Yes, In Rome! This is what Italy's all about right?! Found my way to the hostel pretty easily from the train station. Checked in, made the bed, and hit the streets right?! Wrong. Somewhere in Florence I developed a bit of a head cold so when I got to Rome, no one was in the room yet. I suppose everyone was out exploring, so I took advantage of an empty room and took a nice little nap. I woke up around 6:00pm and then I hit the streets! First stop, The Pantheon! What is amazing about The Pantheon is that it is the most intact structure built during the Roman Empire. It was built (or completed) around 125 AD...aka old! I headed there first because I had read it closed at 7pm so I wanted to get there as quickly as possible. Here it is folks, scaffolding and all!
The second picture is the dome inside of the Parthenon and the light shines through the hole. I'm sure whoever is reading this must think I'm fascinated with dome's, especially after reading the last post about Florence!
Onwards to the next sight...I've got places to go and people to watch! After the Pantheon I hit up Piazza Navona which is one of the largest piazza's in Rome. Inside the piazza there are lots of street vendors and artists as well as overpriced restaurants that will cost you an arm and a leg. I did, however, see one of the most interesting street performers in Piazza Navona. I thought him to be very unique!
This guy stood there in that same stance for several minutes with that little smirk on his face! His outfit I guess is made like that as if he's in a super hurry! Anyway I thought that was pretty cool. Onwards to the world famous Trevi Fountain now. It was a beautiful time when I arrived to the fountain, as the sun was starting to go down and they had the lights on. There were heaps of people all around. I forgot to drop a coin in and make a wish. 'Spose that'll give me more reason to head back to Rome one day!
The Spanish Steps were next on my conquest. Good thing I had an awesome street map to get me around from place to place. I was able to navigate pretty easily through the streets with minimal effort! Once I got to the Spanish Steps the sun was almost completely down and I was able to grab some really pretty pictures!
One of the reasons it's called The Spanish Steps is because the Spanish Embassy is actually at the top and if you ask me, the Church at the top looks very Spanish-y as well! I'm so intellectual, ha! By this time it had gotten dark and I'm smart enough to know I shouldn't be roaming the streets late at night by myself. I stopped off at a cafe for a quick bite to eat then headed back to the hostel. I think I attempted to get on the net down at the hostel's bar but the signal was crappy and that was a no go. Off to bed I went for the second day of exploration.
Day 2 consisted of me going to check out the Colosseum, but just on the outside. Didn't do a proper tour of it yet. I had some friends getting into town within the next couple of days so I thought I would hold off to see if we wanted to do any activities together. First I walked to the Piazza Venezia (I think) and took a few pictures of that massive structure.
On my way over to The Colosseum I strolled along parts of the Roman Forum, but I'll save those pictures until I get to that portion of my trip! So next are pics of The Colosseum!
In this last pic you can see the different layers that The Colosseum was made up of. The outer layer is slowing falling apart. So since this wan't the day I had planned to go inside the Colosseum, I just snapped the few outside pics. Next up was to head over to the Capuchin Cemetery which was supposed to be similar to the catacombs I had visited in Paris. Some 4,000 Monks had been "buried" here and their bones, and in some cases, their whole bodies were on display. We weren't supposed to take pictures, again, but you know how that goes. R.I.P.
After being creeped out by all the bones (actually it doesn't bother me), I'm pretty sure I went back to the hostel and did a bit of research to figure out a place for dinner. I ended up going to a place near the Colosseum that was written up in my "Rough Guide" to Italy book. The food was just alright, and cheap, but the host was pretty fun. Also I sat next to a friendly American group. They were some older folks but they were from the good ol' boy crowd. Big moustache and beer drinkers. Their wives were a hoot as well. They were in Rome for a few days before taking off on a 10 day cruise. Once dinner was over and the laughter died down I headed back to get some sleep. My first few nights in Rome I didn't do much because I was getting over that cold I had developed and none of my roommates were much fun. Plus my amigos hadn't gotten to Rome yet but they were set to arrive the next day I believe.
Day 3 didn't consist of much, sadly. But I did have 5 nights in Rome so I didn't feel like I needed to be on the go so much. It was when I was in Rome that the Icelandic Volcano decided to do it's thing. Tons of people were stranded and you should have heard the stories that people were sharing! I found it quite comical, but maybe that's because it didn't interfere with my plans any. People were seriously freaking out and coming up with all kinds of outrageous plans to get out of the city and back to where they needed to be! I mean for goodness sakes people, you are stuck in ROME! I can think of a lot more places that's worse than Rome, it's not a damn third world country! You woulda thought these people were stranded in some remote African village by the way they talked. Either way I knew that since planes were grounded then trains would be the next form of transportation. I headed off to another train station rather than Roma Termini (main station) because I thought I would be slick and no one else would have thought of this. I wanted to go ahead and secure my ticket reservation down to Naples so I was sure to get there AND back to Rome before flying out to Greece. So onward to the train station I went. Along with me was one of my roommates that had moved into our room. She was one of the stranded and needed to get back into France to be in class. Her outrageous route was: 1) ticket from Rome to Florence. 2) From Florence get to another little coastal town nearby. 3) Take a 15 hour ferry ride from said coastal town to a town in France. 4) Take a train from small town in France to Paris. 5) Take train from Paris to her town where her university is. Are you kidding me? All that mess and if she would have waited a few days she could have flown. I think some people just like the drama of the whole situation. Anyway the line at this particular train station wasn't as terrible as the one at Termini, or so I was told. We waited around 2 1/2 hrs in line while she talked my ear off and told me the same stories over and over! Finally I couldn't handle it anymore and she drove me to drinking. Thankfully there was a little store in the train station and I grabbed myself a beer and continued to wait.
