I managed to find a café near the Trevi Fountain that was more for locals than tourists. Everyone who walked in was an Italian businessman who would stop by to have a cappuccino or espresso before heading to the office. So I was pleased to find what I felt was a true Italian cappuccino! Worth the search. (No, I'm not telling you where it is -- I don't want tourists swarming the place) :-p
Now you know that if you are visiting Rome there is one place you have to visit.
You’re in Rome, you have to see the Roman ruins of course.
Oddly enough for some reason when I got there the Colosseum was closed and would not be opening until noon. Not sure why but it even caught tour groups offguard, hundreds and hundreds of people were milling about and wandering around outside. So I decided to go to the rest of the Roman ruins next to the Colosseum (the Foro Romano).
Unfortunately everyone else had the same idea so the lineups were massive. I waited in the hot sun for about 20 minutes and then realized that at the rate the line was moving it would be hours before I got in. Forget that! I wandered over to the fence to take a look at the area.
Would it surprise you if I said as Roman ruins go they were “meh”? I guess because Rome has been occupied continuously since the Roman days the buildings were quickly demolished and buried so are in pretty sad shape. Compare it to this photo from Jerash in Jordan
It's weird to think that some of the best Roman ruins are actually outside of Italy but I guess Jerash was largely abandoned so didn't run into the troubles Rome had.
So because I wasn't that impressed with what I saw I certainly wasn't going to wait a couple of hours to get in. I wandered away to see the Circus Maximus (big disappointment, don't bother) and started wandering back to the hotel to have a break so that I could go see the Colosseum in the afternoon. Along the way was the Piazza del Campidoglio (designed by Michaelangelo),
I didn't have time to go into the museums that line the Piazza but I did stop by a nearby café to have a pizza lunch
I felt refreshed after hanging out at the café so I decided not to go back to the hotel and instead head back to the Colosseum. Took a slightly different route though to go past the Monument to Vittorio Emanuelle II.
The Monument is one of the largest structures in Central Rome and houses a military museum as well as the tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
I went inside and wandered around the museum for a bit for continuing on to the Colosseum. After standing in line for about 30 minutes I finally got in.
You know what? I actually think it's more impressive from the outside. Maybe it was because it was the middle of the afternoon and it was dang hot so I didn't feel like wandering around too much. After taking a bunch of pictures I decided to take the Metro back to the hotel for a break from the heat.
While sitting in my wonderfully air-conditioned hotel room I was flipping through guidebooks and saw that there was a church that was supposed to have a really cool crypt. I looked on the map and to my surprise found out it was less than a five-minute walk from the hotel. Off I went to the Santa Maria della Concezione dei Cappuccini.
I went straight to the crypt. The lady at the front desk recommends a donation of one Euro but if you give more (I gave five Euro) she gives you a postcard that is attached to a small booklet that describes each of the rooms in the Crypt. It was very useful so I recommend it.
What I saw was, um, pretty messed up. If you ever wondered what it would be like to have
Ed Gein as your interior decorator, wonder no more.
They decided to take the monks’ bones and decorate the walls with them as some sort of festive display!
Seriously, who came up with this idea? I could imagine a bunch of monks debating what to do with all the bodies in the crypt when one comes up with the brilliant idea of dismembering most of the skeletons and making decorative patterns out of them. “It'll be Fabulous!”, he probably said. And everyone agreed!
They must be part of the strangest church in all of Catholicism. I wonder why no one thought this might be a Bad Idea. Seriously, when the Marquis de Sade comes by and tells you he loves what you've done with the place how much more of a hint do you need that it might be time to rethink your interior design! (And yes, the Marquis really did stop by and yes, he really did like it.)
Anyway it was pretty interesting, I'll give it that.
Went off to Piazza Navona for dinner and had the best Fettuccine Alfredo ever. Really, really good.
Afterward I just wandered around and wound up crossing the river to the neighborhood of Trastevere, which is a bit more bohemian and had a ton of bars.
Didn't do much, just wandered around for a while and then went back to the hotel.
The next day the plane wasn't leaving until the afternoon so I spent the morning checking out a few more churches such as the Sant Andrea della Valle
and the Chiesa de Gesu, which had an incredible mural on the ceiling. Thankfully they had a big mirror set up so you could look at it without straining your neck.
See anything weird about it? The painting "escapes" the frame! I thought it was a really cool effect.
And thus my trip to Rome ended. Loved the artwork and architecture, it was really cool having all that stuff such a short walk away from each other, but next time I'll be sure to go in the cooler months.
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