Rome! Never again!

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I can’t remember the exact order of what all happened in Rome, but I’ll try to keep everything in as accurate a chronology as I can. Sometimes things run together for me.

We left on Thursday for Rome. Our flight left at 12:30, so we took the bus down to Dejvicka and from there we needed to take another bus (Number 119) to Ruzyne. Luckily we ran into Marco as we were leaving, so he showed us where to catch the other bus (as it happened, it was at the stop when we got there, so we ran and caught it - probably the end of our good timing for a while). The ride to the airport wasn’t too bad. It’s really not terribly far away. That gave me a little confidence for my return trip home on the first. We got to the airport well before our flight, so we checked in then took our time in finding our gate and wandering around. Then our flight got delayed. For about an hour and a half. I was pretty miserable because I had gotten no sleep, as described in the previous entry. Once we got on the plane, our trip was pretty nice. It was beautiful when we got closer to Rome, with some small farms and very very blue water (I’m assuming part of the Mediterranean). Once we landed we went to get the checked luggage…which ended up being another adventure. It took a good two hours for the luggage to actually make it out onto the conveyor belt. So I did some wandering while waiting and ran into the Canadian men’s swim team (apparently Rome was hosting the world championships that weekend), I also tried to draw some Euros from an ATM only to have it break. Once the luggage was recovered we tried to navigate our way to the hotel. That took another half hour or so until we just decided to get a taxi/shuttle from the airport to the hotel.

The hotel was interesting. The four of us girls had one room, and Nick was in another. In our room we had two single beds and one queen-sized, and a shower. No AC, but we knew that coming in. And the bathrooms were down the hall. Really the set-up wasn’t too bad; the lack of air conditioning (or even a fan) really killed me by the end of the day, though. Thursday night we just walked around the general area of our hotel. We ended up coming across some really cool ruins (I really don’t know what they were. Sometimes it sucks to wander around a city without people who actually know it, because I haven’t the slightest what some things are) that were lit up very nicely.

On Friday we went to the Coliseum. It was only a little past where we had walked the night before (the hotel was really close to everything). While we were walking toward it I was kind of hit by a wave of “This is Rome, I’m in Rome, Rome, where almost all of the history I’ve ever learned took place.” It was an interesting feeling/thought process. We got ourselves signed up for a tour of the Coliseum and Palatine Hill then headed in (we got to skip the lines with our tour, woohoo!). The Coliseum was amazing. I think it was my favorite part of Rome, to be honest. I learned that it only held about 70,000 people. I know that’s actually a lot of people, but I guess I’m spoiled by the ‘Shoe. It was amazing to see the corridors and all of the labyrinth underneath the arena surface. I feel like maybe I didn’t get a full appreciation for the building because I was a little concerned about the huge number of people everywhere, but that became a common theme with the entire city. After the Coliseum we went and had a tour of the Palatine Hill and the ruins of the palaces. It was very pretty, and there were water fountains everywhere. I will say that’s something I loved about Rome, there was a water fountain about every other block or so.

On Saturday morning we went to the Vatican for a tour with the same company that we’d used for the Coliseum and Palatine. We didn’t get the same guide, which ended up being very unfortunate. We went through the Vatican Museum first and looked at some of the religious artwork. That was nice, especially getting to see the way the art evolved through the ages from more rough-hewn works to the later masterpieces. Once we were out of the museum and went into the Sistine Chapel, all bets were off. The guide pretty much ran through everything, leaving us with no time to look at anything. I was a bit upset by that because there were several halls of sculptures that I would have loved to spend a good bit of time looking at. Oh well, I suppose. Before getting to the famous part of the Chapel the guide had us give back our headsets, so we just completely abandoned the group and went off on our own (it should be noted at this point that we lost Nick). While we were walking through the section of more modern art, I came across a work by Salvador Dali. Can’t say I was expecting to find one of my favorite surrealists in Vatican City (and by one of my favorites, I mean one of the only ones I like). I was slightly frustrated by the large number of people by the time we got into the Sistine Chapel. I felt really let down when I saw it. I think it’s been built up as one of the most beautiful and famous works of all time, and it was very pretty, but it was just…anticlimactic. I think I’ve seen ceilings just as pretty here in the Czech Republic in some of the chateaus and museums. Then again, I was pretty sick of being surrounded by people so that might have had something to do with it. After the Sistine Chapel we waited on Nick for maybe half an hour. We didn’t find him, so we decided to go to the Via del Corso, which is the major shopping district in Rome. There were a lot of high-end shops like Gucci and Dolce and Gabanna, so there was some window-shopping going on.

