Roma

day 19 – giorno dicinove

To be honest, today is already a blur.

This morning, most of the group elected to have Sarah guide us to St. Peter’s Basilica because otherwise it wasn’t included. We left the hotel at 7:30 am and caught the metro towards the Vatican. Sarah guided us as far as the entry line that already sprawled halfway across St. Peter’s Square.

The line moved fairly quickly and after an easy security check, we were on our way into the church. This time, we had Rick Steves in our ears, educating us and guiding us through the church. Just our luck, apparently there were a bunch of new bishops being installed later this afternoon, so most of the church was cordoned off. We could only walk down the central aisle halfway into the church and then back down the left aisle. According to RS, the church is something like two football fields long, but it sure didn’t look it. Many facets of the church were actually designed specially so that they would be more visible despite being so far from the observer. For instance, the sculptures high up in the nave were a few feet taller than the ones closer to floor level so that they appeared to be similar in height (larger than life to be sure). The lettering that circles the whole church is 7 feet tall and easily readable (or would be if I knew Latin).

The tomb of St. Peter is below ground level now, under this elaborate bronze structure.

We nearly walked right by (well we did, but then went back) Michelangelo’s Pieta. Another disappointingly cordoned off area. This was as close as we could get.

I was astonished to find out that everything that looked like a painting in this church was actually a mosaic of fingernail-sized chips of stone. They were originally frescos but they had been redone. The whole place is covered in them. Thankfully, the dome wasn’t closed off so we got to get UP close and personal with the mosaics in the dome. The first level of climbing the dome let you out inside the church. To get to the cupola and see views of the city, we had to keep climbing.

The stairway up to the cupola took a few different shapes, some of it between the layers of the dome with a distinct crooked feeling. Then it turned to switchback stairs and finally a very narrow spiral staircase.

The climb was well worth the views. The extensive gardens of the Vatican looked like a very nice place to take a stroll. On the opposite side, we could easily see the “arms of the church” encircling St. Peter’s Square. It was getting busier, the line to get in winding randomly across the square.

Mom still has a few Italian stamps to use, so we all signed a postcard and dropped it in the special gold Vatican mail box.

By the time we left St. Peters, it was after 11 and the entry line was so long and winding, I couldn’t even follow it’s path to find the end if I’d wanted to. The church closed at 11:30 so I would imagine there were a lot of disappointed tourists.

We had to be back at the hotel by 1 pm to meet everyone so we decided to mosey back that direction and find a bite to eat close to home. We ended up going to the pizza place we went to yesterday, which was fine with me cause they had really good, reasonably priced food. Mom didn’t even realize we were in the same place until we headed back to the hotel. “This place looks familiar…” 🙄. Good thing she’s got me. 😁

At 1 pm, we gathered up again and took the prearranged taxis to the Roman Forum/Colosseum. Our local guide, Maria Laura, joined us again and led us on another extremely informative tour. I wish we’d had a lot more time to wander/see more of the Roman ruins in that area but we had a schedule to stick to. This first triumphal arch was dedicated to Constantine but I found it interesting because it was actually made from pieces of other arches.

Most of the tidbits I found most interesting had to do with the etymology of some common words we use today. Men to the north had beards, barba in Latin, so they were called barbarians. Barber is self explanatory from there. The Palatine Hill, the birthplace of Rome, influenced the word palazzo (palace) and even the roof of your mouth, the palate, because it shares a similar shape as the hill. Rome got it’s name from rumon, what the Etruscans called the Tiber river. The term Caesarean section is derived from the way Julius Caesar was delivered from his mother. In the extremely dramatic version, she was cut open with a sword… Yikes.

Other historical facts that struck with me… Titus is at fault for the original dispersal of the Jews. They decided to quit paying taxes to this authority that was so far away. In retribution, Titus sent his armies to reconquer that area and the Jews scattered in fear.

The door on this church is extremely high relative to the level of excavation done in this area. This shows how much the land changed over time. When the facade of this building was rebuilt, most of the Roman ruins in this area were completely buried.

The purpose of these very small rooms is still up for debate, however they look extremely similar to rooms in Pompeii which were known to be a brothel.

This is the remnant of a very particular building which housed the fire to which everyone in the area went so they could light their own cook fires. It was maintained by Vestals, virgins who’s sole job was to keep the fire burning. They were the only women who owned their own property at that period in history. They were bound to the fire for 30 years; for 10 they were trained, 10 they served, and the final 10 they trained the next set of women. When they were released from their duties, they were highly sought after because of their status and wealth.

