Rome

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November 26th 2007

Published: November 26th 2007

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AnyoneCA

The coliseum.

Here it is in all it's glory.

Mom and I arrived in Rome in the evening, so the drive into the city was, unfortunately, after dark. By the time we had checked into the hotel it was pretty late but we hadn’t eaten so we headed out to find somewhere that would be open. Just down the street from our hotel we found a really cute little restaurant, the dinner was incredible which just foreshadowed the incredible food we had over the course of our entire visit.
The next morning we headed out for our bus tour. We had purchased a 48-hour hop on hop off bus tour the night before and we wanted to get a lay of the land 😊
We planed to ride the bus through an entire loop before getting off anywhere but when we stopped at the Vatican the announcer told us that the pope was actually speaking right then, so we hopped off to go have a look. We could see the pope standing in his window talking to the crowd in Latin. The speakers were everywhere and quite loud so while the pope himself was tiny and up in a window, his voice and his words were right there among us.

Pantheon

This is the Pantheon. it was hard to get a good picture of is. But there it is!

It was kind of bizarre. And that was before the chanting. After awhile the pope began a call and response where he would say something and these crazy/creepy voices would respond. It must have been a group of people standing behind him but to hear these scary disembodied voices chanting in Latin was a little disturbing. After this the pope welcomed us in a few different languages, (I didn’t hear Hungarian….I felt excluded), and then he disappeared from the window in a puff of smoke. Alright maybe there wasn’t any smoke. But I wouldn’t have been surprised if there had been.
Once the pope was done mom and I headed back to the bus to ride around some more. After a loop we got off at the stop before the one we got on at and walked towards the Spanish Steps. On the way we passed the hotel mom had stayed at last time she was in Rome. Fancy Fancy Fancy.
The Spanish Steps were pretty nifty. At the top there is an old church (there are a few of these in Rome) that we went into to look around. The obelisk at the top was unfortunately under construction. Sponsored

Trevi and Mom

This is mommy at the Trevi fountain.

by H&M, as advertised on the scaffolding. Mom and I walked down the steps admiring the view and the stairs themselves. Upon reaching the bottom we looked at the fountain while contemplating where to eat. We ended up at a little square with a little restaurant where we ate some more amazing food. I ordered a hot chocolate and they brought the hot chocolate with an entirely separate cup full of whipped cream for me to put in it. It was delicious. I also had lasagna.
After lunch we headed to the Trevi fountain. Walking around Rome was just crazy. Every time we passed a church mom said we had to go in, and every church had some crazy famous painting that I would recognize or at least have heard about by some crazy famous artist. It was like walking through history. I kept trying to picture the people painting these paintings and building these churches. What did Rome look like at the time? Did Bernini’s Rome look anything like the Rome of today? Did they already flock to the coliseum to see past history? Did they have any idea that someday we would flock to the Trevi fountain the

Wet Horses

These horses have on ponchos so they don't get wet as they listen to the Pope speak.

same way? Rome was just chock full of history everywhere we turned. I really loved it. I felt as if I could wonder the streets of Rome for days on end and never run out of things to see.
Anyway, we ended up at the Trevi fountain which really is exquisite. I love it. All the different characters that inhabit it, and the water, it was really great.
After the fountain we headed back towards the hotel stopping to try some gelato along the way. Once back at the hotel we hopped back on the bus to keep exploring the city. We stopped at this big fountain near some of the ancient roman baths. This area has a name but I cannot think of it right now. We walked around this area a bit before hopping once again back onto the bus to tour the city at night. As it keeps getting dark earlier and earlier here by the time we had circled back around we were seeing the city in, literally, an entirely different light. We went to eat dinner at this restaurant by our hotel, past the fountain and up a fancy street. The restaurant was quite delicious

His Popeness

This is His Popeness hanging out of his window blessing us.

(Nagy Finom!) and there were entertaining people sitting at the table next to us.
After dinner we went back to the hotel and crashed, but not before making arrangements to go on a tour of the Vatican museums the next morning.
The walls at the Hotel Julia are paper thin, and apparently Italians stay up all night and do loud things, so the next morning mom and I were very very tired as we headed out on our Vatican tour. While we initially thought the tour was pretty pricey, it turned out to be entirely worth it. It included a guided tour, the entrance ticket and the headset. Because it was a guided tour we got to enter through the Tour Entrance, which meant there was pretty much no line at all.
An entertaining Italian man who cracked lots of politically incorrect jokes led the tour. We walked through a bunch of different halls of the Vatican museum and saw a variety of crazy things. Like the hall of busts, which was a giant hall with busts of various different important people lining the walls. They had busts of some of the different Roman kings from the time they just

Mom in Rome

This is mom. She is hanging out at the vatican.

kids up until they were old men. They were centuries old, it was amazing.
There was one hall, the hall of tapestries, where the ceiling looked like a bunch of relief carvings but was actually just paintings.
We also saw the Sistine Chapel, which was smaller than I had pictured, but incredible nonetheless.
After the tour of the museum we got back onto the tour bus, which took us around to the basilica. On the short drive we saw the line of people waiting to enter the museum, it was enormous wrapping all the way around the museum and back towards the basilica. It would have been a wait of hours upon hours.
At the basilica we got off and looked around a little before leaving the group to go off on our own. We wanted to go into the basilica but the line seemed to be almost as long as the one for the museum and we didn’t want to waste the entire rest of the day in line. Instead we poked around the Vatican for awhile before hopping back on the hop on hop off bus. We rode the bus back towards our hotel where we

