Roaming Rome

Ciao! It's funny -- I'm getting very accustomed to using my very limited Italian vocabulary, so I say "grazi" more than "thank you" even when talking to people who speak English.

Long Post =) Enjoy!

Anyways! We kicked off the first of our weekend traveling with Roma! We were a little nervous getting there because there was a public transportation strike on Friday, and we were leaving Thursday Afternoon/Evening. Luckily, our field trip got cancelled (we're going tomorrow instead) and we were able to head to Rome semi-early (although our train was 45 minutes late). We took a fast train, which was well worth it, and I love being able to see the countryside as I travel -- it is beyond beautiful. I think I'm falling in love with Italy.  We got to Rome, (where we were told to really look out for pick pockets), met Kelsey's friend  who is studying abroad in Rome and took the Metro to their apartment, which was wayyyyy far out of the exciting part of Rome.  It's about a ten minute walk from the Musei Vaticani in the opposite direction of anything worth seeing. But we were able to stay in their apartment (and save tons of money), so it was all good.  The first night, we just relaxed, as traveling is rather tiring and vowed to get up early the next morning (it's better to see sights in the morning when there are no tourists). So we woke up, and headed down to the metro, only to realize that all public transportation was on strike. Awesome. So we changed our plans and headed to the Vatican, which was within walking distance. Having no other choice we stood in a SUPER LONG line to get it. Luckily it was moving, but it did take about 40 minutes.

Oh, by the way, it looked like a Fortress from the outside with the huge walls around it. After some confusion, we got inside and just kind of wandered, as we had no map. Here's a view out one of the windows into the courtyard of the museum.

That's the dome of St. Peters (i.e. Michelangelo's dome) in the background. The museum was full of SO MUCH ART! It had everything from Egyptian mummies to ancient sculptures of animals to contemporary art. I must say though, my favorite things were the ceilings:

My next favorite thing was the map room. It was beyond cool.

 

A map painting

One of the paintings above the maps

The GLORIOUS Ceiling:

We saw many other wondrous and amazing things, and our feet were dying and we were so hungry, but the last thing we had to do was see the Sistine Chapel, which I was so incredibly excited to see. Unfortunately, the experience was less than what I'd hoped. We were ushered into the chapel with a ton of people, squished in like sardines, talking wayyy to loud for a chapel, and with the guards yelling "no foto" because you aren't supposed to take pictures. The chapel was gorgeous, but in a different way than everything else had been. I wish I could have been in there with a small group, and not a giant mass of tourists. ::sigh:: It was still beautiful to see. (Side note: tourists from every country are so strange! SO MANY PEOPLE would take pictures of themselves with EVERY STATUE and even lean on them, even though they are ancient!!! It was the weirdest thing) After grabbing lunch and sitting in the air conditioning for a while, we headed out. This was my other favorite part -- the double helix staircase you use to exit. Those are two staircases in the shape of a double helix -- one you walk up and the other you walk down. It was so trippy!

We then headed to St. Peters in the hopes of getting to go inside, but the line was wayyyy to long. However, we did hang out in front for a while, and the beauty of that area really got me excited about being in Rome =)

Okay, a few things must be explained before I tell what we did next. 1. The movie Roman Holiday is one of my favorites, and it makes use of many famous sights in Rome 2. I'm truly becoming a Florentine in that I walk everywhere -- because you can in Florence. Everything is very concentrated and it's very walkable. 3. My guidebook had a walking tour of the sights in Roman Holiday. 

Can you guess what happened next? Now, Rome is a sprawling HUGE city. You cannot walk Rome, unless you want your feet to basically bleed. Ah, but I have so much endurance from all the walking I do in Florence, I thought. HA! Well, anyways, the metro was on strike, so we walked. We got to the river, and ate gelato by it for a while and then walked along it (up above). Walking along the river was one of my favorite parts of the whole weekend. 

We then made the "ardous" trek to the Spanish Steps. Honestly, my feet were hurting, but to me it's worth it to see everything =) We didn't go  up the steps, but they were pretty cool. Not amazing, but pretty cool nonetheless. There were so many people. . . 

We hung out by the fountain in front of the Spanish Steps for a long time resting our feet. There were an incredible amount of people there. Everyone was filling their water bottles from the fountain and taking pictures of their children on the little platform -- Rome has amazing water. Amusingly, a policeman came over and I thought he was going to tell people to stop filling up their water bottles, but instead he went and filled up his own!

Lastly we walked all the way to the Trevi Fountain, which was well worth it. Although swamped with people, this is my favorite thing in Rome.

