Italy continued
The story of our trip continues. Tonight I will finish Rome and hopefully get to Florence. We'll see.
Our 2nd day in Rome we covered many wonderful small and big sights, such as Piazza del Popolo, which was really close to our hotel, Acra Pacis Augustae fountain (we just happened to walk by it after we went to Piazza del Popolo on our way to the Pantheon), and Castel Sant' Angelo, which we just happened to see as we were walking toward Piazza Navonne and the Pantheon. It's by the river, and we didn't go in but thought that maybe if we had time we'd stop back because it looked really awesome. Piazza Navonne was really cool. It had a really decorative fountain/obelisk that Eric and I both really liked, plus the Piazza was really open and inviting. Simple, except for the obelisk/fountain. We stopped there for awhile when it started to rain, and, since we forgot our little umbrella that we bought from a vendor the night before, we hunched under a little overhang. When it slowed down a bit we headed back out to find the Pantheon. It was really close and we found it pretty soon. It was fairly impressive from the outside, a little smaller than I thought. Still, it was the Pantheon, so we thought it was cool. Until we walked in, and realized that it was now a Basillica, and Christianized. We were so disappointed. It basically looked like the inside of a round church with a giant hole in the ceiling. Stupid. There are how many churches in Rome, and they feel the need to turn the Pantheon into one? Not cool. We didn't spend much time in there because it just wasn't worth it. The outside was cool though, so I guess that makes up for it.
Once we left the Pantheon we got about 5 feet when it started raining again. Even though we knew when we left for our trip that it was probably going to be rainy, we didn't plan well. Plus, when we left our hotel that day it was almost sunny, and we were hoping it would be nice so we could go to the Colosseum. We also had planned on walking a lot. Well, our plans changed. Now, we weren't like Italians, who use their umbrellas if the sky looks cloudy. I mean, we're from Minnesota. But it was raining enough that we wanted an umbrella. Luckily for us, I guess, there was an umbrella vendor out almost immediately once it started raining. We decided that umbrella and rose vendors are the same people, they just switch their wares depending on the weather. Actually, we're almost positive of that fact. Anyway, we ended up buying a bigger, nicer, and more expensive umbrella from him. So at this point we have 2 umbrellas but only one with us. We still had plenty we wanted to see so we headed to the nearest subway station which was, coincidentally, the one by the Trevi fountain. We rode it all the way to St. John Lateran, and spent some time there. It's actually one of the better churches, I think, only we didn't see all of it because to go to the courtyard and I think another part you had to pay and we didn't feel like it. The church supposedly holds the skull of St. Peter (not to be sacriligous, but he's all over the place). What I thought was really cool about St. John Lateran is that it had huge statues of the 12 apostles, 6 on each side of the main aisle. I'm not entirely sure why, but I really liked that.
After St. John Lateran we planned on heading to the Colosseum because the map showed it being fairly close. The map, while 99% of the time helpful, was this one time not so much. The Colosseum was close, only we couldn't figure out which of the streets matched which. In fact, I'm still pretty sure a street was missing. We ended up going the wrong way twice, but fairly quickly figured out we were on the wrong streets. However, after the first wrong street, it started raining. Pouring actually. Luckily we had our one umbrella, but big as it was, it's still hard to walk with 2 people and a camera under an umbrella. Plus, puddles form very quickly in Rome, so our feet and pants were getting soaked. We weren't even sure at this point that we wanted to go to the Colosseum and the Forum because we were so wet. After the other wrong street, we made one more attempt to find the Colosseum and I guess the 3rd time really is the charm because we made it there, and about the time we did it stopped raining. Go figure. We decided we were too wet and hungry to go but there was a subway stop right there so we went back to the hotel, changed our clothes and socks, and headed back out to get some food. We ate some pizza, since that's basically what we ate almost every lunch, and since we were by the Trevi fountain and it wasn't raining decided to do the tourist thing by throwing in our 2 coins over our left shoulder into the fountain, one for a wish and one to ensure that you'll return. It was fun, even if it was touristy. Touristy things are fun, that's part of why so many people do them.
After the Trevi we went to Castel Sant' Angelo to see if the inside was as cool as the outside. It was mostly filled with modern art exhibits, which was lame, but it was still super fun to walk around and see a real castle. It was built as a fortress basically, and there is a "secret" tunnel between it and the Vatican as apparantly at some point it was a fortress for the pope somehow. The castle itself was only half the amazement of being there. The other half was the view. We had a great view of the city, from St. Peter's Basillica to the Victor Emmanuel monument and just past the Victor Emmanuel we could barely see the Colosseum, but it was still awesome. And it was right by the river, and in the evening, so everything was really pretty. That was one of our favorite places that we just stumbled upon. Most of the places we went to in Italy we planned to see, and most of them were as wonderful as we thought (with a few rare exceptions) but there were some real jewels that we just happened upon and that made our trip even more amazing. Castel Sant' Angelo was definitely one of those. That was what we did that day. That, and had one of the best dinners we had on our whole trip, and easily the best we had in Rome. I ordered a penne arrabiata, and loved it. It was spicy but perfect. It was one of my favorite pasta dishes. Plus Eric had a great pasta dish that he loved, and we both had meats that were good too. The restaurant was really nice and we were able to just relax and enjoy great Italian food over a couple of hours, just like we planned.
