Rome, Day 5

We started out our last day in Rome with a visit to the Crypts of the Capucin Monks. It was incredibly interesting and weird all at the same time. There are different chapels and a 60 foot hallway that make up the crypts. The creepy part is that everything is decorated with bones. Everything. Lamps are made out of bones. Unfortunately there in no picture taking allowed, but the link above has some nice pictures of it. All I could think of while walking through it is, only in religion could this be acceptable. You walked into some guy's basement off the street and it was decorated like this. He would be in a mental institution and/or jail so fast. For the monks, it was perfectly fine.

Being that it was our last day in Rome, we had to see a few more churches. They are all over, so its not that hard to do. This one, San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane, was a Baroque style church, and was one of the few in Rome that I liked more on the outside than the inside. On each corner of the street, there was a sculpture facing the church. They were incredibly detailed too. I would have liked to get pictures of each one of the sculptures, but as it was Rome and I love to take pictures, we had filled up all our memory cards. When we got home, we went to Costco and bought a 2 GB memory card. Our trip this weekend to Orkney should have TONS of pictures now!!




During the day this Piazza is an open market and by night, the cafes and bars spread out. We sat next to one of the monuments and ate our lunch while people watching. Always great in markets. You get all kinds of people at them. :)



One of the churches I had really wanted to visit was Gesu. But every time we walked by it, (1) it was closed, (2) I really had to find a bathroom, or (3) we were so exhausted from the rest of our travels that day that we just could not be bothered to cross the road and see it. But this day we had seen just about all we could see, so we stopped in. Well worth the time. A lot of the frescoes on the ceiling and walls had actual people coming out of them! The sides of the painting would have the people that were in them start coming out of the image through a sculpture. I loved it! But as it was closing, we got kicked out well before we would have liked to. The irritating guy that was in charge started banging LOUDLY on the door for everyone to get out. Never knew that God needed a daily nap until I went to Rome. At least He doesn't charge fare to enter.

Then it was back to the Roman Forum to really poke around. The last time we were there, we were both really hungry, so we didn't look at anything with as much attention as we would have otherwise. This is a shot of Trajan's Markets (or what is left of them) from the Roman Forum. Again, no more memory space on the camera cards, so not a lot of pictures taken at this point in the day. By then, it was time to catch the bus for the airport. We had a spectacular time, but next time we both want to see more of the Italian countryside.

Rome, Day 4

Today was the "Vatican Day." Since our guidebook had led us wrong every other day and we heard from others in our hostel that the Sistine Chapel closes at about 2pm, we decided to get to the Vatican Museums right away in the morning. Then 7 more people from our hostel decided to join us. After 9 people got up, ready, had breakfast, bought tickets for the subway, got on the subway, and then got to the line, it was about 8:45 in the morning. Not quite as early as we had hoped, but such is life. At 10:20 am we finally got our tickets and were in the Vatican Museums. We didn't leave until about 2pm, and after we got back to the hostel, we realized that we had accidentally missed a whole chunk of it. Another lady from our hostel stayed in there until well past 3pm! By the time we were out of there, we were starving, and well ready to be done with museums for the day. The collection is wonderful though. The audio guide is not worth it through, and the map that goes with it sucks. If you go, buy a map from the gift shop or get one before hand online. That's how we missed a whole section, crappy map. But what we did see was AMAZING. There was one room full of mini-mosaics. They couldn't have been over the size of a 50 cent piece but all the little pieces crammed into that small space was incredible. And all the detail too!
No visit to the Vatican is complete without a stop to St Peter's Piazza and Basilica. We did see the funny looking guards, but they were disappointingly far off, and the guards at the car entrance don't have the crazy stripes, just blue. The guards at the metal detectors and baggage scanning machines are just normally dressed security guards. VERY disappointing. I wanted guards telling people to put on more clothes! They were a lot of people getting through that according to the "rules" shouldn't have... maybe the Church is rolling with the times. The church is absolutely amazing. The outside is beautiful and the inside is breathtaking. We took tons of pictures. One of the interesting points of the church, is that they mark how big it is compared to other churches. This one is MASSIVE. And the artwork in there is incredible. I cannot really describe it in words. I haven't uploaded these pictures yet, but even those do not do it justice.



