Archive for category Rome
Day 14: Rome
Pictures
Today was a lot more walking. We slept in until 9am, ate some breakfast, checked out and sort of sat in the lobby for a while. We’d seen most of the major sites in Rome, and weren’t to eager to head into the heat again, so we dilly-daddled around for a while.
We finally decided what sights we wanted to see and set off.
Our first stop was to check out the Monumento a Vittorio Emanuele II which is in the Ancient City. It is an enormous monument which takes up nearly the entire piazza. It was at least three sets of large stairs to get to the upper walking level, which wasn’t even close to the top of the monument. It overlooked quite a bit of the area. The first level is a monument to the unknown soldiers, and has some very interesting sculptures and fountains… but a lot of the monument was under renovation, so the fountains weren’t working. In the center of the whole thing is a gargantuan statue of Vittorio Emanuele II on horseback. I took a picture (I hope) of the sign stating its dimensions, and I think it was something like 20×10 meters large and all bronze. See, I told you it was huge!
From there we walked to Santa Maria in Cosmedin which was a really old church. The main attraction was the Mouth of Truth. It is a sculpture of a face in the wall and you stick your hand in. If you tell it a lie, it supposedly closes on your hand. We waited in line for it and when it was my turn I walked up and said, “I am an astronaut.” I am happy to say I still have my hand. So much for superstition! After that we walked around the church a little. I was surprised at how old it looked and felt. After that we sat in the shade across the street for a while.
Then we headed up Via del Corso for about a hundred years and got to the Piazza del Popolo. I believe it has one of the oldest obelisks in Rome. Mussolini is said to have enjoyed walks here. The Egyptians and Romans must have gotten along pretty well because there are obelisks all over the place! We sat in the shade there for a bit and then headed up to the gardens nearby. The walk was fantastic and the view was breathtaking! We could see nearly all of Rome! We saw the Emanuele monument from afar, St Peter’s Basilica was prominent and not to mention all the other domes. I don’t think I’ve seen so many domed buildings before in my life. Rome has fantastic architecture! I am a huge fan, especially if it’s aged and worn and epic!
On our way back we passed the Spanish Steps again. And I need to correct my last post; the correct Roman name for the Spanish Steps is Scalinata Trinita del Monti. I was reading another name on the map the last time. Whoops!
After that we headed to the local grocery, Sma, and ate some food. We got some snacks for the night train we have later. Right now we’re using the last of our Wifi in the hostel before headig to the train station. Our night train leaves at 7:10 and arrives at 4:30am in Innsbruck, Austria. From there we take another 5 hour train to Vienna. We had other plans when we originally booked the night train to Innsbruck, because we should have taken the night train straight to Vienna, but alas it was not meant to be!
Sidenote: We have met quite a few grocery chains while over here. Our personal favorite is the German Spar store. We saw them in Dublin on nearly every corner. In Switzerland we ran into a lot of Coop stores. Here in Rome Sma seems to be popular, although we have seen a Spar or two! I hope to see some more Spars in Austria and Germany!
I think today was a little cooler, if not just from the fact that we stayed in the shade a lot more. It beats getting fried by the sun! Although I do need to watch to make sure my nose doesn’t get any more red. Don’t need to end up with blisters… that would be painful!
We should have free Wifi at our next hostel, so I think I’ll be able to upload some pictures there. I’ll also look into uploading the videos I’ve taken. Maybe to Youtube or Vimeo…
Alright, wish us luck on this overnight journey over hundreds of miles. I hope we don’t get stuck with anyone who is annoying or who snores. Kyle out.
Day 13: Rome
Pictures
Today we wanted to go to the Vatican City bright and early to avoid the lines. A few girls told us it was only 30 minutes from where we were staying. Well, we didn’t get out of here quite as early as we thought we would. We did get to eat breakfast, which was good. I think it took us an hour and fifteen minutes or more to walk over to the Vatican. Again, the random, confusing Roman roads don’t help. I guess it is one of the oldest major cities around, so I’ll forgive them.
