fully integrated aqueduct and road system that tied this ancient empire together over many centuries. We saw fine examples of the roads in Pompeii with its cobbled streets that held up under arduous use and were still functional today. John forgot to mention about the “cat’s eyes” which aided nighttime travelers over those cobbled streets. Cat’s eyes are chiseled white marble chips that are placed in gaps in the stone cobbled streets that give them a speckled look, and which provide shiny reflective surfaces that provide navigation guidance by night. We also saw cat’s eyes used in the flooring of some of the more affluent dwellings of Pompeii.

When we arrived in Rome drove past the Pyramid, Circus Maximus, and Coliseum as we made our way to the Trevi Fountain. Noticeable on the outside of the Coliseum is that the walls of this giant relic were rough and appeared to be of pitted limestone, hardly the stuff you’d expect in this land so blessed with marble buildings. We learned that these holes in the limestone are where the marble facing of this beautiful stadium had been attached to the limestone using iron and lead. But the marble is long since gone, and we will discover why shortly. The guide mentioned we’d be walking from there back down to the Coliseum which had us all a bit concerned since the drive took quite a bit of time and many streets. They parked the bus and we walked about 10-15 mins to the fountain which really is beautiful. We met our Rome guide here and she told us about the fountain before giving us about 30 mins of free time. We were the first group there so it wasn’t as crowded as I expected. We used our free time to take photos, throw coins, and get ice cream of course. The story she told us about the coins was 1 to come back to Rome, 2 to get Married, and 3 to get divorced so she advised couples to go down separately so they didn’t see how many the others threw. We of course both threw just 1. John couldn’t remember throwing coins when he was here 25 years ago but decided he must have thrown 2 and that it takes 25 years for both to come true.

We then started our walk down thru Rome. We saw the Victor Emmanuel Memorial which is reported to look like a wedding cake or typewriter, the forum, and the coliseum along with many other buildings. It was part of Mussolini’s effort to renovate and rejuvenate Roma (as the Italians call Rome). We had quite a bit of free time at the coliseum so we walked around it taking photos. That was only possible after buying some batteries since the camera one had given out and the extras were in the bus. Luckily it can take AA though they don’t last long. The forum was the central meeting place and business district of ancient Rome, and extends from the Coliseum for a considerable distance. Today it is many city blocks of open and ongoing excavation and today’s modern traffic only border the perimeter looking down into the past where partially complete columns give a hint of the splendor that once was Rome. Overlooking this, and to the side at a distance are the Palatine hills. Rome was built on seven hills, and the Palatine Hill is the central hill as well as the site for one of the oldest parts of the city. It is in a cave here that (legend says) Romulus and Remus were suckled by the famous she-wolf - Romulus being the one who founded Rome once he grew up - so this hill is not only extremely well-known but also revered in Roman mythology. The importance of the Palatine Hill is more than just based in myth, however, as excavations here have revealed evidence of people living on the site around 1000 B.C.E. And as our guide in Pompeii informed us, that his interpretation of the legend of Romulus and Remus, and which he assured us no Roman guide would support, was that the she-wolf was really, well, a lady of the evening as the Roman slang for these is also “she-wolf”.

We then had to hike up to the bus but she led us on a bit of a shortcut using the escalator in the subway station. We then headed out of town to the restaurant for lunch. The traffic was really bad as there was some type of demonstration going on with all the schools closed for it and kids with signs etc. Not sure what they said exactly, but there were words that seemed to decry discrimination, no doubt of the burgeoning ethnic populations being absorbed by the EU from Africa and the Middle East. It sure slowed things down for awhile, and we seemed completely stymied from getting to lunch, which finally started with a large salad that had almost everything in it (lettuce, eggs, corn, tomatoes, tuna, etc). That was followed by Lasagna and then Tiramisu. The parking lot for the restaurant was very small so the 2 buses there had to back out thru a gate just wide enough for them. The people on Bus #2 were trying to get us to change buses since they’d had some issues with theirs on the ride into Rome.

We then headed to the Vatican. We started in the museum seeing statues, tapestries, and maps painted on the walls. It was very crowded but interesting as we worked our way thru it all. When we got to the section that had the stairs to the Sistine Chapel they had temporarily closed it due to the crowds but our guide managed to get us in an area we could wait for them to reopen it instead of having to go another way thru 60 more rooms of museum to reach it. We eventually made our way down into the Sistine Chapel which was beautiful though crowded. They had to keep reminding people to be quiet.

After leaving the chapel we headed over to St. Peter’s. It was very busy as they were setting up for a big celebration on Sunday outside when they would be canonizing 4 new Saints including one from Australia (there were lots of Aussies on this cruise). Our guide informed us that St. Peter’s is a great example of recycling from ancient times. The marble used to face St. Peter’s had been scavenged from the marble that had faced the Coliseum.

We then headed back to the ship and the traffic wasn’t too bad so we made it back in just over an hour. We were dead tired on our feet, and both new better than to lie down. We freshened up for dinner and went to a later than normal start for our open dining (which comes in very handy on long tour days like this). John had the dried roast duck appetizer, black bean pasta fagioli (which Sharon ordered for him), plus corn chowder with crab that he ordered for himself, and a fish entre of mahi mahi. Sharon ordered medium well prime rib that was as well done as it could be. Sharon wanted a hint of pink, but this had none. It was still very good. We both had the double chocolate “Mud-Pie” cake dessert (ironically with no ice cream & no coffee flavor) but still delicious. The day was long, and we were dog tired… even too tired to catch the show or try our luck in the casino (and that’s pretty tired). We even missed the piano bar which we’ve really enjoyed on this cruise.




Additional photos below
Photos: 59, Displayed: 28


Advertisement



23rd November 2010

good looking
Rome really very nice place and have your own unique cultural activity, all pictures looking very beautiful .... thanks for sharing it with us ....

Tot: 0.538s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 13; qc: 69; dbt: 0.163s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1; ; mem: 1.2mb