The next day was our last full day in Rome, since we had to take a train to Florence the day after. It was, therefore, our last opportunity to see the Colosseum and the Forum (and the Palantine, which are some ruins right next to the Forum), so rain or shine, that's where we were headed. Fortunately, it was shine. Actually, I'm really happy that we waited, since it was the most gorgeous day we had all trip. No rain, hardly even any clouds in the sky, and it warmed up quite nicely. It was the perfect day for being outside, walking amongs Roman ruins. We took the subway to the Piazza del Repubblica, which was the closest stop to St. Peter Vincoli (St. Peter in Chains) a church I had read about and wanted to see. It's 2 main features are Michelangelo's Moses and the chains that held St. Peter. Like his bones, there really is no way of proving if those are really his chains, but that's the tradition. From there we walked to the Colosseum which was close by. We were out early enough in the day (we realized tourists are not active until the afternoons for some reason), and Rome is not as touristy in the winter as it is other times of the year, so we only had to wait in line for tickets for about 15 minutes (and the tickets were good for the Palantine and Forum too, so no waiting at those places!) The Colosseum itself is indescribable. No joke. There is just no way to tell, even with pictures, how big and grand and awe-inspiring it is. My words will not do it justice. I have pictures up on facebook, and the ones I have up are only a small portion of what we took. I think we took about 100 pictures of the Colosseum, and I don't think that's an exaggeration. It was old and mossy and huge and even though it's nothing like it was two thousand years ago (it was built in 27 A.D.) you could still sense what it was like. To give you an idea of how big it was, there were probably at least a couple hundred people there when we were and yet you hardly see any in our pictures. It was fantastic. That, combined with the Palantine and Forum, which we saw next, combined to make this day one of the favorites of our whole trip, and definitely Rome. The Palantine is basically a bunch of old ruins, I can't remember of what even though I read about it, but they're really cool and cover a large piece of land. So large that it has a small orange grove, and, of course, a fountain.
Then there's the Forum, where the Senate met, and where many old temples are in ruins. It's centuries older than the Colosseum, and you can tell because there's even less of it left. From all I know, it's the center of ancient Rome, were a bunch of major temples were and of course where the Senate was. There's only a few statues standing and some pillars from some temples, and an arch which I think was the "entrance" to the center of the city, or something like that. Everything else that's left is basically a jumble of broken pillars and statues. It's interesting to walk around though, especially on a nice day, and imagine what it was like. One of the temples that still has some pillars standing was to Zeus, so that's cool. It seemed like it was a pretty big temple too, maybe one of the biggest ones. Probably, since it was Zeus. It's hard to get an idea of what it would have looked like, but I've seen enough movies that I could kindof guess. (After doing the Colosseum and the Forum Eric and I really wanted to watch Gladiator, so we started watching it over the weekend but only got about 1/3 through since we're so busy catching up on everything.)
Later that day we headed to the Trinita del Monti, where we had actually briefly been the day before in the evening on our way to the restaurant, it has the famous Spanish steps, although I'm not sure why they're famous exactly, but it's a really pretty area, with an interesting fountain (what a surprise) and it's in the ritzy shopping center of Rome. Really ritzy, as in Prada and Armani. We took pictures by some of the stores, including one of my in front of Jimmy Choo wearing my cheap tennis shoes and being sad about that. It was fun. Then we just had an inexpensive but delicous pizza dinner (probably the best pizza we had on our whole trip) and some gelato to end our time in Rome. We loved Rome, there was so much to do and we always had somewhere to go and something to do, and the food and gelato was so delicious. They love their olive oil in Italy, and we planned on buying some at some point. We didn't in Rome, but we did in Florence. We also realized, probably in part because they use olive oil and not grease like we Americans do, that we could eat so much more in Italy than in America. We partly realized it while we were there eating multiple course meals, pasta and meat, but then fully realized it when we got back and at out a restaurant and couldn't eat that much because we filled up so much faster with greasy food than we did with lighter Italian food.
It looks like I won't be getting to Florence in this post. I'll have to save it for later tonight or tomorrow, but rest assured, the rest of our trip will soon follow. I hope I covered Rome in depth enough. I'm sure I left many wonderful and interesting things out, so please ask if you want more details!