After leaving the Vatican, we walked along the old Pilgrimage route for a bit. The street is very narrow (which does not stop cars) and beautiful. A lot of the corners in Rome had artwork of the Virgin Mary or other religious icons up on them. It was really interesting. This street of course had them.



We stopped at quite a few more churches during the day. The churches here are amazing, but, unfortunaley, with cramming so many of them into such a short period of time, they start blending together. At least we could label most of them when we got back! This one was really interesting given the turet. It swirls around at the top. We tried to get into it, but couldn't find any way of doing that.

Rome, Day 3

This morning we woke up and headed to the Catacombs of San Callisto out on the Appian Way. Even though the catacombs are outside of Rome, due to the laws of the ancient times, they were surprisingly easy to get to. A bus picks you up right outside a Subway station and drops you off right outside the entrance. And if you want, you can wander down the Appian Way and see more sites.

The Catacombs of San Callisto are the largest around Rome. Our tour guide told us that there are 3 floors and about 15 miles of catacombs, but only one floor is open to the public. We were able to go on a 30 minute tour and learn lots. They estimate that 500,000 tombs were here at one point in time. During raids, many items of worth were carted off and the early Popes' tombs were taken to safety during this time as well. Along with all the tombs, the catacombs were a site of early Christian Worship as it was outlawed in Rome in Christianity's early stages. We also learned of the entombing process and how the smell was kept down AND even were able to see thousands of years old dead people. Little creepy.

The rest of our day was a massive walking tour of the city. We went back into Rome near the Circus Maximus (where the chariot races used to be held) and then walked in a massive circle around the various neighborhoods. Our first neighborhood was Aventine Hill. It was mainly the older part of town. Circus Maximus is in this area, along with old Roman City Walls, churches, and beautiful streets. The Baths of Caracalla are also in this area. It was a massive and impressive structure even though it is 1000's of years old and in ruins. It used to be a wonderful public bath house and leisure center. Many of the floors still exist, the mosaics and some of the decorative stone work. The building must have been huge at one time and incredibly impressive. Apparently during one of the attacks on Rome, the water supply was cut off and since this is on the outskirts of the city center, it was left to fend for itself. At the end of the attack, it was left abandoned. What a shame.
We then made our way through the area known as Testaccio, named after a "mountain" made of broken pottery and other objects (which according to the guidebook should have been open, but wasn't.) Unfortunately, our guide book yet again led us astray with this walking tour. There are a couple of interesting cemeteries here of historical importance that you can wander through, they were closed. There is a really interesting pyramid here though.
After that slight bit of frustration with the guide book, the next 30 minutes of our day made me want to throw it on the ground and stomp on it. There is a park called Parco Savello that is supposed to have wonderful views over Rome and a beautiful old church in it, Santa Sabina, that is one of the first churches of Rome. Now we knew the church would be closed as it was around lunch time and most of the churches are closed. It was getting into the park area that proved to be incredibly difficult. The map given makes it look like its right next to the road. It is, but up a 30 foot cement wall. We had to walk all around the stupid thing AND then figure out how to get into it. By the time we got to the park to see the views, I had to go to the bathroom so badly we couldn't enjoy it. Another point of contention with the guide book is that of the bathrooms. They correctly inform you that there are not many public bathrooms in Rome, but that restaurants have to legally let you use their bathrooms. Not so at all. The Police will back the restaurant owners in NOT letting you use the bathrooms, we saw it happen (not to us thankfully.) And Frommer's response "opps."
Then we stopped by the Mouth of Truth. There was a long line, so we didn't put our hands in the stone's mouth. And I was still in a desperate search for a bathroom. The legend of the Mouth of Truth is really interesting (click on the link above.)
Our next neighborhood to wander through was the Jewish Ghetto. This part of town was absolutely beautiful and seemed very unchanged. It of course has a troubled history. We started at the sign signifying the place where 3,091 Jewish people were taken to Auschwitz, 15 made it out. If you look carefully while walking through here, you can catch old signs in Hebrew on buildings. A few of the buildings did have newer signs in Hebrew, but not a lot of them that we saw.





In the Jewish Ghetto, there is a wonderful piazza called Piazza Mattei that holds the Tortoise Fountain. You can make out the turtles being helped to climb into the fountain behind us.









