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Published: March 1st 2011
This weekend I accomplished my dream of going to Italy...Well, I won't consider the goal fully accomplished until I see Florence and Venice etc. over spring break.
Friday, I landed in Rome around 9:00 Italy time and took a bus to the Freedom Traveller's hostel. If anyone is planning on going to Italy and doesn't want to pay a fortune for a hotel room, I highly recommend going there. The next day, I met up with Marissa and her friend Liz at breakfast. We found Jill, who was staying at another hostel close by. She was chilling on our hostel's computer, apparently sneaking the free wi-fi. For anyone who is confused at how I know these people and how we ended up in Europe at the same time, Marissa and Jill went on the Mississippi trip with me and graduated from Geneseo last year. They are teaching english in Spain and France respectively.
Our first stop was the Roman forum which is a whole area filled with Roman ruins and some pretty good views. We ate lunch and let me tell ya, pizza really IS better in Italy. It's just...fresher and tastier. Of course, my opinion is also probably
influenced by the fact that I haven't really had good pizza since coming to Europe so of course, it was going to be amazing regardless. After getting gelatoes, we went to the Basillica di San Clemente. Below its chapel, in a kind of underground-ish area are archaeological excavations of religious paintings on stone walls and such. It was really cool to go through all the different rooms and you could even see a spring running through it! After Marissa joked around with some nuns, we headed to the colliseum because we could get in for free with our Forum ticket. It had closed but fortunately, we could still use the ticket the next day. So instead, we climbed steps up to a church (blanking on the name) to get a good view of the city. You could really see so much, including the ruins and the colliseum. Then we just walked around, saw the Pantheon, and some plazas, as well as the Trevi fountain where we threw coins over our shoulders with the hope of coming back to Rome again (it must work considering my spring break plans). We had pasta and wine for dinner before heading back.
Early
to bed, early to rise. As luck would have it, we happened to come on the fourth weekend of the month, which meant that entrance to the Vatican that Sunday was free. Of course, the line was probably extra long. We waited for two hours, but it went by pretty fast and then we were in a new country-population: the pope. I didn't expect the Vatican to be so musuem-like. The place was huge and it had a TON of sculptures that we all took funny pictures with. It also had mummy coffins and such. It was a long journey to the Sistine Chapel in a massive crowd. You have to go through a lot of rooms to get there, and they are all covered from floor to ceiling in beautiful and detailed painted artwork with gold decoration everywhere. I think a lot of the artwork was done by Raphael. We finally arrived at the Sistine chapel, which as you probably know, is also covered in paintings. We were amazed at how long it must have taken to accomplish all that detailed decoration. We tried going to St. Peter's, the the biggest church in the world, after but there was
a long line and we wanted to make it to the colliseum by the end of the day. We moved St. Peter's to the next day and then headed to the Colliseum. There's not much to say about it. I'm sure you all know what it looks like and what its significance is. It was just really cool to actually be there. After, we saw some more plazzas, including the Plazza di Spagna where we climbed the Spanish steps. We found a bunch of Indie places that night and I had my first Long Island Iced Tea. I live on Long Island but needed to go all the way to Rome for it. We crossed a bridge to another part of the city to brush through the Jewish quarters before having another pasta and wine dinner.
We got up early again to see St. Peter's and there was no line! The church is MASSIVE. There are large sculptures of many of the popes that have...served (?) over the years, and altars which they were burried beneath. I really can't even begin to describe how astounding it was. We finally accomplished our goal that day of finding the Mouth of
Truth. This is a stone cut into the shape of a lion with an open mouth, and it is right outside one of the churches. The myth is that if you put your hand in his mouth and he bites it, then you're a liar. I must be an honest one because my hand remains firmly in tact! That day was the first time we saw the circus maximus and knew its significance. It was a field for jousting and horse racing. But the first time we went, we were perplexed as to why an empty field was so fascinating to everyone. Other than that, we just walked around by the water. Oh and I can't forget, passing the canoli. Marissa bought a canoli and thought (correctly) that it was a good idea to pass it around like a pipe and take pictures of ceremoniously handing it off to each other and taking bites. I have no idea how or why this came to be but we found it hilarious. Marissa and Liz had to leave that afternoon and I left that evening. Jill stayed for another day but should be coming back tonight. It was a really good weekend
and I'm glad I went because out of all the places I'm going to over spring break, Rome is the one that I feel there is a lot to see and that has things that take up a lot of time (i.e. the line at the Vatican) so I wouldn't have been able to get everything in otherwise. Ciao!
Other random things: We bought suppis (balls of fried dough with sauce and cheese inside) at a bakery and saw Indie street things with objects relating to whatever was written on the cards. Basically after this weekend, Marissa and Jill got the word "Indie" worked into my vocabulary.
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MOM
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So what exactly is meant by indie places? Great pics. I so want to go to Italy some day.