Rome Antics

The flight to Rome was only a couple of hours. Jumping on the train to the city, Shannon was visibly unimpressed with the surrounds. Rome had worse graffiti than Athens, and the decrepit and derelict collection of buildings on the way from Leonardo da Vinci airport to Roma Central Termini left a lot to be desired. We alighted, and found our way quickly to our hotel which was located very close to the central train station. As our hotel was so close to the train station and check-in was not until 2pm (it was 11:00am), Salvatore (I have no idea if that's his name) wouldn't allow us to check in. So we ditched our bags and high tailed it for the Colosseum. On the way, we thought it best to have lunch. Being in Italy, we decided that Italian would be the obvious choice. So, we ended up having Butter Chicken, New Delhi's answer to the Fettuccine Carbonara, at Sitar Restaurant.

Venturing our way south on Via Cavour, we eventually stumbled upon the Colosseum in all its glory. I'd forgotten how annoying the street salesmen here can be, with their fake handbags, crystal cubes with tiny engravings of the Colosseum, "silk" scarves, and the sublime "splat ball" (a ball which loses its consistency when thrown against a flat surface, yet slowly recovers to its original spherical shape). Despite their best efforts, however, we were not deterred from appreciating how incredible it was that this massive construction was even built in the first place, and the miracle that it still stands today, after millennia of war, emperors, dictators and Silvio Berlusconi. We took pictures outside the Colosseum, and decided we'd venture back tomorrow to go inside. 

We returned to check in to the hotel, and had dinner at an authentic Italian ristorante this time. Shan ordered a calzone that turned out to be twice her size, and I went with a standard Fettucini Bolognese. 

The next morning we returned to the Colosseum bright and early. Some background: this entire trip, whenever we have arrived at a set of stairs with an escalator on the side, Shan has taken the stairs while I've taken the escalator. If you'll pardon the French, this has shat me off to no end. While entering the Metro Station at Termini, as usual, I opted for the escalator to take us underground. Shannon, on the other hand, opted for the "healthy" route - the stairs. Due to current station renovations, however, the escalator finished at a place that the stairs did not. The result of this was about fifteen seconds of intense panic, a few more seconds of me swearing at my mobile phone for losing reception underground and thus being unable to contact said Shannon, two seconds of elation upon seeing said Shannon's fragile anglo-saxon frame coming down the escalator, and forty five minutes of gloating on how Shannon should take the forking escalator next time. For your information, we now always take the escalator. So, I won. 

Back to the story: we arrived at the Colosseum nice and early, with the idea to get pictures without other people in them. This was partially successful (though admittedly not as successful as our people-less pictures from Athens). 

We walked around the Colosseum's interior for about an hour before checking out the Forum and the Palatine Hill, the central market and meeting place for the ancient Romans. After a couple of hours here, we had seen so many ruins, we were "ruined". So, we walked to Vittorio Emanuele's monument, then to the Pantheon. The Pantheon is something to be marvelled at. It's been in continuous use for thousands of years, originally built as a temple to honour "all the gods" in the polytheistic ancient empire, though it was consecrated as a Christian sacred site in about the year 600AD and has remained as one since. The Pantheon also houses the tombs of Vittorio Emanuele and Raphael, the first ninja turtle of the renaissance. We then walked to the Trevi Fountain, and then on to the Spanish Steps, and photo'd at both, before taking the Metro back home.

We awoke this morning with only one goal in mind for the day: conquer the Vatican. We rocked into St. Peter's early and garnered some people-less photographs, as has been our style this trip. Though annoyingly, those silly Italians have scaffolding over approximately one quarter of the piazza. They're putting up a nativity scene in the middle. That doesn't help US though. Inconsiderate. No wonder the Roman Empire collapsed. We walked our way through the Vatican museums with a very knowledgable guide, and were impressed by the thousands of paintings, sculptures, tapestries and general decadence that the bourgeois popes had collected over the last two thousand years. Our guide also threw in a few random "fun facts", such as telling us about the best job in the Vatican (Fire Fighter - there hasn't been a fire in 200 years), and how Swiss Guards are trained in every form of combat known to man including sword fighting, martial arts, ballistics and krav maga, and must be "of good family" (meaning, they check to see that their parents were married before they were born). Interesting. We then walked into Raphael's Rooms, where the young ninja turtle had thrown his skills all over Pope Julian II's apartments. He'd cleverly included himself and the faces of other great people whom he'd admired (including Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo) in his paintings. Then it was on to the Sistine Chapel, where we were impressed with the epic skills of Michelangelo. Though people are required to be silent in the chapel, this does not happen - and ironically, the only thing louder than people's talking is the guards telling everybody to "shut up - no photo" - every ten seconds.

We then walked into the Basilica itself. One word: monumental. It's amazing what you can do with stone and paint when you're the richest organisation in the known universe. Absolutely gorgeous, though. And I think even people who are not Catholic would find it hard not to feel a sense of magnanimity and awe when in St. Peter's. We climbed the Cupola (the very top of the Basilica) - and I use the word "climb" loosely - we cheated (upon my request) and took the elevator for an extra 2 euro. 

This saved us 200 steps, but we still had 320 steps to the very top. It was worth it though - no building in Rome is allowed to be taller than St. Peter's by law, so this was a truly panoramic experience. 

We then ventured into the Tomb of the Popes underneath St. Peter's, which was pretty cool, though we couldn't find JP2's tomb (turns out he was already moved upstairs as a consequence of being beatified and somehow we missed it on our tour around). Still, we saw St. Peter's tomb, the first Pope, founder of the Roman Catholic Church and the first in the longest unbroken line of state sovereigns in history. 

The day ended with gelati (again) from a fantastic place recommended by our tour guide and then dinner at an authentic (?) Italian restaurante called "Washington". Like we said, authentic. Either way, the food was amazing, although we didn't particularly appreciate a surprise 7.50EUR service charge making our bill over 50 EUR. Oh well - we managed to accidentally miss lunch for a second day, so it was kind of cancelled out.

Tomorrow? Well we don't know yet!

Zach & Shan.