Day 1...for those of you who don't understand Italian. And might I just add that we picked the perfect weekend (that was a little sarcastic) to go to Rome: Italy was celebrating it's 150th birthday as a sovereign nation, Father's Day or the Feast of St. Joseph was Saturday, and the Rome Marathon was Sunday!
It all began as an earlyyyy morning! I was up at 4am on Thursday getting ready. Mom was landing in Rome at 6:45am and we would get there around 9:30. My friend Emiley and I walked to the bus stop around 5am in order to catch the 5:30 airport bus. Check-in was a breeze at the Sevilla airport. They don't even enforce the liquids rule! I also carried on a sandwich and fresh oranges. Sometimes the EU is pretty great.
As with every cheap airline, we got to take a bus to our plane from our gate in Sevilla, and from our plane to our gate in Rome. It was a pretty rocky landing because it was a little foggy out, but we survived! Mom was waiting at the terminal for us and I can't even explain how glad I was to see her. It had been almost 7 weeks since the last time I saw her and I don't think I've ever gone that long without seeing my family! We hugged and kissed and then all three of us walked outside to figure out how to get to our hotel. We ended up taking a shuttle for €15 each and it took us directly to our hotel.
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| Tiber River - 2 minute walk from our hotel. It was 5 meters above average from all the rain. |
The rain was holding off on us, but we knew it was inevitable. We checked into Hotel Giulio Cesare around 10:30am and our room was all ready for us. I decided to put on my rainboots that mom had brought and that ended up being one of the best decisions I've made on my trip thus far! We were all a little hungry, so we went to the concierge and asked where a good place was to eat lunch. He gave us the name of a pizza place and showed us how to get there on the map and we were off. Our hotel was about a 15 minute walk from the Vatican and the pizza place was on the way. When we got there, however, it was pretty vacant. We saw them chopping up fresh vegetables and making antipasta but we didn't see people! None of us knew any Italian, but Emiley and I could speak Spanish...it proved to be useful sometimes, but other times totally useless. This time was a useful time. A gentleman who worked there came to the door and I said to him, "Abierto?" He responded with "No, dodici trenta" which I knew to mean 12:30. Turns out the Italian word for "open" is "aperto" which was close enough to "abierto". So we decided to walk to the Vatican and just get a feel for our surroundings. |
| Approaching St. Peter's Square... |
Words cannot describe how incredibly amazing it was to first see the walls of the Vatican, and then to enter St. Peter's Square. The grandeur of the architecture mixed with the instant spiritual warmth that we all felt was almost overwhelming. It took us a good few minutes just to let it all sink in. We were surrounded by massive columns that were shaped like welcoming, open arms, and they were topped with 140 statues of saints.
In the middle of the square was a tall monument, almost like the Washington Monument. I did some research on the mysterious monument (none of us could read the Latin inscriptions) and it turns out it was originally from Egypt and it's construction dates back to the 13th century B.C.! In 37 A.D. it was brought to Rome to stand in Nero's Circus which was held south of the basilica, some 275 yards away. In 1585, Pope Sixtus V ordered it to be moved to it's present location, a task which took 4 months and was done in complete silence on pain of death! As a pagan monument on the greatest Christian square, it represents humanity reaching out to Christ.
We took a bunch of pictures but didn't have time to go into the Basilica because we had to eat lunch and then make our Vespa tour by 2. That's right, we rode VESPAS all around Rome for 4 hours, and with the traffic they were having for the birthday celebration, there wasn't any other way to get around the city! We walked back to the pizza place and indulged ourselves to say the least. Mom and Emiley each had a pizza and I had a calzone. We decided to split a bottle of wine so we wouldn't be so upset if it rained on our Vespa tour. The rain was still holding off when we got back to our hotel, and our three Vespa drivers were waiting for us outside. We did some quick introductions, Italian style (kiss on the right cheek first instead of traditional left cheek for Spaniards), put our helmets on and we were off! It was quite an adventure to be speeding through the streets of Rome on the back of a little Vespa!
As we passed monuments and buildings, our guides would tell us what they were. My guide was also teaching me a bit of Italian...like the difference between "ciao" and "arrivederci". Our first stop was St. Peter's Square, from where we had just returned but we didn't care. The main guide explained the layout a little more to us and also told us where the Pope's residency was! He says sometimes at night if you see a light in the windows it means he's home. Unfortunately he was on vacation the entire weekend :( We snapped a few pics, met up with some of Emiley's friends from home who were spring breaking in Rome, and then we sped off again down the streets of the Eternal City.
We saw the Pantheon, but we couldn't go in because the President was about to give a speech there. We then drove to the Basilica of St. Ignatius, which ended up having an unbelieveable ceiling. It was painted to look 3D even though it was flat. The coolest part was the painted dome that truly looked like a dome! From there we drove to the Piazza Venezia.
Pantheon
St. Ignatius...check out the 3D ceiling work!