By now the churches were open again. Near the Roman Forum and the Capitoline Museums, is this church. Santa Maria in Aracoeli was a beautiful church on the inside, but first you had to climb 124 steps in the hot sun. Not that I was whining about it. It was just a LOT of steps to climb up. The inside of the church was well worth it though. The marble work was amazing, along with all the art, and it was nice and quiet. This church even had chandeliers hanging! Santa Maria's big claim is the Bambinello. Its a small wooden carving of Baby Jesus. It was miraculously finished when the carver ran out of money, it has been stolen a few times and miraculously shown back up, children sing to it and praise it during the Christmas season, and people from all over the world write letters to it for help. I am sure that the list of what this little olive wood, bejewelled Baby Jesus can do is much longer, but this is all I can remember.



We then headed over to Tiber Island. At one point in time, I am sure that it was an actual island. Now it looks like a man made island. Everything is cement. It start 1000's of years ago with the Romans making the island look like the hull of a ship. There is a church there and a hospital. A lot of people were sitting out on the esplanade sun bathing, and there were even a few fishermen. I have no idea what one would fish for in a river running through Rome, but I wouldn't want to eat it. The water didn't look all that particularly dirty, but there was quite a bit of trash in it.

Then it was off to find somewhere to eat. Not going to lie. We tried using the guidebook again to help us in making this selection. We figured since it was a Sunday, in Rome, we may have some issues actually finding some where to eat. Especially since our usual breakfast cafe of the week was closed, and it is in a busy area. We found the restaurant fairly easily this time (we had already learned to consult other maps), but the place that was supposed to be open Tuesday through Sunday for lunch and dinner was VERY closed. Maybe the owners were confused on the date...
So... we went back to the same place that we ate at the night before. They all remembered us, which was spectacular. And the pizza is divine. And the chocolate mousse dessert. And the wine. And the Italian Appetizer. I might have to fly back to Rome just to eat here...

Rome, Day 2

Apparently, I have married someone so incredibly similar to my father, it's scary at times. Mike had us awake and ready to start the day by 7:30am. One morning I even was greeted with the phrase "We don't want to waste the daylight hours." :)
At least we packed everything and laid out clothes the night before so that we didn't bother the other people in the room. We got the Trevi Fountain before the thing was even turned on. But on the up side, there were very few people there and less of a chance of being robbed. And we did see tons every day.
This fountain is absolutely amazing, AND HUGE! It takes up one whole side of a building and about half of the piazza. The detail in the sculptures is incredible as well. After throwing a coin over our shoulders and into the fountain, we headed off to see more of Rome.


The Spanish Steps was the next stop. Every morning we tried to hit the really touristy spots so we would not be robbed. Nearly every person we ran into had some story of them being robbed or someone they knew. While we never walked around with tons of money or lots of credit cards (one guy had his wallet stolen with his passport, ID, 5 credit cards, and 140 euros), we still didn't want to deal with the hassle of it all. We arrived here just as they were done watering the large amount of flowers. The views from the top of the steps and the church at the top are both wonderful. And interestingly enough... the French paid to construct this, not the Spanish!


We walked over to the Mausoleum of Augustus next. It was interesting but during Mussolini's reign, he put an ugly wall all around it. It was unfortunately, not open to the public. The picture on the left is of Basilica dei SS Ambrogio E Carlo. It was one of the many churches we visited while we were there. Obviously there are loads of churches in Rome, and, of course, not all of them are listed in our guide book. We must have visited about 10 churches a day while we were in Rome. Many of them looked interesting, or we just want to sit for a minute, so we would pop into one and poke around. What we found interesting is most of the churches were all built in the period where churches were incredibly plain on the outside and incredibly breathtaking on the inside. Very few are from other periods. AND most of the churches close from noon to 3pm. Kinda like a siesta period in Spanish speaking countries, but only for churches. It was rather odd and meant that you really had to plan your day around certain churches closings and openings.
The Piazza del Popolo was quite interesting. They were having all sorts of activities going on as they are trying to host the Soccer World Cup some year in the future. They was all sorts of stuff going on to try and back their bid. And they sell little bike-mobiles. They reminded me of the "cars" from the Flintstones! It is supposed to be one of those "must see" places when visiting Rome, and it was beautiful, just full of people.
The park, Villa Borghese, is right above the Piazza del Popolo. The view from the Pincio Terraces are amazing as well. You can look out over Rome and the piazza below. The park is wonderful. Our guidebook map was horrid, but there is a wonderful map up next to the terraces. Be careful of the man wanting to "give" you a rose though. After Morocco, I learned to always keep my hands hidden when some man tries to "show" me something. But the walk through the park was lovely and it was like you weren't even in Rome.
Castel Sant' Angelo is right next to the Vatican and is one of the many spectacular museums in Rome. Since we got into it for free with our Roma Pass, we decided to go - might as well make the thing pay for itself. It was quite interesting with apartments all re-decorated and fresco paintings all over. And the views of the city from the top were wonderful. You can see over the Tiber River, across two amazing bridges, and have great views of some of Rome.


