Advertisement
Published: December 14th 2009
Our journey to Rome was short, easy and no mishaps whatsoever, yay! We were traveling to Rome to stay for 5 days and to meet up with James’ cousin Brett. We arrived to the train station, jumped on the Metro and got off at Piazza di Republica. We had a bit of time to burn before Brett’s plane landed and we saw a lovely fountain that we decided to hang out at until his arrival. As we were relaxing on the edge of the fountain with several others that too were relaxing and people watching, we decided to lie down and relax our tired backs. Not but 10 minutes later a policeman came and asked us not to lie down on the fountain edge, this is the first time we realized that there were way too many police in this crazy city that had too much time on their hands. Oh well…. We soon got antsy and noticed just across the way was the Basilica S. Maria. It didn’t look like much from the outside but inside it was an enormous, beautiful cathedral that we took turns exploring so that one of us could look after the stuff. It had
several displays and a good amount of information regarding many of the discoveries made by Galileo including the invention of the pendulum, his theory of relativity, and other discoveries he’s made with gravitational forces involving intertial vs. gravitational masses.
We got tired of waiting at the fountain and walked to the hotel where a few hours later we met with Brett. We realized then that it was impossible for James and I to crash on the floor of Brett’s room since it was barely big enough for one person, so we found a hotel just down the street. That evening we walked all over in search of a restaurant that was open at 6pm, most places take an afternoon siesta and are not open between 2p-7p. We unfortunately ended up at an overpriced tourist trap but made the best of it. Got some beers and went back to our hotel and played cards for a while.
Our first big day in Rome was a busy one. We took the metro to the Coliseum which was quite impressive. We walked all over the area as there were many sights to see and decided to buy a ticket
to go in. The ticket to the Coliseum included two other amazing sights Foro Romano an archaeological site and the Palatino which is a historic ruin. This took us a couple of hours to explore; the inside of the Coliseum was neat to see but was more impressive unfortunately from the outside. Inside the Coliseum were cases with many recovered artifacts including several thousand year old preserved seeds, pottery, jewelry, statues, and much more. We worked up quite the appetite, stopped for some lunch and headed off to our next destination, the Parthenon. Well…it was actually the Pantheon which we mistakenly misread and all three of us felt pretty silly realizing that the Parthenon is actually in Greece. Oops! The Pantheon was pretty neat with giant pillars in the front, some interesting art inside and our favorite, the beautiful marble floors.
At this point our legs were tired and our feet ready to fall off so we made our way back so that we could check into our hostel that we booked for the following 4 nights a few blocks from Brett’s hotel in the “kinda seedy” part of town. The Korean Hostel which we booked online was
also called the Sun and Moon Hostel which was owned by the same people where we ended up staying in NiceApartments which were also the same owners of the Laundromat down the street, which was all a bit confusing, but we eventually found it and settled in. It wasn’t the cleanest place but because we stayed four nights we got a free load of laundry and a free hour of internet per day. Also, the first night stay, there is a dinner included which we graciously attended and received a great spaghetti dinner, Brett was also invited which was very nice. We met some fellow hostellers; two from Lisbon, Portugal and five from Minnesota that were currently living in Germany attending a University that was affiliated with their University in Minnesota. Typical college Midwesterners, getting plastered off of vodka and bar hopping was not in our agenda so we said our goodbyes and went back to our hostel armed with beers and chocolate for another night of playing cards and catching up with Brett.
The following day we decided to check out some green space so we went to a large park area where we saw a horse
jumping competition and ended up going to Bioparca di Roma, the local zoo. Not typically big fans of zoos we made an exception because we read some great things about this “conservation organization”. Well, to say the least we did not have a good time at Bioparca di Roma, in fact it was by far the worst zoo any of us had been to. Not only were the conditions for the animals quite poor but all over the zoo we witnessed people tossing food into the enclosures. At first it was annoying to see parents teaching their kids how to accurately toss the food and feed the animals right in front of the “Do Not Feed the Animals” sign, but after a while we were completely outraged at the amount of feeding that we saw. There was nobody to enforce these rules and most of the enclosures were completely open with no protection for the animals. When we finally did find an employee they outright admitted that this was an ongoing problem and that many of the animals suffer digestion problems because of all the unhealthy food they were being fed. We wanted answers of why these activities are being
tolerated so we went and spoke with the manager of the zoo. This man spoke very good English and we were able to communicate what was going on which he unenthusiastically agreed that it was a problem and the animals health was suffering because of it. After no good answers or solutions to the problem we stated that we didn’t want our money to go to an organization that supports this activity. He quickly denied our request and curtly told us there was nothing he was going to do about it. During our talk he even admitted that the zoo previously put up extra fencing to protect the animals but got complaints from some guests and then took them back down. Ridiculous!!! He realized we were serious and not going to give in without some answers so he rudely slammed the door in our face. This man would not give us his name or his bosses name for us to contact so we decided to leave, very upset but trying to brush it off knowing that wasn’t the last they would hear from us.
We left the park, vowing never to go to another zoo again and headed
to the Piazza di Spagna, or the Spanish Steps. On the way we passed through the Piazza Venezia and caught the end of a sponsored bike race through the city. The Spanish Steps were nice, but it was not a great time to go because the Piazza was jam packed with people and we couldn’t get a great picture, oh well. We headed back to our hostel, hung out for a while and found a great little Italian restaurant around the corner.
