Friends, Romans, Countrymen...

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....uh, like lend me your ear so I can tell you about my trip? Just a warning: this one's a mofo kids. You better 'go' before you mentally 'leave the house' for Rome, cuz I'm not stoppin this blog for any potty breaks, ya hear? Hope you can remember all this stuff...I could spring a pop quiz on this stuff at any time upon my return home, (which has now been decided as October 5th, by the way!)

How can I put this? For me, Rome is to cities as Schumacher is to F1 racing: it just blows everything else away. Being from Beaumont, Texas, where the oldest and most carefully preserved architecture we have is from 1845, just coming to the Hague and seeing buildings at least that old used to house shops and fast food restaurants was a big step. Imagine how much the space between my jaw and sternum decreased when I first stood in front of the Flavian Amphitheater (my 'look, I paid good money for this tour guide's knowledge, so I'm gonna use it, darnit!' name for the Colosseum), which was built back in the double-digit year range of 70. Totally mind boggling.

Wednesday: Day 1
Anyways, to pick up from the France trip, after our morning flight, we got into Leonardo Da Vinci airport around 11:30 and hoofed it to the hotel from Termini train station after catching the ever popular Leonardo Express train. In just the few blocks we walked, we passed the Piazza Reppublica and the church of Santa Maria degli Angeli. After checking in we hopped on the metro and went straight to the Colosseum. Hey, when ya got 4 days to tour Rome, there's no time for foolin' around!

We must've had that dumb American tourist vibe goin on, because Kat and I were instantly recruited by some marvelously well-tanned tour girls and put into the audience of one very wavy-haired Italian tour guide. We ended up doing more guided tours with this company and came to find out from other tour-takers that our guide was famous for his 'spectacular but immoral' speech, in which he described the unparalleled spectacle that was the Colosseum using a story about 20 elephants fighting in the ring with 100 lions. "Trya tooah eemagina uh dissa espectacle," he challenged us. After trying to for about 2 seconds, I was quickly interrupted and informed that, "You-a can't! Eeeetsa eeempossible-a!" Dang man, and I thought I was doing so well! The lesson here--according to Alto--was that nothing before or since can compare to the games of the Colosseum. They were spectacular, but, due to the dark nature of the games, he added that just because they were spectacular didn't make them necessarily right; like the atom bomb, apparently. Cool. We got the DEEP tour guide.

Afterwards, we toured the Palatine hill, where legend holds that Romulus founded the city of Rome in 753 BC. From Palatine hill we got a great view of the Roman Forum, which while now is just a sad collection of ruins, used to be the center of the ancient world. It's kinda like that scene in AI where they go back to Manhattan and find it's just a bunch of building tops sticking out of the ocean. Makes ya think, it does. A few more snaps in front of the Colosseum and the Arc of Constantine and we were off to a great Italian dinner with jovial waiters who were apparently so happy to be waiting tables that they felt the need to sing while doing it. Beats the hell outta French waiters, that's for sure!
After gawking at the massive 'wedding cake' Monument to Vittorio Emmanuel dramatically illuminated at night, we were back to the hotel to crash--hard.

Thursday: Day 2
Peel back the eyelids and grab a continental breakfast kids, we're off! Our first planned stop of the day was Circus Maximus, the location of a 350,000 person chariot racing stadium. Good thing they didn't have cars back in the day....can you imagine 4 times the post-game traffic of DK Royal Memorial? On the way to the metro station from our hotel we passed a cool building-height fountain--ya know, just kinda sitting around on some random side street. This is how Rome jades you; there's ancient stuff everywhere, art and fountains are strewn about like potholes in downtown Houston, and so anything less than massive churches, the Colosseum, and Vatican City is just too much to take in. Me, being detail-oriented and feeling like I have to soak it all up....well, it's good I didn't just pass out from stimulation overload.

So, back on track... After Circus Maximus, we strolled through the Roman Forum and saw where Julius Caesar's funeral pyre was and then checked out the Michelangelo-designed Piazza Campidoglio. It was here, being hot and absolutely sick of paying out the nose for bottled water, that we gave in and decided to 'do as the Romans' and try drinking the water from one of the abundant public fountains. A first sip--a pause to decide if it's gonna kill me or not (as if you could tell)--and then finally the realization that, "Hey! This stuff is free and it's pretty darn cold too!" Oh well, lesson learned. But that's like 20 euros of bottled water I'll never get back.

We stopped by Trevi Fountain, threw in our coins for good luck and for the hope of a return trip to Rome, and then went back to the Colosseum to catch a tour bus to tour the Appian Way and see the catacombs. Along the way, we passed the church of Domine Quo Vadis, which holds a piece of marble where Christ's footprints are to have miraculously appeared after Peter saw him in a vision and asked him "Where are you going, Lord?" Interesting, no? Afterwards, we saw the Aventine Hill, the Fountain of Truth, and lots more cool old stuff that you and I both don't have the attention span to go into.

Besides there's still more. After the bus tour, we walked through the Jewish Ghetto and then continued on yet another tour, where we visited the Pantheon, Trevi Fountain, Piazza Navona (home of the Fountain of Four Rivers where Robert Langdon played dead in 'Angels and Demons'. Check the pictures on Yahoo and you can see a closeup of the dove with the olive branch that allegedly pointed the way to the next clue!), and the Spanish Steps, among other sights. If you're still reading this, you're pretty hard core. You can also now appreciate how tired we were at the end of this day. Just look at you, you barely can make it through reading an abridged version of the trip. Imagine actually walking around and doing it all! I know, I'm a hoss right? Ok then, agreed. Nap time now.

