ROME!!!

Exhausted as we’d been we’d gone to bed at 10 pm. We woke up at 6:30, packed our bags for a day of travel, and headed towards the subway to start exploring Rome. We happened upon a bakery across the street from the hostel and decided to buy breakfast. That was an experience. At least she spoke a little English. She also was apparently very amused by us. She picked up a croissant and started repeating “Energy! Energy! Energy!” which we took to mean, “you should eat this, it will give you energy for the day”. Traci agreed to take it so she would stop forcing it at us. The lady then decided to teach us Italian and started repeating every English word we said with the Italian word. We nodded in confusion and hurried out.

We took a subway from our hostel to the Vatican, our first stop of the morning. It was 8:10 when we got there. It was supposed to open at 9 according to the website and 8:30 according to the guide. We got in line and sat down to eat our breakfast and wait. And then the line started moving. We were going inside. Kristina and I frantically started “dressing” ourselves. Prepared for the heat we were wearing tank tops and shorts but shoulders and knees must be covered in all churches in Italy. So as I pulled a jacket on and lengthened my adjustable shorts to Capri length, Kristina pulled jeans and a shirt over her outfit and we all shoved our pastries into our mouths just in time to be herded through security. We were inside, had bought out tickets, and had entered the museum by 8:20, way before the museum was supposed to be early. We were very confused. As a result though, we wandered through the museums with almost no one else there. Instead of the rumors we had heard of being packed like sardines and shoved through the hallways, we were wandering at our own pace. This worked to our disadvantage when we got to the Sistine Chapel, though… it’s hard to sneak pictures where there are five security guards and only 15 other people. We continued through the museum from there and the Italian men myth was proved true when Traci stopped a security guard to ask a question about the artwork on the ceiling. Our Italian friend had warned us to watch out for the guys because one of his highschool past times was hanging out in tourist spots with his friends and trying to pick up tourists. Standing in the Vatican museums after the guard explained to us that the paintings on the ceiling were really just paintings and meant to look 3-D but weren’t, the security guard tried to ask her out. We figured it was time to leave. In order get to the Basilica of St. Peter we had been told to take the exit out of the Sistine Chapel so we headed back that way. By this time it was 10 am and it actually was getting crowded. Sure enough, the Sistine Chapel was overflowing with people. This made pictures of the ceiling slightly easier. We headed out the exit and found ourselves herded into the crypts/tombs of the popes instead of the Basilica. When we made it out of there it was as if we had exited the Basilica. That meant we had to get in line to get in. There was quite a line. Luckily, though, it moved very fast. It was quite amazing, and obviously huge. We managed to get in and out within a half hour and were finished with Vatican City by noon. We stopped for pizza and gelato for lunch and headed towards Rome’s castle.

There were two big but pleasant surprises in Rome. The first was how walkable it was. Originally looking at the map we were a little concerned, but (though we probably walked a good 6+ miles both days) we made it between main destinations within 15 minutes and only took the subway three times in the entire trip. Secondly, the water fountains were amazing. Coming from Germany which does not know what a water fountain is (something I have also seen in every other country I have visited), Rome was unique and amazing. There are little fountains mounted on walls of just along the streets every few blocks in Rome and they have drinkable water pouring out. We all filled our water bottles up every time we passed one. We must have each had at least 6 liters of water a day and yet we still didn’t make bathroom breaks. It was hot.

But back to our day. We walked around the castle (which looks very different from all the German castles we keep seeing) and then wandered around some Piazza’s and happened upon the Spanish steps without realizing it. We were at the top of something circled on the map. These look like steps, we thought. I wonder if these are the Spanish steps. We walked down them. They didn’t seem that impressive so I was guessing not. They also were not very crowded. When we got to the bottom and looked up, though, we realized they had to be. From the steps we headed to the Pantheon, which was awesome to see just because it was the first old thing we had actually seen in Rome… the Colloseum was on the list for Friday. That’s where we decided to do a pub crawl that night. Thursday was lady’s night apparently and the prospect of a 5 Euro discount, free pizza and a t-shirt seemed like fun. We headed over to a couple more Piazzas and something that looked like ruins on the map to end our afternoon. The ruins turned out to be the outdoor cat sanctuary. It’s in a random square of ruins and there are stray cats everywhere. Basking on chunks of old columns, curled up on chunks of old rock… it was awesome. They are taken care of by a group of volunteers (they have all their shots) and are adoptable and seem to absolutely love it there. But that makes sense. It’s a giant playground with a million places to sleep and a lot of sun. Our last stop of the night was the Trevi fountain, which, as promised, was packed full of people. We rested our feet sitting there for a bit and then took the metro two stops back to the hostel because we were so tired. We rested for a couple of hours and showered off all the sunscreen and sweat (I didn’t get sunburned the entire trip!!! Even though I spent 12 hours a day in the hot sun! I’m so proud of myself! I even have a little tan!) before heading to the pub crawl. I think the highlight was that it met right outside of the Colloseum. That meant we got to see it all lit up at night. We met some pretty fun people, including the workers. They had apparently had a girl from St. Louis working from them and greeted us with “Rams, Cardinals, Blues, Arch…” We got to see a lot of Rome by night just walking around. Also cool was that the next day we randomly walked by one of the guides from the night before and he recognized us and said, “hey St. Louis!” But anyway, we took a bus (for free!) back to the train station and headed to our hostel to sleep. We slept in a little later the next morning and got the free breakfast at the hostel before starting day two in Rome.

