Easter in the Eternal City

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Wednesday 4-20 to Sunday 4-24
We’ve landed in Rome for Holy Week and are mentally trying to prepare ourselves for the crazy crowds ;o) Nick booked another AirBnB residence, so we have our own room in a really nice apartment, right next to the main train station; it’s great. This is Nick’s first time in Rome and we only have 5 days, so we downloaded some Rick Steves’ podcasts and set out on foot to walk the Eternal City over the next four days. (Shout out for Rick Steves, by the way; his free podcasts are awesome! He’s my new best friend on the trip.)

Our first excursion was through the ancient Roman Empire. We visited the Colosseum and it was fun for me to see Nick so excited and wide-eyed about this amazing structure that he had only ever experienced through books and documentaries. It is a truly impressive thing; over 2000 years old, you can still see the emperor’s box, walk the ancient hallways to the first ticketed seating arena in the world, and peer down into the labyrinth that was the underground holding chambers. I first came here over 10 years ago with my brother and it’s interesting to see all the changes they’ve made for tourists: a maze of a ticketing area (thank goodness we got our tickets beforehand b/c the line was over an hour long!), a “new” archeological exhibit and, sadly, less access to some areas we were able to get to before. Even a second time though, it’s still amazing!

We headed down Via San Gregorio and passed by the Arch of Constantine and the remains of the Temple of Venus & Rome. We roamed through Palatine Hill, which according to Rick Steves was the “Malibu Hills” of ancient Rome, and paid a visit to the remains of the Circus Maximus (it must have been awesome to be in the crowd of thousands in 2006, watching Italy win the World Cup!). The Roman Forum has got to be the coolest spot in the city, though. Nestled in the heart of Rome, surrounded by modern day buildings as well as gigantic Renaissance masterpieces, you pass through the Arch of Titus (marking the Empire’s triumph over ancient Israel) and are surrounded by buildings (or fractions thereof) that have been standing for over 2000 years! You start to picture in your mind what it must have looked like for Constantine to walk through his phenomenally giant basilica, for toga enwrapped senators to hold sessions in the Curia, for the vestal virgins to lounge around their sumptuous apartments, and for crowds of mourners to wail and cry over Julius Caesar’s alter. It’s a seriously impressive place and archeological digs are still going on all the time! Who knows what it will look like, what will be uncovered in another 10 years!

And as if that’s not enough history to take in, you exit the forum at Capitoline Hill, a giant Renaissance-era plaza designed by Michelangelo himself, and climbed the steps of Monument to Vittorio Emanuele II. Giddy, with a brain full of history, we headed for dinner (of yummy mushroom risotto and the requisite lasagna for Nick) to watch the final Copa del Rey game. Sadly, Barcelona didn’t win but it was entertaining to watch the game with a couple of young boys who were hard pressed to stay in their chairs while rooting for Real Madrid. ;o)

The next two days were a power walk all over the city. We went to see the Castle of Saint Angelo, walked along the Tiber River, visited the Ara Pacis and several archeological museums – fortunately for us, we happened to be in Rome on the day of the city’s birthday, so we got into a few museums for free! What luck :o) We had breakfast on the Spanish steps (mmm, prosciutto crudo, buffalo mozzarella and Italian bread: breakfast of champions!), strolled through Pantheon and visited so many cathedrals they all started to run together a little bit. ;o) We watched the changing of the guards at Quirinale Palace (a very long and laborious routine), tried shopping down Via del Corso, ate creamy gelato each day (that’s kind of required when in Italy, right?), gawked at Bernini’s Ecstasy of St. Theresa, visited the eerily cool crypts of Santa Maria della Concezione dei Capuccini (where the Capuchins decorated the walls with the bones of over 4000 monks – they don’t allow cameras down there, so you’ll have to look it up, but it’s pretty damn cool!) and watched Nick throw a coin and make a wish at Trevi Fountain. (Side note: I love the fact that there are so many public fountains and water taps around Rome, all of which you can drink from. It’s reusable water bottle heaven! The ancient Romans were truly brilliant in their technological foresight to build aqueducts and provide safe drinking water to the entire city, so many of which are still functioning.)