Friday: Day 3
To beat the lines, you have to get to the Vatican well in advance of the doors opening to the Museums at 8:45. This required a super-human wake-up effort, but we pulled it off. There's really nothing I can say to sum up the ridiculous amount of priceless art, architecture, and sheer material wealth contained within the small part of the museums that the general public is allowed to tour. Throw in the Sistine Chapel, Raphael's School of Athens fresco, and then top it off with a step out of the dim museums into the sunlight-bathed Piazza San Pietro, and again my head is spinning. By the way, you're not supposed to take pictures in the Sistine Chapel, so if you're wondering why the ones I have are so crappy and why there's not more, it's because I got hardcore busted, with a Vatican guard's finger waved menacingly in my 'who, me?'-expressioned face. See what I do for you? To further amaze and overwhelm, inside St. Peter's Basillica, the largest church in the world, was among countless masterpieces and relics Bernini's enormous canopy, Michelangelo's Pieta, and, hidden somwehere in the 4 columns supporting the cupola, some of the most sacred artifacts of Christianity including Veronica's Veil, St. Andrew's Head and parts of his cross, and a piece of the Spear of Destiny. Whoa. Oh yeah, while you're open-mouthed gaping at all of this, somewhere right below you is the final resting place of St. Peter. Even if you're not particularly religious or even Christian, this is pretty heavy stuff. Since you gotta wear jeans and shoulder-covering clothes to the Vatican, we were back to the hotel for a quick break and change of clothes.

For the evening, we stopped by the Spanish Steps again, but realized it was far too hot to do the fashionable thing and sit around on them. Instead, we went to the Piazza del Popolo to soak up the scenery before continuing on to see the former tomb of Hadrian turned palace, the Castel San Angelo. I'll let the pictures do most of the talking for this stuff because this blog is getting way longer than even I can handle. After touring the Castel, we took a boat down the Tiber to Travestere, where we had an amazingly cheap and awesome dinner at a more local-flavored place. How's a 5 euro liter of wine strike ya? After our long day of touring, it struck Kat and I pretty well...right upside the head. After a quick, tipsy wander past Circo Massimo, we were back on the metro to the hotel.

Saturday: Day 4
For our last day, we tried to take it a bit easier. Starting at the Piazza del Popolo, we wandered through the shady green Villa Borghese on the way to the Borghese Gallery, home to the collection of ruthless art aficionado and cardinal Scipione Borghese and amazing works by Bernini and Caravaggio, among others. Bernini's 'Apollo and Daphne' and 'David' alone were worth the admission and long hike to get to the museum. The fact that such delicate details as the leaves and branches that sprout from Daphne as the nymph becomes a tree are so fine, that I can't even begin to comprehend how they're sculped from a big hunk of marble. A bit more strolling through the Villa, a stop in an interactive exhibit with recreations of some of Da Vinci's more interesting inventions, and it was back on the train to Fiumicino (Da Vinci) airport.

So there ya have it. Rome in 4 Days and something like 4 screen pages of text. Sweet jeebus. I don't think I have it in me to proofread this bad boy. Are you even still reading this? I don't believe it. You should be proud of yourself. Here, reward yourself with some pictures of the most amazing city I've ever visited: ROME PICTURES Heck, you should leave a comment or something to mark your momentous feat of readership. Way to be!

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Photos

Astrodome's Ancestor
Since you already know what this is, have some history: In Roman times, the Colosseum was called the Flavian Amphitheater (amphitheater meaning dual semi-circular theaters joined together). It got the name Colosseum from the 'colossal' statue that used to be outside of it, or so the tour guide said....

Circus Maximus
...or Circo Massimo, if you're feeling Italian. Crazy to think that this dried-out field used to be the site of a 350,000 person ancient NASCAR track (or something like that)!

Don't adjust your monitor...
..and don't blame the photographer. These maritime pines (which I think are really cool) on Palatine Hill are leaning, straining to get more sun. Check out the walkway in the middle for reference if you don't believe me!

Roman Forum
If you check out the height of the green door on the temple, you can see how much of the forum had to be excavated after having centuries of flood silt piled on top of it. Apparently about half a meter of dirt piled up for every 500 years, so if ya go back 2000 years....there ya have it.

Fontana di Trevi
What's crazy is that this hugely popular fountain is nestled in a really small space between buildings, so you're just kinda wandering around side streets, then BAM! There's all these people and this majestic fountain out of nowhere. Throw one coin with your right hand over your left shoulder for good luck and a return trip to Roma. 2 coins gets you a fling with a Roman and 3 gets you hitched to one. Kat objected to me throwing more than 1 coin, for some reason.

Just like in the book!
Check it...Gian Lorenzo Bernini's Fountain of the Four Rivers in Piazza Navona, just like in Angels and Demons. Haven't read it yet? You should...better than The Da Vinci Code, I opine.

Piazza San Pietro
Wouldn't ya know the Pope was out in Germany the one time I go by to visit. We did however check out the Sistine Chapel chimney where the white or black smoke from the Conclave comes out and the Pope's apartment window.

Vatican Museums
Not a bad lookin' hallway huh? Everything on the ceiling is illusionistic painting, so no actual 3D statues or anything...allllll the way down.

Spanish Steps
Kinda disappointing huh? Ya hear so much about them, then it turns out they really are just some steps that happen to be near the Spanish Embassy. Especially gotta love the big billboard on the under-construction church. Commercialism, meet religion; religion, commercialism.

Borghese Gallery
Well, they don't allow pictures inside, so ya gotta Google it if you wanna see all the awesome Bernini's et al inside (or check the link in my blog). This cardinal used every method at his disposal to build his collection, including false imprisonment, blackmail, etc. What a patron of the arts!

Comments

[Richard]

And?
I've already done all this stuff. You suck.