This is me with a fountain. isn't it pretty?

hopped off to swing by the Hard Rock Café Rome in order to see Van Halen’s guitar. But first we stopped for lunch at a little place and had some more amazing Italian food. After the hard rock we dropped our stuff off at the hotel and walked over to the Pantheon.
At the Pantheon there was a giant crowd of people pushing to get in. There is only one door that is both the entrance and the exit. Mom was a little nervous about fighting the crowed to get in but she handled it like a champ and once we got through the doors it really wasn’t very crowded at all inside. It was bizarre to think about how I was just hanging out in the Pantheon with mom as if it were any other day. The Pantheon! It is basically a perfect building built before you would ever think they were capable of building perfect buildings. And there we were.
After the Pantheon we walked over to Piazza Novona (I’m probably spelling that wrong…) to check out the fountains. There are three giant wonderful fountains on the plaza, one of which was undergoing renovation. All over the plaza

Mom and a fountain

This is mommy and a fountain. It was such fun traveling with mom!!!

different people had all sorts of things set up, people were selling paintings, or drawing portraits, or doing puppet shows. It was great. We walked around looking at all the different stands and just generally people watching. After awhile we headed off one of the little side streets and encountered the cutest little area ever. It was just as I had pictured Italy to be with small streets crowed with little restaurants and shops. We eventually decided to eat at one of the little places, which was a great decision. After dinner we walked back to the hotel. We wanted to get another early start the next day to hopefully get into the basilica.
The next morning we headed out and got on the first bus that stopped by our hotel. Our 48 hour passes only had about 45 minutes left on them and we just wanted to get to the basilica. Unfortunately by the time we got there the line was already as long as it had been the day before, if not longer. So we were forced to skip the basilica. Our next stop was going to be the coliseum but when we had passed it on the

Saint Peter's

This is Saint Peter's Basilica at night.

bus earlier the line there had also been outrageous. Since we missed both the coliseum and Saint Peters Basilica, mom and I will just have to go back to Rome. Too bad.
We walked around the Vatican a little more then we decided to walk along the river to the twin churches. I cannot remember the name of the plaza they are on, or the names of the churches themselves, can anyone help me out with that?
The walk was really nice and it was a beautiful day. When we got to the churches they were closed for lunch so we walked around the area for a while just exploring before heading back. When we got back they were still closed so we took the metro back towards our hotel. Located just up the street was an old church that was run by capuchin monks. They had made a series of five alters underneath the church that were constructed out of the bones of thousands of old monks. The altars were really bizarre and quite creepy. They even had some mummified corpses. It was creepy/cool. On the last alter there was a sign that read, “What you are now, we

Hall of Busts

This is the hall of busts. There were lots and lots of faces.

once were. What we are now, you will be.”
After the creepy dead monks we headed back to the twin churches with the hopes that they would be open, which they were. We explored the churches, then we explored some more of the area as well. We walked up behind the fountain on the plaza which is built into a hill. At the top we could see out across Rome as the sun was setting. The we walked back towards the Trevi fountain just checking out all the cute little places along the way.
We saw the fountain at night with all the lights on, it was really beautiful. Then we went in search of a place to have our last dinner in Rome. We ended up at a little pizzeria which had a dessert that had been recommended that we had been having trouble finding. The pizza was INCREDIBLE and the dessert, which was a chocolate ice cream ball surrounded by truffle, was also amazing. It was the perfect way to end our week of fabulous eating. We really didn’t have one bad meal the entire time, and we also never repeated an item even between the two of

Painting

This is a painting in the Vatican museum. It's on the wall or something. I thought it was pretty.

us we ordered different things every single time.
The next morning we got up really really early and headed back to Budapest. It was the last day of my fall break L
On Monday mom came to school with me and sat in on my classes. After school we toured around the city we headed out to Vaci Utca to explore a little and to try and see Saint Istvan Basilica, which unfortunately was closed. Afterwards we went over to Janos’ house to have dinner with Janos, Julie and their mom. Dinner was really quite an experience. It was quite fun to introduce mom to Janos and Julie. Their mom made us a wonderful Hungarian dinner.
Tuesday morning I dropped mom off at Heroes Square to catch a tour bus so she could tour the city while I had a long day of classes. I really wish I could have done more around Budapest with mom while she was here, but after having been on break for ten days I felt I really couldn’t miss any of my classes. The bus tour at least enabled mom the see a good deal of the city and learn a little more about

This one is for the dogs....

This is a Greyhound. It is on a tapestry. I'm dedicating it to Huxley.

it. Maybe she can write up a little about the things she did and saw and I’ll post it up here. No promises.
Wednesday after class I ran home to mom and we got dressed up to go to the Opera. This was actually quite silly because there was no opera that night. Instead we ended up going back to the basilica, which was open for a half hour from seven to seven thirty. We got to see inside a little at night.
I may actually be mixing the order of these different nights up. Who knows?
On the last night mom was here I got all depressed and homesick so we ordered some random Hungarian food for delivery. It was kind of strange food but it was nice just hanging out with mom and not stressing about getting anywhere and doing anything.
The following morning mom left at the crack of dawn.
It was really really great having mom visit, I just wish I could have had more time with her here in Budapest. We’ll have to come back here together again someday. Maybe when we’re completing our Rome visit.

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