We finished our Italy stint with a bang and ended with Roma! We visited something like seven cities in Italy, pretty awesome! There is just so much to see in this amazing country. We visited Verona, Venice, Florence, Pisa, Cinque Terre (technically five different places but we'll still count it as one), Cortona, and lastly Rome. I think I got them all. Of course I would have loved to have visited Ferrara (if anything just to take obnoxious pictures with my maiden name) and Capri, but you just can't do everything in one trip, and we have done a ton. There's always next time.
Rome is of course, amazing. Almost too much to take in. We stayed in Vatican City, which was a great place to be. I don't think I really knew this, but did you know that Vatican City is its own country? It's true. They have their own money, print their own stamps, have their own postal service, etc. Of course they accept Euros within their border, thank goodness. The country has about 1000 citizens, which consists of clergymen and people who work and live within the country's borders. Children born in Vatican City are granted Vatican citizenship, until they turn 18, and then it gets converted to Italian citizenship. I found that pretty interesting.
So on Thursday night, Joey discovered that on Friday nights only, you can visit the Vatican Museums and the Sistine Chapel at night! And luckily, they had a few spots left for us so we booked them. Again, I just to have to chuckle at our last-minuteness (and my ability to make up words). So many people that we've met on this trip had literally planned everything six months ago. But hey, it's worked out for us. There isn't much that we haven't gotten to see because of lack of advanced planning. So to the fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants traveler, I am here to say it can be done!
It was a neat experience to see it at night. Of course the crowds aren't as crowded, and things just seem more solemn at night. The Vatican museums have some exquisite works of art and some very ancient artifacts. They have an actual intact mummified body dated 1000 B.C. Pretty incredible. And of course the museums themselves are something to behold, with so many of the ceilings painted by Michelangelo himself.
 |
| Vatican Museums at night |
And then the piece de resistance is of course the Sistine Chapel. It's incredible. Go see it. We couldn't take any pictures, as that chapel is patrolled big time. They are serious on the no photo policy. But it was beautiful. Michelangelo was quite the talented kid.
We also visited the Castle of San Angelo, which was built around the 1st century. The structure wore many hats throughout history---it was built originally by someone who wanted to basically build a shrine to himself I believe (I'm sure my accuracy on history isn't always precise on this bloggy blog, I'm pretty much going by memory), it was also a prison, a palace and a fort. The structure itself isn't very pretty, but the terrace has some lovely views of the city.
 |
| Italian hens....i love it! |
 |
| The Spanish Steps...we don't really know why they're famous, and no one else could tell us why. Huh. |
 |
| Trevi Fountain |
 |
I tossed a coin in for us, don't you worry.  |
 |
| Where Mussolini gave his crazy fascist speeches! |
 |
| Coliseum |
 |
| Ancient City |
We got to St. Peter's Basilica that same evening (Sunday). We were nervous that we weren't going to get to see it because earlier in the day, we had seen several newscasters outside doing takes for a story. I heard one of them say it would be a very busy night in Rome and something about the Pope...so needless to say we were concerned about crowds and that the basilica might be closed altogether for such an event (and we were leaving Rome early the next morning for Portugal). The Pope has been touring around Europe while we've been here.
But when we arrived, no Pope, no huge crowds, so we got in! The basilica is truly awesome. No expense was spared to make this incredible place of worship. Since it was Sunday, we got to attend the mass there, so that was really neat. It was a great honor to get to worship in such a place.
 |
| St. Peter's Basilica |
 |
| la Pieta in St. Peter's Basilica |
 |
| In the evening |
 |
| Viva Roma! |
A note about Italian cuisine. Unfortunately, it's not all incredible. I wish it were. And I guess that's what we were expecting. But you can't just walk into any establishment and expect to have great pasta. The places that are near tourist areas just seem like they want to rip tourists off and serve mediocre food. We especially found this in Rome. I even experienced bad gelato. Like, really bad. Like I threw it away. That's bad. So after about a day, we got smart and started going in with a game plan. That is, we consulted Trip Advisor for our meals. And it worked pretty well. We had the best gelato EVER, and it was even on our hotel's street. We also had some really nice dinners. So, all this to say, don't expect to go to Rome and have great food no matter what. Ya gotta work for it!
We greatly enjoyed majestic Rome; you just can't visit Italy without going to the ancient city. They paved the way for civilization as we know it. An experience not to be forgotten, both spiritual and educational....and it's quite a romantic city too, I think even more so than Paris.
Ciao!
No comments:
Post a Comment