These columns must have been dangerously close to crumbling down before they put all these braces on them.

And finally we got to the Colosseum, so called because of the colossal statue that used to stand in front of it, long gone now. A few more fun word histories: ‘arena’ is Latin for sand and ‘fornication’ comes from the Latin word for arch, ‘fornix’. Apparently people used to get intimate under the inner archways of the Colosseum.

So much of the seating in the Colosseum is gone, it was very hard for me to imagine it as it was in it’s glory days. The uppermost part of the building originally had iron connection points to which they would attach a huge canvas cover to keep the crowds sheltered from the weather, extreme heat or rain, I would imagine.

I wish we could have spent much more time in the Colosseum, but we had to be moving on to get to the Pantheon. On the way, we passed multiple excavation sites. Presumably all of today’s Rome is built on top of the original city. Ruins are constantly being found, recorded, and covered back up. I guess you can’t just excavate everywhere underneath a large city.

According to our local guide, this is the actual stage where Caesar was killed. It also happens to be where all the wild cats that used to be at the Forum got relocated. Appropriate too, because Caesar was the one who brought cats to Italy in the first place from Egypt (to deal with rats). We didn’t see any though.

Moving on to more recent history, we walked by the Victor Emmanuel monument. Quite the ostentatious building, but I would expect nothing less of a monument to the first king of Italy. Just down the block we passed Palazzo Venezia and our guide pointed out the famous balcony from which Mussolini would make speeches.

And finally, the Pantheon. Unfortunately it was closed for some reason or another and wasn’t going to open for another half hour, plus there was a crazy long line to get in. We walked on by and finished our tour at Bernini’s Fountain of Four Rivers.

After admiring the fountain and parting with Maria Laura, we elected to take a half hour to grab a small snack and drink. Sarah spotted a bar down a side street with bruschetta and drink for €7. Done. I actually got a mojito! Re-energized after a brief break, we decided to walk back by the Pantheon and see if we could pop our heads in. When we got there, we couldn’t even find the end of the line plus the doors still weren’t open. Typical Italian time.

As it is the last real day of the tour, we had a group dinner reservation a couple blocks from the hotel. In order to get us all back there efficiently, Sarah herded us to the nearest bus stop. Given that we were a group of twenty or so, I knew this was going to get interesting. I’ve gotten fairly comfortable on the metro, but we haven’t used the bus at all yet, not that it’s much different.

Our bus came and we all piled in, standing room only. Things got really interesting when the machine that we needed to validate our tickets decided to quit working after one ticket. Sarah had witnessed a few English girls get fined for not having validated their tickets earlier today so we were all in a hurry to avoid that situation. Luckily there was another machine towards the front of the bus that was cooperating so people in the back handed up handfuls of tickets, Norm ran them through the machine and handed them back again. Quite the process. Meanwhile, at one of the bus stops, an Italian woman tried to get on the bus but the doors wouldn’t close behind her, we were so squeezed in. The other bus riders were telling her to get off but in the end, room was made and the doors closed. Everyone clapped. This is when I thought to myself “such loud Americans”. But we probably made up half of the people on the bus.

Finally we reached our stop and cascaded out of the bus. The bus driver probably sighed in relief. We walked the couple blocks back to the hotel and just had a few minutes to refresh ourselves before heading to the restaurant for dinner. It was called Target, of all the names…

Delicious food, more wine than we needed, and great friends to boot! I sat across from Deanne, my buddy and we mostly talked about their past travels. Despite many aches and pains, she and Ron have done a lot of traveling. I hope I am able to do that later in life, and a bit here and there before then! Being that the restaurant wasn’t a great place to have an end-of-tour wrap up, we finished up our dessert and wine and walked back to the hotel. We tried to gather in the courtyard outside the hotel, but as soon as Sarah had said her bit, the multiple conversations between the 28 of us got way too loud and the concierge had to come out and shut down the party. Mom and I kind of slipped off to our room before the group got loud again. We’d see almost everyone again in the morning anyways.

It’s been a long time coming and it’s already over. Very surreal. It’s going to be strange to be back on our own traveling through France. Tara is doing another Rick Steves tour through southern Italy and is nervous about the new group. We’ve definitely set the bar pretty high. I hope it’s not too long before we’re able to reconnect again. For now, buonanotte.