The next day before we went to Vatican City to see the infamous Sistine Chapel we stopped in this little eatery, run by a fast talking older Italian man. As we browsed the selections behind the glass he never stopped pointing out different items, and rattling off an endless string of Italian. The food being so good and cheap we paid him a visit two more times before we departed Roma, becoming better friends with each encounter. Now onward, to the Sistine Chapel! We got off the metro and were instantly bombarded with tour guides telling us that they will help us skip the hour and a half lines and give us all the info we needed for
only 3x the cost of a regular ticket. No thanks, we decided to explore it on our own and we were happy to find out there was no line and enough info for us to get by, what scammers! Anyways… we first walked around the huge Vatican Piazza and took a little time to find the Vatican Museum as we were pointed in several wrong directions, thanks Vatican City Police keep up the good work!
The Sistine Chapel was incredible to see and kind of surreal seeing all those famous drawings in person and comprehending how one person could have done that entire room by himself. The Chapel is the obvious highlight of the Museum so we were brought through was seemed to be a never-ending journey through hallways and rooms following signs to the Sistine Chapel. On the way we checked out an Ancient Egyptian exhibition with all kinds of amazing artifacts including scarabs, jewelry that royal families were buried in, stones with hieroglyphics and several real mummies in tombs. From there we started our journey to see the Sistine Chapel which took about 2 hours. We wove through the building viewing all kinds of amazing famous
pieces of artwork and some not so famous in the Contemporary Religious exhibits. Once we got to the Sistine Chapel our feet were hurting and we had to wait out a place to sit as we took in the amazing surroundings. After all this effort to arrive, once we got there they did not allow any pictures to be taken. Well, that’s just about the most ridiculous rule so James sneakily snapped a few anyways. We are not about to leave the Sistine Chapel with no evidence that we actually made it! We weren’t the only ones, everywhere you looked people were snapping away as they got yelled at by the employees. We left the museum and took the long way to the metro passing a castle and a beautiful river along the way. Another exhausting day was ended with good Italian dinner and some much needed sleep.
Our final day in Rome was more of a relaxed day since we were all a bit tired of the sightseeing. James and I were having problems figuring out exactly where we were going to go for the following 5 days since we weren’t due to our Wwoof farm until
the first of November. Unable to get a good recommendation of where to go, we searched several small towns along the coast but soon realized after a very expensive 5 days in Rome we couldn’t really afford to pay for another 5 days of hotels. We decided to head to the area where we would Wwoof and find something once we got there. The websites were very unhelpful and none of the phone numbers worked so we just took the train to Fasano, close to Cisternino where we would end up.
We sadly said goodbye to Brett, wishing him the best and hoping his stay in Rome was everything he had hoped. We sure appreciated the visit and I was happy to finally meet one of James’ family members, Thanks Brett, hope to see you soon!
We hopped on the train headed to Fasano glad to once again leave the bustle of the city, James and I don’t handle the craziness of city life too well, so back to the countryside for us! After about 2 hours on the train, it suddenly came to a halt… Then it began to go in reverse and we figured,
well that’s not a good sign. We backed up to the previous station and stopped. All the announcements were in quickly spoken Italian, and none of the workers spoke a bit of English. All I could get from the man working was “tren capoot”. Well, we didn’t know how long it would be and we were already going to miss our connection so we decided to get out and stay the night. So…we found a nice little hotel in the lovely town of Casserta, Hotel Limone. It was a cute little town, lit up spectacularly with Christmas lights, a large tree in the center and many shops to peruse. We had bread, olive oil, a little cheese and tomatoes that we brought from Rome for the journey so we just stopped and bought some grapes and had a lovely picnic in our hotel room.
The next morning we caught the first train to Fasano with no problem.
In our previous experience the train station has been in the center of the city or at least close by. Well, Fasano was another story. We searched a couple hours for a place to stay and exhausted from carrying our bags
we stuck with the first bed and breakfast we found. The train station seemed to be in the center of a literal ghost town and we were so glad we didn’t arrive the night before in the dark like we had planned. See, everything does happen for a reason! We settled into our fancy overpriced B&B, far nicer than we needed, but we had no other choice. Tired and hungry and realizing it was Thanksgiving Day we figured we should go seek out a grocery store for a nice dinner. Pointed in a direction from our lovely hosts at the B&B, we ended up walking for over 3 hours and probably more than 10K. It was Goivedi, or Thursday, which is apparently the day of rest for grocery stores. We finally found a tiny market and had a makeshift dinner, sliced eggplant soaked in oil, bread, Philidelphia Cream Cheese (okay give us a break we were a bit desperate!), a premade salad in a plastic bag and some cookies in a bag. It was, at the least, sure a Thanksgiving we will always remember. We spent the night watching American TV shows dubbed in Italian which was also quite entertaining,
the first tv to work for us during our stay so far. Excited to get to our next Wwoof farm, we decided we really needed a good night’s sleep. Phew!!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.063s; Tpl: 0.024s; cc: 10; qc: 29; dbt: 0.0304s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
JamesnEmily
James and Emily
Happy Holidays Tutti!
More Pics on Page 2. Ho Ho Ho