Rome

Rome…..wow

Okay, grab a cuppa coz this is going to be a long one.
4 nights / 3 days in Rome and my feet are killing me.  I’ve only caught 3 trains and 1 taxi and I’ve walked non-stop for a minimum of 7 hours each day and 9 hours on the day I did the Colosseum.  I even ate lunch on the go.

So, hold on to your hats, here’s the whirlwind of tour of Rome.

The train got into Rome about 4.15pm and it should have been a 10 minute walk to the accommodation.  I managed to find the street but finding the place was much harder.  It takes up most of a floor in an apartment block so there’s so signage as such….doesn’t make it easy to find.  I couldn’t even get in the room before the Romanian receptionist (speaking Italian with a Romanian accent is just weird) bombarded me with where to go and when.  So I threw my bags in my room and headed out into the Roman evening.  I didn’t see half the things she told me to see but I managed the Piazza del Popolo, walked along Via del Corso (full of expensive shops) and stumbled across the Fontana de Trevi which was really nice surprise.  It was much better than I expected.  I found what I thought was the Spanish Steps but actually turned out to be the Monument to Vittorio Emmanuele.

My first day in Rome was whopper:
– Santa Maria Maggiore Church –  very impressive
– Trajan’s Forum and Trajan’s Column – they just happen to be by the roadside
Vittorio Emmanuele Monument – very impressive from the outside with great views.  They have a new attraction, a glass elevator that takes you to the top of the monument for the best views anywhere in Rome (the best 7€ I’ve spent)
Colosseum – not at all what I was expecting.  We all know what it looks like from the outside but I had no idea what to expect inside and what I saw wasn’t it but it was very interesting.  It’s the only place I have rented an audio-guide (I don’t feel the need to know everything in-depth) and while it was exceptionally dry, it was helpful to know what some of it was.  I stopped listening when it started stating the blindingly obvious.
Roman Forum and Palatine Hill – very interesting but it all got a bit much after a while and I really needed to get out.
Capitol Hill Square and Museum – the museum was okay but they had a Michelangelo and Leonardo Da Vinci exhibition ‘Masterpieces of graphics and Roman studies’ – basically a whole lot of their sketches…..the detail was just amazing.  I think it was one of Leo’s (I feel now that I’ve been up close to their work, that I’m on a first name basis – Mike/Micky and Leo) sketches of an arm and a leg with so much detail, it was just amazing.
Temple of Hadrian (Tempio di Adriano) – the building is now a bank but the columns are still obviously there
Pantheon – just meandering down a side street (the streets aren’t that much wider than in Venice), come out onto a square and there’s the Pantheon, it’s kind of like that with a lot of things in Rome.  It blew me away.  To think that the skylight has a 9 metre radius.  Architects today still can’t work out how they built it.  2 great things…..you can take photos in there and it’s free….made my day.
Piazza Navona – a pretty square with a fountain and Sant Agnese in Agone Church

Not bad for one day, hey.  Walking constantly for 9 hours, my feet were killing me.

Day 2 wasn’t much kinder on the feet either.
St Peter’s Basilica – again free entry and photos are okay.  Seventh heaven…..almost literally!!!  Simply amazing.  The atrium is bigger than most churches.  i went up to the Cupola (the big around the base of the dome) and onto the roof which was pretty amazing.     There is just so much priceless art in all of these churches.  I do have to wonder if it makes them any holier!! But a sermon in some of them would be pretty awesome.  I’m imagining a fire and brimstone sermon and it booming around these massive churches, could be pretty effective.  The square outside the church is equally massive and has huge screens around the place because the Pope would be about the size of an ant. Went down into the crypt as well.
Vatican Museum / Sistine Chapel – I made the mistake of assuming that cameras weren’t allowed, I knew you can’t take photos in the Sistine Chapel and figured it went for the whole museum.  And there’s everyone snapping away and I’m kicking myself and then it got to the point of no return and I couldn’t stand it any longer and had to walk all the way back to the check room and get my camera…..I felt whole again!!  Just amazing….I know I keep using that word but there’s not enough superlatives to describe everything I’ve seen in the last few days.  The rooms leading in to the Sistine Chapel are incredible.  The Raphael rooms that were painted from the floor up took my breath away.  Then we had to go through several Contemporary rooms (funny how not many people stopped in that section although there was an entire room of Matisse’s and I did find a work I really liked). The Sistine it’s was a bit of a disappointment – not the art work but the chapel it self.  I was expecting to walk into something that felt quite reverential and be totally awed instead I walked into what felt like a massive hall (it took a while to realise I was actually in a chapel) buzzing with over  a hundred people with plastic seating all around the walls…..not what I had in mind.  The paintings were, again amazing but also smaller than I was expecting.  I guess my Sistine were the Raphael room’s.  You then have to walk through a whole host of rooms to get out and of course the dozens of souvenir stands.
walked back around to St Peters and down to Castel Sant Angelo.  I decided not to go in but had a meander round the castle, crossing the Tiber River (pronounced Tevere in Italian) and back into town through the Jewish quarter or so I thought until I realised I was going the wrong way.  I had such a hard time getting my bearings in Rome.  A quick change of plans and I detoured to the Spanish Steps (along with a thousand other people) and back to the Trevi fountain to see it in day light.