We made it through security at St. Peter’s Basilica rather quickly, actually. Holy carp, that place is enormous! It is completely done out with enormous statues, gilded everything, stained glass, more statues, carvings, engravings, chiselings, paintings, really really high ceilings and domes. From the outside, it doesn’t really look that large. I mean, the hundreds of columnades and statues of saints and fountains in the front are impressive, but the size and grandeur of the inside is almost overwhelming! They had an entire list of all the deceased Popes and what looked like several alters. There was even a mass going on in one of the side areas. The ceilings are hundreds of feet in the air and the amount of free space is staggering! The entire time I was there, I couldn’t help but wish my mom were with me. She would really appreciate the history and the meaning behind all the building.
From there we walked (for what seemed forever) to get to the Vatican Museums. We saw several old Italian ladies completely sprawled on the ground with a little money cup in front of them. It was interesting because the homeless in Columbus usually always ask you for money instead of trying to look as pathetic as possible.
Sidenote: I can’t believe how many people chew with their mouths open. It is the most annoying thing in the world. I’ve noticed it especially with Asians. The guy behind me is eating an apple and is incredibly annoying! Also, an amazing number of people here in Europe smoke. Never have I seen this many people lighting cigarettes all the time. It’s disgusting. And they don’t seem to have the smoking bans that America has.
We got a discount for the museums with our ISIC (International Student Identity Card) card, which is the first time it’s been of any use whatsoever. We really wanted to see the Sistine Chapel. And they lead you on a maze through paintings, sculptures, tapestries, passageways and bunches of other stuff before you get there. Some of the stuff was neat, but, again, we didn’t do a tour or have an audio guide, so a lot of the significance was lost upon me. I would recommend doing a tour, at least, so you can see what all the history is.
We did get to the Chapel eventually though! And it was impressive! It was painted all over. They painted on the crown molding and shadows of things to make it look 3D. And there in the middle of the ceiling was the famous Michelangelo painting: God reaching for Adam. It’s actually one panel in a series depicting the Genesis story (from what I could see). I wonder what makes that one panel so popular? There were signs all over asking for silence and no photos or video, but there were lots of loud people taking pictures with flashes. A few times a guide would ask for silence, but it didn’t last long. The Sistine Chapel was a very cool sight indeed!
We then went to the Pantheon, which was on the way to our hostel. It was also enormous! There was a hole in the domed ceiling where the sunlight poured in. It made for a cool effect! There were of course many huge statues and paintings. Very impressive and, in case you didn’t know, there were signs telling you how scared the area was. After the Pantheon we walked to the Trinita dei Monti or the Spanish Steps. There was a fountain in front of them and quite a few people sitting on them. We walked to the top where another obelisk stood. If you couldn’t tell, Romans love fountains and obelisks and statues and crazy roads and scooters!
Yes, it’s true, there are tons of scooters. And during a red light, they all drive to the front of traffic so they are the first ones off the line. I think you’d be killed by aggressive drivers if you tried that in America! That’s not to say the driving is any better of here… there is still a lot of honking. Not to mention there are barely any traffic lines! And how the heck do people know street names? They are found on the sides of buildings, if at all, and they are very very inconviently located to begin with! Anyways!
From there we walked back to the hostel and took a little nappie nap for about 3 hours. Then we woke up, went to the grocery to get some food. We ended up making some pasta, which was way better than the stuff we had last night. Even put some chili peppers in with the tomato sauce which were a nice flavor.
After that we walked out to get some gellato. We’d read in our Europe books that San Crispino was a good place to go, so we went. And I will tell you that it was amazing! We paid 3 Euro for a smallish cup of 2 scoops, but damn was it good! I had a scoop of banana and a scoop of honey. San Crispino was the real deal because they had metal containers for their ice cream and the banana was actually grey colored, which means they use real bananas (who woulda thunkit?). Both the honey and banana tasted like you were eating the real thing and the banana even had bits of banana in it! Delicious stuff, and I’m not even that bit a fan of sweets!