I just realized how terrible my posture is in that pic! Anyway, finally got the tix and went back to my hostel and tried to get on the internet for a couple of hours, that didn't work. Basically day 3 was a bust and the only thing that got accomplished was getting the train tickets to Naples.
Day 4 proved to be more active. My friend Brett that I had met in Florence was arriving in Rome and he had messaged me the night before saying that we should go check out the Colosseum and the roman forums. We were to meet at 11:00 out in front of the subway station. Well I get there a little early and at about 11:30 with no Brett in sight, I decided to do go ahead and do the tour. It was 15 euro and it covered both sites and you got some actual history behind the two. Here are just a few pics.
The above 2 are from inside the Colosseum. In the olden days they had the center part completely covered with wood. As you can see above they only have in partially covered so you can see what was below.
This picture is at the very top of Palatine Hill (where Rome was created) located inside the Roman Forum. The nice modern looking home was actually Mussolini's back in his day. Apparently he wanted to have his house at the very top of the hill where all the important Roman leaders lived.
Not much is left of the Forum area, mostly a bunch of rubble but it's still very cool to see! I also heard the story of how Rome got it's name and it comes from the story of Romulus and Reemus. Right about the time I got through with the tour it started raining. I grabbed a quick bite to eat and headed back to the hostel for some dry weather. My Australian friend Ben had also gotten into town and we exchanged a few texts and made plans to meet up later on. When I got back to the hostel I checked my facebook and Brett had sent me a message apologizing for missing out on the Colosseum. He had actually gone to wait in line at the train station himself to get his tickets down to Naples as well. He didn't realize it was going to take so long and he ended up missing our meet time. No biggie. We made plans to try to meet up once again around 6pm outside the train station to go have dinner and walk around. This time it was successful and we spotted each other fairly quickly. I showed him around a bit taking him to places that I had seen my very first day. I proved to be a pretty good tour guide and was able to remember pretty easily how to get from place to place and I didn't have a map! After the walk we had worked up a good appetite. We chatted with Ben through text again and he was already eating with a few folks from his hostel. Earlier that day I had heard a couple of the people that work at my hostel (The Yellow, don't ever stay there it sucked and wasn't cheap) talking about Mexican food. Of course being from Texas, I love my Mexican food and was due for a little taste of the good stuff. Brett agreed that Mexican also sounded good so we headed that way. YUM! I had the chicken enchiladas with rice and black refried beans, which were served cold? The enchiladas were freakin' spicy too! I usually consider myself pretty tolerable of hot foods, growing up with my dad's cooking, he always made things extra hot. Perhaps I've been gone too long and my palate has turned pansy on me! After dinner we wanted to go for a few drinks and Brett had seen an Irish pub not far from our hostels. We went there and had a beer and a half each. We were so full from the food we couldn't finish our second! There were a couple from Ohio that Brett got to talking to and they were fun. The husband bought us our 2nd beer so I didn't feel as bad throwing half of it out later, hehe. Brett walked me back to my hostel so I didn't have to roam the dark streets of Rome by myself.
Here we are at day 5, the last and final day of my Roman adventures, and to top it off I didn't even stay in Rome, I went to Vatican City....only a mere 20 minute subway ride away. Brett and I had decided to meet each other at 10:30 in the morn to conquer Saint Peters together. Ben also texted me early that morning and we all met up together. What a fun day, they guys had me laughing the whole time!
We first tackled St. Peter's Basilica and it was massive and the most ornate church I've ever seen. It really was incredible! While we were inside we noticed a crowd of people up towards the front of the church. Being nosy tourists, of course we wanted a look as well. To our surprise it was the POPE! I guess some type of ceremony was going on that required his presence!
Now you have to look closely but if you see the three candles in the background and look slightly to the left of them you can see a man with a funny tall white hat on and that's the man himself! I didn't have out my 200 zoom paparazzi lens that day, so this is the best I got!
Once we roamed around St. Pete's for awhile we took a lunch break and then headed to check out the Vatican Museum which is where the Sistine Chapel is located. No visit would be complete without seeing the famous ceiling that Michelangelo painted in the Sistine Chapel. Again my old and expired student ID came in handy. It was 15 euro to enter the Vatican Museum but since I had my card it was only 8...score! This museum was absolutely massive and it took us forever to wind in and out of the long hallways filled with paintings and sculptures. We kept seeing signs "Sistine Chapel this way" so we knew we were heading in the right direction but at times we were starting to wander! Alas we made it to the chapel and it was packed. There were a ton of museum curators shhhhshing people for them to be quiet and making people take off their hats. Mostly I think they were making sure no one took photos but yours truly of course had to get a shot!
Look towards the top of the photo and you can see the famous painting where God is reaching out to Adam and they have their arms extended.
After a full day of walking around, we grabbed the subway back to Rome. Not before filling out a few postcards though and sending them from Vatican City, which is technically another country! We all decided to go have dinner together. Where did we decide to go eat you ask? The Mexican food place again of course! It was seriously that yum and plus Ben hadn't gotten to eat it yet. Dinner was great, we really loaded up on the food. Ben ordered a chimichanga, I got the quesadillas, and Brett ordered a vegetarian burrito. When our food was brought out, everyone started digging in. And then another plate arrived after we all already had ours and were a good bit into the meal. Ben's chimichanga showed up! So what was he eating? He got a random beef burrito and had forgotten what he had ordered. It was all pretty hilarious and the manager ended up letting him have the chimichanga as well at no extra cost. Somehow Ben managed to put down both of those plates of food, he was a beast!
Somehow after all the food was consumed, Brett managed to order a piece of pecan pie for dessert. I didn't try a bite myself but he said it was pretty good. After dinner we went back to the same Irish pub we were at the night before. Put down a few glasses of wine and called it a night. Had a train to catch the next day to Naples!
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