Sadly, the cold rainy weather from Istanbul caught up with Nick and he got a pretty bad cold. We stayed in most nights and caught up on American tv (ugh, how I miss you!) but were still able to enjoy some amazing take out pasta and pizza! ;o) Seriously, this place has some of the best food in the entire world!

Saturday was the day before Easter and we thought we’d be able to tour the Vatican before the insane crowds on Sunday. Ah, so naïve! The crowds at St. Peter’s Square were unbelievable! We got to the Vatican early in the morning, so didn’t have to wait too long to get into the basilica. Sadly, much of the basilica was closed off to the public while they set chairs and partitions up for the Easter service. But we could still see everything – just from a distance. [Nick Note: Unlike many churches, you are allowed to take flash photos inside St. Pete’s. This is because what look like paintings are actually very detailed mosaics composed of very small tiles. It was impressive how realistic and gigantic they were; definitely the most realistic and detailed mosaics I have ever seen.] Michelangelo’s Pieta is, in my opinion, by far the most impressive piece in the entire collection. The altar is beautiful and the dome is an amazing feat, but none of that compares to the realism and detail of the Pieta; it’s just stunningly beautiful (even if it is 10’ away behind bullet proof glass). Sadly, we weren’t able to get up into the dome; by the time we exited the basilica, the line to get in to the dome was at least a kilometer long and wrapped all the way around St. Peter’s Square! So I wasn’t able to see if my and Nathan’s names were still written on the wall of the stairwell :o( Oh well.

We got into the basilica okay, not too bad a crowd, but we didn’t plan our visit to the Vatican Museums so well. We ended up waiting 2 hours to get into the building! It was a painfully long wait, thankfully broken up by a standing-room-only lunch of some delicious take out pizza. (Note to anyone going to the Vatican in the future: most definitely buy your tickets online several weeks in advance; don’t make the same mistake we did!) Once inside, the crowds were huge and, sadly, quite a few areas within the museums were closed off (not something we experienced a decade ago), which meant everyone was herded rather quickly through the corridors to b-line it to the Raphael rooms and the Sistine Chapel. The Raphael rooms are impressive; everyone can recognize his School of Athens (for Guns n’ Roses fans, a detail was used for the cover on the Use Your Illusion albums) and the Sistine Chapel is of course breathtaking! In my opinion, it is the greatest single masterpiece in all of art history. Aside from severe neck cramps, you could sit there and take in the ceiling details for hours; there’s so much to see! And it was so cutting edge at the time! It’s just so beautiful and such an undertaking, considering all the history and drama that went along with the commission at the time. I was so glad to see it again and to share it with Nick for the first time.

That evening, with Nick feeling a little bit better, we treated ourselves to a nice Italian restaurant (the cannelloni was DE-licious) just around the corner from the Colosseum. It’s a beautiful structure all lit up at night; so beautiful that we had to come back the next day. We figured Rome would be a ghost town on Easter, being the second most important Christian holiday and all; so we planned to just spend the day sitting at a café taking in the scenery before heading to the airport. But we were totally wrong! The city was wide awake and as bustling as ever. SO we ended up having a really nice lunch at a café overlooking the ruins (gorgeous!) and gobbling up our last chance for fresh Italian pasta, prosciutto, cappuccino and giant glasses of wine. Seriously: when you order a glass of wine with lunch, they bring you a goblet of 20oz! Which makes for very “lucid” sightseeing after a meal ;o)

Rome was beautiful and romantic and filled with such amazing art and history; we would have loved to spend weeks here! But alas, our brief time in Italy is up and we are headed back to Eastern Europe on Easter Sunday. Hope everyone back home had a nice Easter (or Passover!), with lots of chocolate and pretty hard boiled eggs :o)

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