Well, while we were eating we headed over to the Trevi fountain. Again, another fountain, but this one was awesome! It was nearly the size of the whole piazza. I got some pictures, which I will hopefully upload soon. There was a statue of Neptune in the middle with two guys on the side wrestling horses with wings and dragon-like tails. Not sure what that was about, but the water cascading all around was fantastic! I think it is my favorite fountain/statue here. There were quite a few people there. And of course there were street vendors peddling their wares. We haven’t seen any Gypsies here that I can recall. We’ve steered clear of the people trying to give us anything though.
And how we’re sitting in the hostel room again. I’ve been typing up 4 days worth of blogs, because I fell behind. We’re limited to 30 minutes of wifi per person per day, but we saved up yesterdays so we will hopefully have a bit of time to use tomorrow. I am going to take a shower now and then head to bed. Not sure what we’re going to do tomorrow. We’ve got a night train to Innsbruck, Austria at 7:10pm, but I have no idea what we’ll do until that time.
Day 12: Rome
Pictures
They gave us a muffin in the morning for breakfast on the train, which just made me feel ripped off! I wish they would have given us a little bit more! We walked from the Termini train station to the Alessandro Downtown Hostel. We couldn’t check in so we just put our bags into their luggage room and got the essential stuff (cameras and water bottles). From the hostel, we walked toward the Colosseum. We saw the church dedicated to Santa Maria Maggiore. There was an obelisk in front, and actually, there are quite a few obelisks in Rome. We got to the Colosseum and it was big! Waited in line to get tickets to enter, and it didn’t take too long. It was really impressive and large! In its day it could fit 50,000 people. Very few seats actually remain. It was built out of brick, but I guess it had a marble facade over everything. That would have been insane. Where the floor would have been, we could see the tunnels which they used to move props and animals around and before they upgraded things, they could actually flood the entire area and do plays of naval battles there. Part of a wooden floor had been reconstructed to show what it looked like. It would have really been impressive to see a play or gladiator battle there.
From there we walked to Palatino Hill. It is one of Rome’s seven hills. There were huge ruins of palaces, buildings, temples and the Roman Forum. One thing though… it was hot as blazes! Rome reminds me of Florida. Very muggy, which makes even the slightest heat nearly unbearable. As I sit here, I have a think film of gross from the day. We didn’t do it, but I would recommend getting either a guided tour or an audio tour of things. I sort of wish I could have heard the history of the things we were seeing, instead of just looking at them, but maybe next time, right?
It was still really impressive seeing all these ruins which were hundreds or thousands of years old. I can’t even imagine what things were like back then. Probably just as hot! The roads in Rome and Paris feel like they were laid out by drunks! They are not in grids at all and for each american block there might be 6 roads. And 8 way intersections seem like Roman roulette!
After the Roman forum we ended up walking back because it was so freaking hot! We showered for the first time since Interlaken and it was nice. I was unbelievably sweaty from walking around! We then fell asleep for a while, and woke up for the free pasta dinner. It was small plate with a small portion of pasta… barely even quantifiable as free dinner at all! But they did let us get seconds, and then I ate the stuff the girls next to us didn’t finish. So, all in all, even though it was pretty bland, I did get a decent meal.
After eating, Chuck and I took our dirty clothes to a laundromat. We were completely out of clean clothing. I wore my pajama shorts and the jacket I brought and chuck did similar. I felt pretty trashy walking around like that… especially without a shirt! Anyway, we paid 10 euro to wash and dry a large load. Took about an hour, and the guy there even took care of it all. The guy at the hostel desk gave us a little thing for free soap, which was also nice. For that hour we just came back to the hostel and read. We got our clothes back (though some were a bit damp), folded them all up, and then went to sleep.
We went to bed early because we wanted to go to the Vatican City early the next morning. During the night I heard a few of our roommates come back from the pub crawl. I heard one of them crying in the bathroom. I imagine she had too much to drin and was puking. Seeing as the pub crawl costs 20 euro, it seems like a great use of money, right? Luckily, I fell back to sleep quickly.