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| The "dome" really wasn't a dome at all! |
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| Monument for King Victor Emmanuel II |
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| Palazzo Venezia...balcony where Mussolini would give his speeches. |
From there we went to the Trevi Fountain, or Fontana di Trevi. There were crowds of people snapping pictures and eating gelato (even though it was a little chilly out). The Trevi Fountain was finished in 1762 but began as a smaller, less flashy fountain in 1453. It is located on the site of the first pure water source found in Rome and is the oldest Baroque fountain in the city. An estimated €3,000 are thrown into it EVERY DAY, and the money is used to subsidize a supermarket for Rome's needy. Legend has it that if a visitor throws a coin into the fountain then they are guaranteed a return trip to Rome. Throwing 2 coins will lead to a new romance and throwing 3 will ensure either a marriage or divorce. We all threw 3 with our right hand over our left shoulder and made a wish...except mom. She threw 1 (she's going to return to Rome sometime in her life), but then realized she was supposed to throw all 3 at the same time so she threw in the other 2...hopefully that doesn't lead her to a new romance!
After Fontana di Trevi, we rode to the Colosseo. We didn't go up close, but we got some good pictures! We ended up touring the Colosseum on Saturday so I'll go into it more when I cover Terzo Giorno. At one point at the Colosseum I turned to Emiley and said thank goodness the rain has held off! She told me I spoke too soon, and at that moment we felt some sprinkles. It drizzled on us as we drove past some ancient gardens and up to our next viewpoint. When we got off our guide told us that this view was somewhat of an illusion...imagine that, more illusions in Rome. He said if you stand from the back wall St. Peter's Basilica looks gigantic, but if you walk all the way up to the balcony (about 100ft or so) then it looks really small...and he was right! It was the weirdest thing.
I tried to capture the illusion on camera but it didn't work as well.
The top pic is from the farther distance than the bottom pic.
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| You can drink from ANY of these fountains in Rome. They perfected clean water a thousand or so years ago! |
After that we walked over to the Basilica of St. Sabina which was built in the 5th century A.D. It is the mother church of the Dominican Order and the tomb of the first Dominican monk is actually in the center of the church. The simplicity of St. Sabina represents the crossover from a roofed Roman Forum to the churches of Christendom.
Tomb of the first Dominican Monk
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| Ceiling in St. Sabina |
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| Villa Malta...you'll have to Google what it looks like through the keyhole ;) |
After that we drove to the ruins of Nero's ancient palace. In front of it (probably in the center of it back then) was the area for chariot races and other olympic games. Nero's palace was built in the 1st century A.D. and was mainly used as a party villa. Some archaeologists estimate it covered more than 300 acres in Ancient Rome!
Nero's Palace
From there it began to POUR. When I say pour, I mean we were drenched head to toe (except my rainboot-covered feet). The main guide decided it was time for a coffee break, so we stopped a small coffee shop and warmed up for about 15 minutes. When we went back outside it had cleared up a little, but we were all so wet that we were cold on the back of the Vespas. We all fought through it though and the next stop was the church of S. Maria dell'Orazione e Morte...
The Church of St. Mary of the Prayer and Death. The church was first built in 1575, but then rebuilt in 1733. Santa Maria was built by a confraternity that assumed responsibility for interring abandoned corpses in Rome. The church once had underground burial chambers extending to the Tiber where approximately 8,000 bodies were buried over 300 years. In 1886, the vaults were destroyed and redecorated morbidly with the old remaining bones...
All real human bones from a long long time ago.
After that interesting experience we went to one more lookout of the city...if you didn't know Rome is famous for it's 7 hills so it has plenty of great lookouts over the city. When our tour ended, mom and I went back to the hotel and freshened up for the evening. Emiley decided to go with her friends and met us back at the lobby bar later. The bartender at the lobby bar was hilarious. He barely knew English but would sing along to the American songs playing in the bar. He made mom and I Italian flag "shortinos"..."shots" in English. He layered Red, Clear, and Green liquers on top of each other and gave them to us free! They were pretty tasty too! Mom and I then ordered drinks and waited for Emiley and her friends to meet us.
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| Italian Flag Shortinos! |
They got there about 10 minutes later and wanted to go out for St. Patty's Day. I wanted to too, but didn't want to leave mom at the hotel so she just came with us! We met some West Point boys who were also staying at our hotel and they came along too. They all went to the Drunken Ship bar but mom and I were hungry so we dipped out into Campo de' Fiori to find a restaurant. She had her favorite caprese salad and I had a carbonera pasta. They were both okay, the wine was much better. We found a new favorite: Montepulciano. Of course we also had tiramisu and it NEVER disappoints.
From there we went back to the Drunken Ship and met some British boys. One kept buying us cider, and I'm not one to turn down free drinks! Finally after about an hour mom said it was time to head home so the three of us (our other friends ditched out early) began to walk back. We were a little over a mile from our hotel and it was POURING DOWN RAIN. When I say pouring, I mean we were drenched in about 2 minutes flat. Did I mention we also didn't know where we were exactly and none of us had a map?! We kept asking people in the streets where the river was and we finally made it there, but we were still a long way from our hotel. Mom kept saying that I got us into a "scrape" but I've been in scrapes before and I wouldn't consider that one of them. I've also never ridden in the back of a pickup in Mazatlan, Mexico with a random Mexican driving...
I got us back to the hotel with my excellent orienteering skills and we were all so relieved to get the wet clothes off! Thank goodness the towel rack in our bathroom was also a towel warmer, it really helped dry our clothes. We went to bed around 12:30am or so and woke up the next day at 7:30 for a FULL day at the Vatican.
That's all for now as it took me a good 3 hours to write this. I'll post Secondo Giorno tomorrow so stay tuned...ciao!
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