My chore for the night was to finally do some washing and on the way to laundromat I passed an amazing looking pastry shop and decided I would check it out for dinner.  Italians make the most awesome looking pastries, can say I actually like any of them but they look fabulous.  Anyway, I get into this place and can’t work out what anything is but there’s also guys serving small plates of bits and pieces so I asked what it was all about and apparently most places have Happy Hour.  For €12 I can get a drink (beer, wine, champagne or cocktail) and an endless supply of nibblies – flat breads with various toppings, pizzas, tiny bowls of pasta, mini meat balls, dozens of different things….so when in Rome one must do what the Romans do and happy hour it was.  I of course went for a cocktail and they didn’t have a cocktail menu, the bartender was going to make it up.  We decided on something with fruit and vodka, the only bit of fruit was the piece of pineapple hanging off the side of the glass, the rest was purely vodka and midori because I’m sure there wasn’t much else in there.  It was sooooo strong but the food was good and it saved me have to go out for dinner.

Day 3
My feet have been so sore from the endless walking that I thought I would make use of the public transport and catch the train.  I couldn’t believe it when the guy at reception told me there was a national transport strike….yay….walking it was.  It was a 45 minute walk to the Borghese Gallery.  It was both a nice walk and a nice gallery, this one predominantly sculpture.  I’ve never been a big fan of sculpture but I’ve definitely found an appreciation for it, particularly seeing Apollo and Daphne, just beautiful, i liked the way he left a lot of air (hmm, I know what I mean not sure it makes sense to anyone else though).  The gallery is in Villa Borghese which is 3 square miles of park and it was wonderful to walk on grass and see greenery for the first time in over a week.  The walk there and back was through the ritzy end of town with the spiffy hotels and the American Embassy and I found a cheap place to eat, used their loo which was grotty, looked at the menu which was grotty and walked out and into one of the spiffy hotels for lunch.  I knew it was going to cost a lot but given that I’ve been eating half my breakfast for lunch I figured I was up for a flash lunch.  I just wanted to sit somewhere nice, at a table with a table cloth and nice glasses and cutlery and be served by someone in a suit and hopefully the food would be good too.  And it was beautiful.
I actually managed to get back to the hotel before 5pm for a change so decided to wander down to yet another church San Giovanni (St John to us), yet another big beautiful church.

Crossing the streets in Rome has been an adventure.  You can stand at the crossing for as long as you like and they aren’t going to stop, you have step out.  On the smaller streets, it’s okay but on the bigger streets around the Piazza Venezzia it’s scary.  Sometimes I’d wait until someone else went and I go with them but when there was no-one else around it was a case of pick the gap, close your eyes, start walking and pray.

Some of the bigger intersections have crossing lights but you don’t have to obey them.  I was nipping across red pedestrian lights with police standing a few feet away…..when in Rome!!!  Hell, a red light to an Italian is only a suggestion and the scooters don’t obey any of rules.

As for car parking, now that’s hilarious.  There are very few big cars and heaps of those little 2 door smart cars.  Double parking seems to be okay.  And parking so close there’s not a hope in hell you’ll ever get out is also okay.  If you have a smart car and you can’t parallel park, you park at right angles (check out the photos….I have evidence) and if you have a slightly bigger car and can’t parallel park or park at right angles then you do something halfway in between.

There are constantly sirens, sometimes the essential services but mostly small cars which I can only assume are something to do with traffic control.  Everyone here also has dogs and big dogs at that.  Given that everyone and I mean everyone lives in apartments, I wouldn’t have expected the large dog population.  I haven’t seen a single house, even coming into Rome, it was all apartment blocks.

I’ve enjoyed Rome but am happy to be leaving and looking forward to staying in much nicer accommodation and to what I hope will be the peace and quiet of a small town.

And now I have to choose some photos from the 641 that I’ve taken in 3 days.  I’m just thankful that I can’t take photos in some places because there’d just be more to chose from.