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Published: June 11th 2009
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When in Rome
What trip to Rome would be complete without a dorky picture standing next to a gladiator? Our first full day in Rome started early. We were up, again, well before breakfast. In fact, we were showered and ready to go by the time the croissants, breads, coffee, and juice were put out at 7:30. By about 7:45, we had wolfed down our food and were off to face the day!
On our way to Vatican City, we accidentally found that the trattoria where we dined the night before was actually at the end of our street—not down our street, over and down to the Coliseum, wrapping around to Palazzo Senatorio (with or without the detour), and up a long flight of stairs.
On our walk, we were greeted by a “gladiator” who stopped us for
thephoto opportunity of the whole weekend. Sure, I made have gotten to hold the sword (while the gladiator held me pretty tightly, I might add). But more importantly, I got photographic evidence of my dad wearing a gladiator hat himself! He’s been chuckling about it all weekend.
From there, we took a “side trip” up the Piazza del Campidoglio to scope out the spot that was raved about in the travel guide as a great place to take in
St. Peter's Bascilica
Although the line wrapped almost the whole way around the perminter of the center area, the lines moved relatively quickly. the view of Rome at night. It was up a pretty heavy set of stairs, of course. After we figured out where we were going, it was off to Vatican City on the west side of Rome. But the morning was young and the air was cool. So the several kilometer hike didn’t seem daunting at all.
When we finally arrived at St. Peter’s Basilica, the long was amazingly long. Despite getting asked every couple minutes if we wanted to join an English-speaking tour group, the wait was relatively painless. The inside is beautiful. The pictures don’t do it justice. And given the fact that a picture paints a thousand words, I won’t even attempt to explain what we saw.
From St. Peter’s, it was off to the Vatican Museum and Sistine Chapel. Again, the pictures don’t do it justice. But it was room after room and galley after galley of 360 degrees of art: the floors, the walls, and the ceilings. This is a place that doesn’t need to hang anything on its walls as all its surfaces are the art itself.
But what cannot be captured in pictures is the experience of being crammed in
Inside the Cathedral
After ending up wedged into a guided tour group like we were canned sardines, we broke free and were able to get some pictures away from the "crowds." the Sistine Chapel with all of Michelangelo’s frescoes. Not only are the paintings overwhelmingly beautiful, but there is a young Italian security guard/bouncer who frequently yells “Silenzio, silenzio!” and then rather forcefully escorts people out of the room who disobey house rules by taking flash photos.
After lunch at an outdoor patio, we traversed back across Rome to the Coliseum—this time getting inside. When we were done exploring the Coliseum we climbed up a hillside to find a shady spot where we could rest away from the sun. An interesting thing happened on the hill. We finally figured out why the carabinieri were out in full force. There was a large G8 demonstration that marched right down the road behind the Coliseum. And we had a perfect bird’s eye view.
After the demonstration had gone by (and the street sweep closely followed removing all trace of its presence only moments earlier), I talked my dad into going back to the hotel to freshen up before dinner. There, he talked to my 91-year-old grandpa using Skype. And I washed out the treads of my sneaker. It had an encounter with a pile of $*!# while we were on the
The Vatican
Even though we couldn't take pictures in the Sistine Chapel, there were still thousands of photo-worthy pieces of art at the Vatican. hill and was still stinking despite my attempts at using sand, sticks, grass, and puddles to clean it. Yuck. It may have been a gross task, but continuing to wear the shoes would have been grosser.
Anyway, we calculated that by this point we had walked the equivalent of 30+ miles. And we were both aching from walking. (Did I mention that I had twisted my ankle pretty badly a couple days before the trip?) So we decided to stick close to hotel for dinner. The restaurant we chose had a nice little outdoor patio. The waiter brought us a rather expensive bottle of Chianti (€28). We balked at first, but we figured our feet deserved the expensive stuff. Well that must have gained us some favor in the eyes of the waiter. He exchanged our plastic utensils for metal ones (every other table around us still had the plastic stuff). While we ate, we were serenaded by a trio of musicians playing the accordion, guitar, and violin. We were also asked if we wanted to buy a bunch of cheap tourist-trap junk by vendors working the side streets.
Because we didn’t have enough walking by this time,
Rome After Dark
I liked Rome more in the evening than during the day. Many of the tourists had tucked themselves in bed already and there was a soft glow all around town. we went for a post-dinner walk. So much for dining close to the hotel. We headed back to Piazza del Compidoglio to check out the view at night. It was nice, granted. But it wasn’t as phenomenal as promised. So we wondered if it was actually the other staircase
between the Piazza del Campidoglio and the Palazzo Senatorio that we were supposed to climb. So up we went… about 100 steps, I would estimate.
We returned to the hotel, where I fell asleep in the middle of downloading my pictures from the day.
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