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On the way to Rome we stopped in Pompeii which was really interesting to see artifacts that have been buried and preserved under 8 metres of ash and dust for 18 centuries. Herculaneum was on the other side of the volcano and it was the one buried in mud and lava. The victims in Pompeii all suffocated and then the ash solidified and preserved everything. It was kind of creepy to see the plaster cast of several of the victims of the disaster. The casts were created by pouring plaster into the space around where a body was buried (now a skeleton) and then chipping the solidified ash from around it. That meant, also, that there is a skeleton inside these casts and you can see the bones of the toes and fingers where the plaster has worn away!!! Our guide was another Pasquale which is a common Italian name it seems. He was very good, very professional but not as much fun as Capri Pasquale! Denise backed up to look at something at one point and fell over a piece of an old column. Leave it to her to fall over a 2000 year old ruin onto her backside! Only her pride was hurt! The piazza outside the site was full of souvenir stands but their wares looked a bit tacky and cheap. The city of Pompeii seemed a busy little place full of businesses and shops in the area around the site.
Rome was huge! The traffic insane. Traffic lights are said to be 'a suggestion'. We were well warned about pickpockets to the point of paranoia so none of us got victimized though one lady came close to losing her watch in St. Peter's Basilica.
We arrived in Rome in the late afternoon. Our hotel was quite a distance from the center of Rome which was disappointing. That's what happens a lot with the budget tours though. The public transportation was nearby but we were also so paranoid from the warnings about thieves that we were not impressed that we would be warned that public transportation was dangerous then expected to rely on it if we wanted to go on our own. A cab to the center of Rome cost us about 25,000 Lira both times we took cabs. Splitting the cost between the two of us helped but though still more expensive than the public bus, we felt much safer. Next tour, I think i'll spend the extra money and go first class because the hotels in the major cities will almost surely be more central.
Some of us booked an optional excursion where we were taken on a drive past some of the Renaissance architecture of Rome at night. We had a stop in Piazza Navona where there are three lovely fountains by Bernini all lit up. The piazza is full of people and buskers and stands selling souvenirs and T-shirts. The sculpture of the fountains was magnificent! The main one in the center of the piazza represented the four major rivers of the world, the Ganges, the Nile, Danube and the Plate (?) in South America (you'd think it would be the Amazon wouldn't you?). Off to the Trevi fountain. I guess throwing the coin in that fountain did work after all! I was here briefly during a high school trip in 1977 nearly 20 years ago and here I am again. Well it worked the last time although it wasn't exactly a speedy return. Why not try again? There was also a bridal couple having their picture taken in front of the lit up fountain which has the centerpiece of a statue of Neptune and the whole scene is carved out of the side of a building. The fountain has a 'pool' at the bottom and the area is sunken below street level with steps leading down to it and surrounding it.
After that photo op, we were taken to a restaurant near the train station for a meal, included in the price of the excursion. We were all seated at tables in a small private room and served red and white wine, as much as we wanted and the meal was 5 course. Pork. Well some said it might have been veal but we thought it was pork. Again. Still it was very well prepared. There was also a singer and musician who played for us on and off (and tried to sell cassettes of their music). All in all it was an enjoyable experience though.
The morning started off with a drive into the city past St. Peter's to pick up our local guide. Today was a view of ancient Rome including a stop at the Colosseum and drive by views of the Forum, Circus Maximus, Victor Emmanuel monument and various other antiquities. We stopped for a view over Rome from the top of the Janiculum hill though the view was somewhat impaired by the trees. A drive back down through Trastevere and on to the Vatican museums.
We were conducted through some of the 17km of museums which included Egyptian and Greek antiquities. I didn't realize there was art from so many places there, as I thought it was mostly paintings. We also saw the map room which was covered in paintings of old maps of the world as it was known hundreds of years ago. We didn't get to see the Rafael rooms however as the tour guide took us on a more direct route to the newly restored Sistine Chapel. The light was low and filtered and the chapel was extremely crowded. You aren't allowed to take pictures even without a flash. I couldn't understand that because although I realize all those cameral flashes would eventually ruin the paintings, taking a picture without using a flash couldn't harm them. So I snuck two and they did come out ok though one was a little blurry due to a slow shutter speed and camera shake! I know, I know I was wrong to do it but I did, though did not use my flash. We then were walked through St. Peter's Basilica for a look at all the mosaics and marbles. It's bigger than I remembered! There are marks on the floor showing the dimensions of the other large cathedrals and churches in the world as compared to St. Peter's. St. Paul's in London and the duomo in Florence are the next two largest and we were in both of those on this tour too!
After all that walking, our feet were killing us! We had the rest of the day free so we had a sit in St. Peter's square first, bought some postcards and souvenirs at a nearby store which I realized was the same one I shopped in 20 years ago! We then decided we were also hungry so tried to find a restaurant I had heard about on the net, Gianni's which was supposed to be across the Tiber from the Castel St. Angelo, a medieval castle where the Popes used to live before they took up residence in the Vatican City for protection. We did find it but it was closed. Most cafes close at odd hours in the middle of the day, i.e. from about 2 to 5 or 6 pm. We found one just down from there that we thought was still open but the kitchen was closed. Our rudimentary Italian wasn't very good but another patron who was finishing up spoke English and helped us out. The owners did let us order a cold beer and rest our feet so that actually held us until dinner. Once we left there we walked for awhile and eventually found the Pantheon which is one of the oldest surviving buildings in Rome. There is a dome with a hole in the center as well to let in the sunlight and though it is a church it is mostly used for ceremony and there are tombs of some Italian kings and other famous people here as well. Rafael is buried in the Pantheon. We were getting pretty footsore by now so we found a cab and returned to the hotel. We had dinner in the hotel dining room which was pretty good actually! I had pasta carbonara which I had always wanted to try and it has probably now spoiled me for ever trying to make it myself! We had dinner with another tour couple from England and they had the tourist fixed menu 3 course meal. Pork. This was getting ridiculous! Relaxed that evening, wrote postcards and updated our travel journals and even managed the pay phone in the lobby and called home!