Our 2nd day in Rome we covered many wonderful small and big sights, such as Piazza del Popolo, which was really close to our hotel, Acra Pacis Augustae fountain (we just happened to walk by it after we went to Piazza del Popolo on our way to the Pantheon), and Castel Sant' Angelo, which we just happened to see as we were walking toward Piazza Navonne and the Pantheon. It's by the river, and we didn't go in but thought that maybe if we had time we'd stop back because it looked really awesome. Piazza Navonne was really cool. It had a really decorative fountain/obelisk that Eric and I both really liked, plus the Piazza was really open and inviting. Simple, except for the obelisk/fountain. We stopped there for awhile when it started to rain, and, since we forgot our little umbrella that we bought from a vendor the night before, we hunched under a little overhang. When it slowed down a bit we headed back out to find the Pantheon. It was really close and we found it pretty soon. It was fairly impressive from the outside, a little smaller than I thought. Still, it was the Pantheon, so we thought it was cool. Until we walked in, and realized that it was now a Basillica, and Christianized. We were so disappointed. It basically looked like the inside of a round church with a giant hole in the ceiling. Stupid. There are how many churches in Rome, and they feel the need to turn the Pantheon into one? Not cool. We didn't spend much time in there because it just wasn't worth it. The outside was cool though, so I guess that makes up for it.
Once we left the Pantheon we got about 5 feet when it started raining again. Even though we knew when we left for our trip that it was probably going to be rainy, we didn't plan well. Plus, when we left our hotel that day it was almost sunny, and we were hoping it would be nice so we could go to the Colosseum. We also had planned on walking a lot. Well, our plans changed. Now, we weren't like Italians, who use their umbrellas if the sky looks cloudy. I mean, we're from Minnesota. But it was raining enough that we wanted an umbrella. Luckily for us, I guess, there was an umbrella vendor out almost immediately once it started raining. We decided that umbrella and rose vendors are the same people, they just switch their wares depending on the weather. Actually, we're almost positive of that fact. Anyway, we ended up buying a bigger, nicer, and more expensive umbrella from him. So at this point we have 2 umbrellas but only one with us. We still had plenty we wanted to see so we headed to the nearest subway station which was, coincidentally, the one by the Trevi fountain. We rode it all the way to St. John Lateran, and spent some time there. It's actually one of the better churches, I think, only we didn't see all of it because to go to the courtyard and I think another part you had to pay and we didn't feel like it. The church supposedly holds the skull of St. Peter (not to be sacriligous, but he's all over the place). What I thought was really cool about St. John Lateran is that it had huge statues of the 12 apostles, 6 on each side of the main aisle. I'm not entirely sure why, but I really liked that.
After St. John Lateran we planned on heading to the Colosseum because the map showed it being fairly close. The map, while 99% of the time helpful, was this one time not so much. The Colosseum was close, only we couldn't figure out which of the streets matched which. In fact, I'm still pretty sure a street was missing. We ended up going the wrong way twice, but fairly quickly figured out we were on the wrong streets. However, after the first wrong street, it started raining. Pouring actually. Luckily we had our one umbrella, but big as it was, it's still hard to walk with 2 people and a camera under an umbrella. Plus, puddles form very quickly in Rome, so our feet and pants were getting soaked. We weren't even sure at this point that we wanted to go to the Colosseum and the Forum because we were so wet. After the other wrong street, we made one more attempt to find the Colosseum and I guess the 3rd time really is the charm because we made it there, and about the time we did it stopped raining. Go figure. We decided we were too wet and hungry to go but there was a subway stop right there so we went back to the hotel, changed our clothes and socks, and headed back out to get some food. We ate some pizza, since that's basically what we ate almost every lunch, and since we were by the Trevi fountain and it wasn't raining decided to do the tourist thing by throwing in our 2 coins over our left shoulder into the fountain, one for a wish and one to ensure that you'll return. It was fun, even if it was touristy. Touristy things are fun, that's part of why so many people do them.
After the Trevi we went to Castel Sant' Angelo to see if the inside was as cool as the outside. It was mostly filled with modern art exhibits, which was lame, but it was still super fun to walk around and see a real castle. It was built as a fortress basically, and there is a "secret" tunnel between it and the Vatican as apparantly at some point it was a fortress for the pope somehow. The castle itself was only half the amazement of being there. The other half was the view. We had a great view of the city, from St. Peter's Basillica to the Victor Emmanuel monument and just past the Victor Emmanuel we could barely see the Colosseum, but it was still awesome. And it was right by the river, and in the evening, so everything was really pretty. That was one of our favorite places that we just stumbled upon. Most of the places we went to in Italy we planned to see, and most of them were as wonderful as we thought (with a few rare exceptions) but there were some real jewels that we just happened upon and that made our trip even more amazing. Castel Sant' Angelo was definitely one of those. That was what we did that day. That, and had one of the best dinners we had on our whole trip, and easily the best we had in Rome. I ordered a penne arrabiata, and loved it. It was spicy but perfect. It was one of my favorite pasta dishes. Plus Eric had a great pasta dish that he loved, and we both had meats that were good too. The restaurant was really nice and we were able to just relax and enjoy great Italian food over a couple of hours, just like we planned.