The day started with the Colloseum and the Forum. We had been warned to skip the queue by buying a joint ticket at the Forum. I even managed to haggle a half-price ticket because EU citizens get in half price and I had an EU student ID… he wanted a passport but apparently didn’t want to argue because he agreed to give it to me. We tried searching for free tours but no one was advertising so we just followed a couple of different tour groups for a while trying to hear what they were saying and then finished up on our own. The Forum was really cool. It’s pretty much a huge area of ruins including the palace and a lot of the original city. There’s a lot of history there. After two hours in the Forum we got to skip the line at the Colloseum thanks to our tickets. That was also very cool. We bought pizza for lunch and decided we needed a break so we headed out of the hustle and bustle a bit to a quiet street, bought gelato and chilled for about an hour, resting our feet. Then we headed over to find Michelangelo’s Moses in the St. Peter in Chains church. This proved to be the biggest adventure of the day. We couldn’t find it. I swore the map was messed up. First we wandered into the University accidently. The classrooms we walked by and the University sign on the door later gave that away. Directly across from the University there was a cross on the church along with a plaque for “St. Peter in Chain’s Square”. We figured that was the church. We couldn’t figure out how to get in. It was walled in. We walked around the entire building, leading us down a hill and around a parking lot. There was no entrance. After thirty minutes we gave up and decided to find the metro station so we could head south and see the Pyramid and the baths. Easier said than done. We wandered for another 30 minutes because the street directions didn’t make sense. Finally we sat down on the steps of a building next to the church we couldn’t get into to read the map. Then I turned around. Where were we? Sitting on the steps of the Church of St. Peter in Chains. Which was also on the Church of St. Peter in Chains square. It was next to the University, not across from it. Feeling very stupid we went in to look at Moses. Knowing where the church really was made it easier to read the map and we found the metro shortly after.

The metro came up right by the pyramid. Obviously it doesn’t look quite like the ones in Egypt but it was still pretty cool. From there we wandered in the direction of the Baths (according to the map). Unfortunately this was too far south to be on our hostel provided maps (which had otherwise been extremely helpful). So we wandered and hoped we would find it. After 15 minutes of walking in the same direction, I was getting worried… everything else in Rome was 15 minutes apart. We stopped a man with a dog and tried to ask if he knew where it was. He shook his head and spoke Italian. We tried to act out “baths”. Didn’t work. We walked on. We saw an Italian military guy with a loaded machine gun hanging out on a street corner. There was a tank behind him. We decided to ask him. He also spoke practically no English. He tried to direct us towards a bathroom. Luckily at that moment a college aged guy walked across the street towards us and asked if we needed help. He spoke very good English and directed us. We were going the right way, it was just another ten minutes down the road.

The baths were also pretty cool. They were massive anyway. Apparently there were three floors to them. Obviously it’s all ruins now but you can see the outlines of the rooms, some of the mosaics from the walls and some of the mosaic floors still intact. By the time we finished in there we were pretty hungry and decided we wanted to try the Italian döners. We walked back to the main city and finally found a döner place (they are only around until you actually want to find one…). Sorely disappointed. The German ones (and the French and even the very different Spanish ones) are much better. Something was off about the meat and the sauce and the bread and they microwaved the lettuce and tomato.

We had a couple more sites to see and it was still light out so we started towards the giant palace type thing on the map. It turns out this was actually where the president lives. We found this out when we tried to walk into it and the security guard looked at us like we were nuts and shooed us away. Oops! We also happened upon the cat sanctuary again, so we got distracted watching the cats for a bit. The final stop, though, was the Trajan forum. That was also pretty cool. I think we were used to seeing random old columns and gates and pieces of building around the city by that point, but it was still pretty neat. The Marc Auerlous column was very impressive and we used some of the knowledge we’d picked up from the Forum tour guides to notice the columns… you could see the original brick beneath the layer of marble that they had later been covered with. We hung out in the area for a bit enjoying the last night in Rome and then headed back to the hostel for bed.

The next morning we checked out and started towards the train station. We had 2 hours before our train which was perfect to check out the Mary Maggiore church, the second to last thing I had wanted to see. It was extremely different than any other church I have seen anywhere else in Europe. This is the Byzantine style, apparently, but it’s very colorful and painted in comparison to the bronze and gold of the baroque style or the huge vaulted ceilings and massive columns of the gothic style. We spent the extra time hanging out at Republique Square and then bought paninis and hopped on the train. We were prepared for a 3.5 hour hot and sweaty train ride… and then we got lucky and happened upon the one air-conditioned train car as we looked for seats. Yay! That made the ride much more enjoyable. And with that, because this post is long enough, I’ll end the Rome post and continue with Florence on the next one.

Pictures:

The inside of a church

The Colosseum

The Forum

Cats in the ruins

Trevi Fountain

Pantheon

Sistine Chapel