Day two in Rome was a morning visiting some other lovely churches and later the San Callisto catacombs. We went to St. Peter in Chains first to see Michelangelo's Moses and later to Santa Maria Maggiore which was dark in side but had fabulous 13th century frescos and 16th and 17th century chapels built on either side with very elaborate decoration. The sun was streaming through the old stained glass and I managed to take a couple of pictures of the coloured lights beaming down, spotlighting some people sitting in the pews. I really liked that church and would definitely go back and see it again. There is also a church I had hoped to see that has a false dome painted on the ceiling inside! I had a small guidebook of Rome and had hoped to see a few more things but it turned out with the optional excursions we booked there was less free time than I expected.
The San Callisto Catacombs were just a Christian cemetery, not a refuge for people being persecuted. Very interesting though and the guide that took us must have been Methuselah's father or one of the original gravediggers! But he was very interesting and really knew his information but you really had to stick with him going through the corridors because you really could get lost in there and it wasn't a place for claustrophobics. You went down 3 or 4 flights of stairs into narrow passageways who's walls were very high, several stories deep. The graves were dug out of the walls and went up 4 or 5 levels up. Turns out they started at the top and dug down as it got filled up and there are several more levels beneath the one we saw. The graves are now all empty on that level, the bones had been moved to one of the other levels as it would be disrespectful for all these tourists to be gawping at them. There are little family chapels dug in as well with the remnants of decorations on the walls. It was quite cool and self ventilating too which surprised us.
The optional excursion that afternoon after a quick lunch in a cafeteria near St. Peters was to Tivoli to see the villa and gardens and then to have an included dinner at a restaurant nearby. We weren't really impressed with Tivoli at all. Most of the fountains in the gardens were small mossed-over squirts with just three or four more elaborate fountains though the one of the fertility goddess Diana was amusing as she had about a dozen large breasts, all spouting water. I had to have my picture taken in front of that for Josephine! The villa was empty with just a few frescos on the walls of one or two rooms. The town had nothing memorable in it. We sat and waited in a piazza at our arranged meeting point, discussing our disappointment with other tour members as they wandered back. Dinner at the restaurant was good though and lots of fun as we were entertained by a trio of very enthusiastic singers.
The highlight of Rome had to be the Pope's blessing! He has been ill and recovering from an emergency appendectomy so his private audiences were cancelled but we were informed that he might do a benediction from his window over St. Peter's Square if enough people were there. Enough! There must have been tens of thousands there!We went to St. Peter's Square in a taxi with an Irish mother and daughter who were travelling together. That taxi ride was quite something! It was still just after the morning rush hour so this was the real Roman traffic and the driver got into an argument with a business man on a scooter. They were shouting insults back and forth though it seemed our driver was being a little cautious. We laughed and told him to go for it! At one point the man on the scooter turned his head and spit at our driver but that backfired on him as the breeze blew it back on his own suede jacket! We all cracked up!
We got to St. Peter's Square about 10 a.m. There wasn't too many people there yet and we ran into another American couple who had actually had a letter to get them into the Pope's weekly private audience (of about 2000 people!) but as I said, the private audiences were cancelled. We waited by a fountain on the side of St. Peter's near where the Pope's residence is for about an hour and a half. We saw the priests hang out a banner from a window so we knew we would get to see/hear the Pope after all and by that time the square was filled. There were choirs singing in various languages and people holding up flags and signs in different languages. He came to the window about 11:30 and spoke for about 15 minutes, repeating his message in about 6 languages including English. It was pretty moving and emotional even for me a non-practising Catholic. Your upbringing is still there and it still means something even if you think it doesn't all that much.
We separated from our tour companions after that and found Gianni's restaurant open so were able to have lunch. Turns out this wasn't a little off the beaten track place as I thought but also a cafe that catered to tour groups. The trattoria has 3 or 4 little rooms though so we were seated in one away from the group. We ordered the tourist set menu, not knowing what it was. There might have been a board or sign somewhere but we missed it. However there was a salad, 1/2 litre of wine, and the entry tasted like it might have been lamb shanks or something. It was.... you guessed it. Pork! Must have been a sort of pork hock or something as it was the consistency of stewing beef in a tomato sauce but it was tasty.After lunch we walked around by the Piazza dei Popoli with it's fountains and twin churches. We made our way to the Spanish Steps but didn't climb them as Denise wasn't feeling very well. We stopped into the McDonalds by the piazza by the steps for a milkshake and a bathroom stop. It's a beautiful place, with brass fittings and murals on the walls. We made our way back to St. Peter's since Denise really wasn't feeling well and didn't want to go any further and we got a cab back to the hotel. It turns out what we thought was a cold (I was sniffly and stuffed up too) was all the pollution causing our respiration problems. Others in the group had the same problems and they cleared up a day or two out of the city! I bought a some bread and cheese and pop at a little shop near the store and we relaxed for the rest of the evening.
There was so much to see in Rome and so little time. Would I go back? Maybe. I would like to see more of the Vatican Museums and some of the other museums and churches. After seeing the Sistine Chapel and some of the more famous statues Michelangelo sculpted, the Pieta, Moses and the David, you really realize the man was a genius! His paintings are a marvel but you can tell sculpting was his real expertise even more so!
On to Orvieto, Siena, Tuscany
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