The next day was our last full day in Rome, since we had to take a train to Florence the day after. It was, therefore, our last opportunity to see the Colosseum and the Forum (and the Palantine, which are some ruins right next to the Forum), so rain or shine, that's where we were headed. Fortunately, it was shine. Actually, I'm really happy that we waited, since it was the most gorgeous day we had all trip. No rain, hardly even any clouds in the sky, and it warmed up quite nicely. It was the perfect day for being outside, walking amongs Roman ruins. We took the subway to the Piazza del Repubblica, which was the closest stop to St. Peter Vincoli (St. Peter in Chains) a church I had read about and wanted to see. It's 2 main features are Michelangelo's Moses and the chains that held St. Peter. Like his bones, there really is no way of proving if those are really his chains, but that's the tradition. From there we walked to the Colosseum which was close by. We were out early enough in the day (we realized tourists are not active until the afternoons for some reason), and Rome is not as touristy in the winter as it is other times of the year, so we only had to wait in line for tickets for about 15 minutes (and the tickets were good for the Palantine and Forum too, so no waiting at those places!) The Colosseum itself is indescribable. No joke. There is just no way to tell, even with pictures, how big and grand and awe-inspiring it is. My words will not do it justice. I have pictures up on facebook, and the ones I have up are only a small portion of what we took. I think we took about 100 pictures of the Colosseum, and I don't think that's an exaggeration. It was old and mossy and huge and even though it's nothing like it was two thousand years ago (it was built in 27 A.D.) you could still sense what it was like. To give you an idea of how big it was, there were probably at least a couple hundred people there when we were and yet you hardly see any in our pictures. It was fantastic. That, combined with the Palantine and Forum, which we saw next, combined to make this day one of the favorites of our whole trip, and definitely Rome. The Palantine is basically a bunch of old ruins, I can't remember of what even though I read about it, but they're really cool and cover a large piece of land. So large that it has a small orange grove, and, of course, a fountain.
Then there's the Forum, where the Senate met, and where many old temples are in ruins. It's centuries older than the Colosseum, and you can tell because there's even less of it left. From all I know, it's the center of ancient Rome, were a bunch of major temples were and of course where the Senate was. There's only a few statues standing and some pillars from some temples, and an arch which I think was the "entrance" to the center of the city, or something like that. Everything else that's left is basically a jumble of broken pillars and statues. It's interesting to walk around though, especially on a nice day, and imagine what it was like. One of the temples that still has some pillars standing was to Zeus, so that's cool. It seemed like it was a pretty big temple too, maybe one of the biggest ones. Probably, since it was Zeus. It's hard to get an idea of what it would have looked like, but I've seen enough movies that I could kindof guess. (After doing the Colosseum and the Forum Eric and I really wanted to watch Gladiator, so we started watching it over the weekend but only got about 1/3 through since we're so busy catching up on everything.)
Later that day we headed to the Trinita del Monti, where we had actually briefly been the day before in the evening on our way to the restaurant, it has the famous Spanish steps, although I'm not sure why they're famous exactly, but it's a really pretty area, with an interesting fountain (what a surprise) and it's in the ritzy shopping center of Rome. Really ritzy, as in Prada and Armani. We took pictures by some of the stores, including one of my in front of Jimmy Choo wearing my cheap tennis shoes and being sad about that. It was fun. Then we just had an inexpensive but delicous pizza dinner (probably the best pizza we had on our whole trip) and some gelato to end our time in Rome. We loved Rome, there was so much to do and we always had somewhere to go and something to do, and the food and gelato was so delicious. They love their olive oil in Italy, and we planned on buying some at some point. We didn't in Rome, but we did in Florence. We also realized, probably in part because they use olive oil and not grease like we Americans do, that we could eat so much more in Italy than in America. We partly realized it while we were there eating multiple course meals, pasta and meat, but then fully realized it when we got back and at out a restaurant and couldn't eat that much because we filled up so much faster with greasy food than we did with lighter Italian food.
It looks like I won't be getting to Florence in this post. I'll have to save it for later tonight or tomorrow, but rest assured, the rest of our trip will soon follow. I hope I covered Rome in depth enough. I'm sure I left many wonderful and interesting things out, so please ask if you want more details!
posted by empeterson @ 4:00 PM
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