This giant fountain literally comes out of the building. . .it's like nature hit the city. It's phenomenal. Then we attempted to walk back to the apartment. Which was ridiculously far. It was painful. Luckily we were able to walk (40 minutes, mind you) to the metro stop next to our stop, and it was working! So we got a tiny break. The metro goes in an "x" in Rome, because of all of the ancient underground stuff, which is why it is (unfortunately) not extensive. We then hung out with Kelsey's friend's friends and then went to bed. 

DAY TWO! 

We got up and had iced lattes (it was SO GOOD. . .they NEVER have iced coffee. . .it was amazing) and headed to Ancient Rome. 

Oh hey Colosseum

That's part of the sight that greeted us as we got off the Metro. Everyone says that the Colosseum is much smaller than they imagine, but I really didn't have expectations so it was just cool. It is indeed much smaller than today's sports arenas, but an amazing feat for the Romans. We passed the Colosseum and it's crazy Italian gladiators (who you pay to take pictures with) by and headed to Palatine Hill (which is where the palace used to be) to get a Roma Pass. Okay, if you ever go to Rome, GET A ROMA PASS. They are 25 Euro and they get you into your first two attractions for free (Colosseum, Palatine and Forum count as one), the rest discounted, and you get unlimited rides on all public transportation -- all of this lasts for three days. It's brilliant. Anyways, we walked all over Palatine Hill, saw lots of ruins. . . it was really cool. We didn't go into the Roman Forum, but we could see a good view of it from the Hill

I was most impressed by the size of the hall of judgement which is in the upper righthand corner of the above picture.

Ancient Rome:

Oh, and did I mention that having a Roma Pass means you can skip the hour long line to get into the Colosseum? AWESOME! The Colosseum was, you know, Roman, and Ancient. . . it was all around a pretty amazing feat of engineering. And it's really cool walking where the Ancients walked. Also, did you know that the Colosseum is designed to seat it's capacity in a matter of minutes? Mind blowing. 

After that, we went by the train station to get our return tickets and had lunch around there. I think their coffee is so good because they use whole milk. I really think that's the secret. I'm loving it. I also love how whenever I go into a restaurant and I order something thinking I know what it is and then receive a completely different thing. Seriously -- that day I ordered what I thought was a pizza, and really was a sandwich? It was incredibly tasty though! We then went on an adventure to find a random house from an Opera that Kelsey wanted to see (turned out to be the French Embassy) and then went forth in search of the Pantheon. On our way, we went through different piazzas and saw more cool fountains like this one:

As luck would have it, the front of the Pantheon was of course, half under construction, so that was less cool. 

But the inside was awesome. Look at the ceiling! AH! This was the first dome. The one which inspired Bruneleschi to design Florence's trademark dome (which was the first Dome of the modern world and kicked off the Renaissance). The Pantheon is the dome of domes. Again, tourists were very rude and not quiet at all, just like in the Sistine Chapel, but it was still pretty fantastic. 

I really liked the Columns =)

Most of Rome having been conquered for us, we caught a Taxi (which was relatively cheap) to St. Peters. After a few problems (Chelsea and Kelsey didn't have their knees fully covered) we entered the Church. Now, I haven't been to every church in the world, so this may be a brash assumption, but I'm fairly certain St. Peter's is the most magnificent church in the entire world and pictures will never do it justice. Speaking of, as I entered the most magnificent church in the world, I snapped my first picture and my camera stopped working. It didn't die, but said "Zoom Error" and refused to work the entire time (I have since gotten it to work by hitting it against the heal of my hand several times). SO! These pictures are courtesy of Kelsey Stroshane. 

Entering St. Peters

Not THE dome, but a beautiful dome

THE dome, designed by Michelangelo, not finished till after he died. . . it's phenomenal

We then decided to hike up that beautiful dome, as we'd heard it was amazing. We took a lift to the "first level," where you could see the inside of the Dome in all it's glory up close

Close up on the Mosaic

We then climbed up 321 steps to the top. It was hot. It was exhausting. It was claustrophobic and it was spiral staircases (which I should be used to by now, considering they are what UCLA's theatre's have backstage). But! It was well worth it. Here's the view:

Vatican City

Then we took a taxi home and got dinner and chilled out. I took a bath. It was wonderful. Sunday morning, we got up early, packed our stuff and were out of there relatively early in the hopes of seeing the Trevi one last time without a million people around it. 

It was pretty nice =) Next time, I'm getting there ridiculously early and it will be even better. We then got to the train station and made our way back to Florence. Twas a good trip!