Rome Vacation – The Finale

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.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capuchin_Crypt

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.

Rome Vacation -- Part 3

Next up, Castel Saint Angelo, about a 15 minute walk away from St. Peter's Square.

It was a nice castle with rooms used as a museum (no pictures inside though). Nothing as awe-inspiring as what you found in the Vatican Museum. It's unfortunate that after you see the big highlights of Rome that other museums, which anywhere else would probably be a top attraction, is simply "okay".

However up near the top there was a restaurant so I decided to grab a drink

I certainly can't complain about the view from this restaurant, I think I sat here for a good 20 minutes just staring at the view.

The other side also had a nice view of the river and central Rome.

After wandering around the Castel I went to the Spanish Steps, a lengthy series of steps leading to the Trinita dei Monti church that has become a hanging-out place for tourists.

So what did I do? Sat there and hung out of course. Not much in the way of restaurants nearby but there were a lot of guys going around selling drinks.

From there I continued walking to the Piazza del Popolo, a huge square next to Borghese Park. The park is actually a large hill that provides great views of the city, I climbed up to take a view of the piazza.

I wandered through the park and back to the Trevi Fountain and grabbed an okay meal at one of the touristy cafés and hung out a while longer at the Fountain with a gelato.

Strangely enough, nothing weird happened to me the entire day! No drama, no bizarre encounters, no attempt to rip me off, just a mellow day touring around and seeing some damn impressive sights. Has to be a first for a vacation.

One day left (and things do get weird). Stay tuned for part 4.

Rome Vacation – Part 2

I woke up early because I knew my next destination would have long lineups -- the Vatican.

It took about a half hour to walk there but I got to St. Peter's Square before the crowds, now I had to just figure out where the Vatican Museum was. For some reason I thought it was next to St. Peter's so I went to St. Peter's and looked around

Wow, is it ever huge! And of course, tastefully decorated from floor to ceiling with paintings, carvings, marble, etc.

St. Peter's is so big that there are plenty of side chapels that people use for various purposes.

I was still pretty sweaty from the half-hour walk, and there's no A/C and St. Peter's either, so I figured I should get over to the Vatican Museum to cool down. Except I still couldn't figure out where it was? After asking around I found out you had to leave St. Peter's and go north of St. Peter's Square for a good 10+ minutes walk to get to where the lineup would be. Whoops, guess I was way off base thinking it was connected to the square.

So of course by the time I arrive there was a massive lineup but I had little choice but to stand in the heat. Lots of "tour guides" were walking up and down the queue trying to get people to pay extra to have a tour with them and skip the line (you get to go to a different line if you're on a tour). One of these guides was telling someone that the lineup was at least an hour. Big surprise -- it was actually 20 minutes. One of them tried talking to me but I pretended I didn't understand English and instead spoke to them in Arabic guessing, rightly, that he wouldn't know the language. He left me alone. (I used this tactic again a couple of days later at the train station against a beggar with one of those long tales of woe. Worked great.)

Anyway, into the Museum.

As an aside in most of the Museum there is also no A/C. In fact in many of the galleries they simply opened the windows. I'm starting to wonder if all this museum conservation with climate control and dust control etc. is a way for conservators to keep themselves employed. No one in Italy seemed too concerned about making sure priceless artworks were in hermetically-sealed climate-controlled rooms.

The Vatican Museum is fairly linear and you go from one room to another in a specific order. There are a couple of deviations you can do, and a "short tour" so you can go to the Sistine Chapel pretty quick, which apparently is what most people do. I didn't, so started with the first set of halls with the Greek and Roman statuary.

Here's a couple of examples of some of the hundreds of sculptures, I can't believe the amount of work these carvers did.

I also briefly went through a hall of Etruscan vases (not really my thing), and took a picture of the view from the window.

From there we went into the tapestry hall, it's clearly getting a little more crowded.

The tapestries were interesting enough, I found this particular one (titled "The Murder of the Innocents") a little disturbing but well done for a tapestry.

From there we went to a gallery I'll call the Map Room. It has various centuries-old maps painted on the wall. Check out the crowds compared to the sculpture room. This is because the short tour has to go through here.

After that I took another detour to some halls that had far fewer people, including murals by Michelangelo and other Renaissance artists.

There was also a series of small galleries with modern art that had a Christian theme. I'm generally not a fan of modern art but I will always take time to stop and look at a Salvador Dali.

As for the Sistine Chapel you are not allowed to take any pictures in there but I think you already have a pretty good idea what some of the paintings in it are.

After sitting in the Chapel for about 20 minutes admiring the paintings it was time to go.

And have lunch!

Next up, part 3.

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Rome Vacation – Part 1

Here is my tale of Rome. I got in around 10am (all-night flight) but my hotel room wasn't ready yet so I left my luggage at the hotel and wandered around. The hotel was near the Trevi Fountain so that was my first stop.


The Fountain is a really nice place to just sit and relax, when you can finally find a seat. It's always crowded with tourists but I still found myself coming here many times over the course of my trip to chill out and eat the occasional gelato.

I wandered around for a couple more hours, first to the Pantheon


It’s an old Roman temple that was converted to a church, then during the Renaissance also used as a tomb for important artists and citizens. It contains the tombs of some of the Italian royal family, such as Victor Emmanuel II (the first king of a united Italy).

Then I went to a nearby French cathedral, San Luigi dei Francesi,




This is the first church I went into in Rome and as you can see it looks amazing. Little did I realize that all churches in Rome look like this, covered floor to ceiling with murals and paintings and statuary. Absolutely mind blowing. In this particular church there is one chapel that had a series of paintings of Saint Matthew by the Baroque master Caravaggio.

From there I went past the Piazza Navona



to a nearby café for a bit of lunch.


I then returned to my hotel, checked in, and slept for a couple hours. After an all-night flight I need to get a couple of hours sleep during the day to be functional and I figured sleeping through the heat of the afternoon would make it easier for walking around in the evening.

After I got up I spent the rest of the day wandering around the streets looking at various buildings and piazzas. Finally stopped at a restaurant in Piazza Colonna for dinner. It was packed and looked like a lot of locals were eating there so I figured the food would be authentic and good. I was right.



I had a very nice carpaccio followed by pasta. As you can see pasta portions are more reasonable than what you would get in North America. In Rome, pasta is generally considered just one course of a nice dinner (appetizer, pasta, entrée, dessert), not the entire meal, so you don't get a heaving plate of spaghetti when you order pasta.

Then I meandered back through the streets to the Trevi Fountain and relaxed for a while.


While I was there a young man proposed to his girlfriend. She was clearly surprised by the proposal (but with joy, she said yes), and everyone cheered, clapped, and yelled congratulations as the couple left. If you are going to find somewhere romantic to propose marriage the Trevi Fountain is certainly a cool option.

Stay tuned for Part 2.

I'm back from Rome

Okay, I'm back. Rome was a really interesting city and I had a great time.

It was too hot though. I think they were in the middle of some kind of heatwave. Temperatures tended to be around 32 or 33° with some humidity; combine that with the fact that Italians don't seem to like air-conditioning and it got unpleasant at times walking around seeing the sights. I was having a shower and changing my clothes at the least twice a day, sometimes three times. Ugh. From now on I'll go to Southern Europe during cooler months.

I know, I know, “O RLY, is Italy hot in August!?” So it's not Rome's fault that the weather was hot.

I will say that I ate tons of pasta, lots of pizza, and big scoops of gelato. And I’d do it again if given the chance! (bwahahahaha)

I'm sorting through the pictures now, I'll spend the next couple of posts on pictures from Rome.

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