After the museum and a quick look at St. Peter's Piazza and Basilica, we wandered through the streets of the Trastevere neighborhood. It is a charming area filled with winding streets, picturesque buildings, beautiful churches, kids playing soccer, and scooters. It was great fun to wander all the streets and take it all in. We visited a beautiful church there called Santa Maria in Trastevere where we were able to try out our new camera tripod. Low light shots have been a hassle in the past as we have to try to stand incredibly still. This, surprisingly enough, has been hard for me. The tripod worked wonders.
The night before we had walked for about an hour and a half searching for a restaurant that our guide book said was great. We finally gave up after circling the area for the second time and settled on some restaurant that served us something microwaved from a box (it was quite bad). We decided to give the book another chance. After 45 minutes of looking (only 1 1/2 circles this time!) and consulting 2 other maps, we finally found it. The restaurant that was supposed to be open from lunch through to dinner was still not open yet and it was 6pm. After that we gave up on the guide book. At least the place we chose for dinner this night was spectacular!

Rome, Day 1

We got into Rome late on Thursday evening. It was wonderful flying over a very lit up Rome.
The next morning we were up and ready to go by 7:30 in the morning, downed breakfast while going over our game plan, then tackled Rome. We started out at the Colosseum. It was spectacular! You can walk a lot of the ruins. There are multiple levels of walkways to explore and there is even a mini-museum with all sorts of columns, fountains, and other artwork from the building. There are also tons of columns, and slabs with old writing on them that you can actually touch! They are re-constructing a bit of the floor and some of the stands so that you can try to better imagine what it looked like way back when. The ruins themselves are impressive, so it must have been something back then with all its stands, underground tunnels, and the such.


On the plane, we were sitting next to this Priest who is from South Bend but has lived in Rome for about 14 years. He gave us all sorts of wonderful tips, one of them being to visit Basilica San Clemente. This church was amazing. The artwork was incredible and there were ancient frescoes on the walls that were beautiful. Like many of the Churches in Rome, the current church was built on top of another church, which was built on top of a pagan worship center. We were able to go underneath the current church and explore. There are lots of tombs, pagan images, frescoes, and other interesting things.


Next, was Palatine Hill. It was mostly in ruins, but the ruins were interesting. Lots of beautiful columns and detail work. And the gardens were beautiful. It was not very well marked as to what anything was though, and there were no maps provided. Therefore, it was hard to imagine what it all once looked like. There is a museum at the top of the hill that you can poke through that explains it all in GREAT detail, but we were not all that interested in reading loads in a museum.

Right in front of the Palatine Hill is the Roman Forum. Since its free, there are no maps either, but our crappy guide book (I will explain that later) at least gave us a little map and explanation of what some of the ruins were so it was easier to imagine what it all looked like. That and there are loads of posters that the vendors are selling that show you what it all looked like in its glory. One of the reasons that it is so destroyed is that when the buildings were not in use any more, all of Rome came here to get marble for the buildings that they were constructing.



The next big site we went to was the Pantheon. It was amazing! We were able to listen to an audio clip to learn all about the different chapels. It was incredibly beautiful, but Mike and I were both a little shocked at how nice it was. It was built during Roman times as a temple to the different Gods and at height of Christianity was converted into a Church. So everything is newer and quite shiny. I have no idea why, but it was different than we expected yet still great.
We saw loads more of Rome this day and walked for about 13 hours. I would love to explain it all, but it would probably take all day and bore you to tears. So, look at our Flickr pictures and there are stories there of all our adventures. I took about 750 pictures, so the are not all uploaded yet... maybe by next week... maybe