Sunday morning consisted of going to the Vatican so Nick and Emily could go to mass. That is, of course, after I fell down the marble staircase of our hotel. It hurt. A lot. In fact I have a rather large bruise on my lower back and some scraping on my elbow and down my ankle. So I was doing a fair amount of limping around the Vatican while the other two were attending the service. That evening we went to the Hard Rock for dinner. It was kind of small, but the food was good. As were the drinks. I ordered a raspberry lemonade, and two Pomegranate martinis (they were amazing). After dinner we went and saw the Trevi Fountain. Once again, there were a ton of people, so we didn’t spend much time there.

Monday was our last day in Rome. Nick, Emily, and Kate all had an earlier flight, so they left the hotel at noon. Alison and I went to the train station around then to get a ticket to the airport and ran into the Mizzou boys on our way. As it turns out they had the same flight back to Prague as us. So we bought our tickets after trying to find the right stand for much longer than should have been necessary. Then we found out we needed to get them validated so we wandered around trying to find an information desk for maybe 45 minutes. For future reference, Termini Station is quite possibly the worst-laid-out train station I have ever dealt with. Nothing tells you where you need to go, the maps are inaccurate, and it’s just all-around horrible. But that’s just my take on it. We eventually found a woman who helped us out and told us how to validate our tickets. So after Termini we went back to the Via del Corso, then wandered around, climbed the Spanish Steps, and wandered around a really nice park for a few hours. When we headed back to Termini we found out that the train from the airport hadn’t arrived since two (it was five). We stood around for a while trying to figure out what was going on, but no one knew (not even the people working there). I think transportation troubles defined my trip to Rome. Once the train finally pulled in we had to dive on in between about 500 other really ticked off people.

We got to the airport really early, but we had the Mizzou boys with us so it wasn’t too bad. We did a bit of wandering (seems to happen a lot) and then checked in for our flight and headed to get food by the gate. Found out that McDonald’s in Italy has waffle fries, and they are very good. We got to our gate and sat around waiting until it was about time to board, but noticed that there were still a lot of people there for the flight before ours, to Madrid. We thought that the Madrid flight was delayed, but after a while we came to learn that it was actually people in line for the flight to Prague (no idea why the Madrid information was still up). The flight was supposed to board at 9:20 and leave at 9:50. Well at about 9:45-9:50 they came over the loudspeaker and announced something in Italian. No one reacted. They announced it again in English, to be met with a resounding chorus of “Fuuuuck.” Probably the most amusing thing I’ve heard in a long time. And in case you were wondering what the announcement was: flight delayed. Yes, every form of transport I tried to take in Rome (apart from the metro) was delayed or non-functional at some point. So we ended up leaving Rome sometime around 11 I think. I got back to my room in Prague at about 1:45 in the morning.

Overall I think Rome was nice, and it provided a nice warm rain-free alternative to Prague. That being said I don’t think I would ever go back. There are far too many people, and I’ve already seen the major attractions, so I’m good. Then again, maybe my trip was a bit soured by all of the miscommunications and delays.

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Photos

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Ruins at dusk.

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The Coliseum.

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Inside the Coliseum.

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Trevi Fountain

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Sistine Chapel.

Comments

[Susan Van Allen]

Sorry about Rome...
Hey Teddi--I really enjoyed reading about your time in Rome--it was truthful and rich. I know it can be a tough place, but please consider going back. Now that you've seen the major sights, you can indulge in La Dolce Vita, and live more like a Roman. I bet you'll love it!