By All Means Rome

She Says . . .

Ahhh, Roma!  What an amazing city.  Now the opinion of my feet may differ from my head, but I still think it is wonderful. All those cobblestones suck but you but you still keep going - It is Rome dammit!  Who knows when I’ll be back.

We left the hotel after breakfast with our handy hotel loaner cell phone in hand.  That phone and its GPS made everything better.  I looked upon with disdain, the people pulling out their paper maps. (Not really, but how 20th century of them?!)

The Vatican

It was about a 30 minute walk to meet our tour guide at the Vatican Museum.  Her name is Francesca and she was great.  Filled with all kinds of great information tailored just for what we wanted to see and know.

We found her tour company, Tours of the Vatican, off Trip Advisor.  170 euros for up to 8 people, but there were just 2 of us.  Well worth the cost.  We got to skip the very long line - so thankful for that!

We started out at the museum, then to the Sistine Chapel, and ending in St. Peter’s basilica.  It lasted about 3 hours.  I have no pictures of the Sistine Chapel because you can take no pictures there.  There are things at every turn to photograph.  You can stand in one place and have something to take a picture of in front of you, behind you, to the left and the right of you and even above you and under your feet.  The whole place is art.  In the museum, in the Sistine Chapel, and of course St. Peter’s basilica, including the square.

We learned so much from our tour guide:

1. You can still get married at St. Peter’s.
2. Until about 35 years ago, they were still baptizing babies in the basilica  Francesca’s mother and grandmother were baptized there.
3. The Sistine Chapel was Michelangelo's first painting - he was primarily a sculptor before that.
4. The Sistine Chapel took 4 years to paint (looking at the magnitude, I would have thought it would take longer).  
5. It took him another 3 years after completion to get paid which was the equivalent of about 300,000 euros today.
6. Our tour guide and her grandmother were in St. Peter’s Square waiting for the smoke when Pope Francis was selected.  How cool would that be?  I hate crowds but I would be there for that!

The list goes on, but those are the highlights of what was learned.

While we were waiting for Francesca, Blaise commented on how there were going to be 8 of us on this private tour.  Who are the other 6, I asked?  (I handled this detail of the the trip.)  He said he thought because the website said up to 8 in your group that you would be grouped with other people.  At lunch he said if he had known it were just us, he would not have done it.  What??? He wants to maintain some level of anonymity. While he admitted it was a great way to go - the private tour and all - he didn’t want this lovely lady, Francesca, to give only us a tour.  I get what he was saying, but if we did it his way, we would not have had, what may turn out to be the highlight of our trip.  Silly man.

Walking the City and the Pantheon

After saying Ciao to Francesca, we took a stroll to the Pantheon.  We stopped on the way for some pizza and some water - I was so thirsty.  And my feet needed the rest.   We ate at a place called anni ‘60. Not sure what that means but part of it means they play great music. I went all the way to Rome to hear some Arctic Monkeys while I ate some yummy pizza.  Of course, Blaise had never heard of them. “The who?” he asked.

After leaving anni ‘60, it was another 10 minutes to the Pantheon.  What a magnificent engineering feat! Blaise was all geeked out over it.  I enjoyed it too.  We took the opportunity to use a talking tour I downloaded from Rick Steves.  Love him - he is so informative but sometimes I find his voice annoying.  But anyone who can make a living out of traveling the world is my hero. I did not know the Pantheon is a basilica until today.

We left there for the Trevi Fountain.  On the way we passed a church whose doors were open.  I had to coax Blaise in.  He did NOT want to go - he was on a mission, walking like a madman looking at the GPS on our loaner phone.  I’m sure our stop had the GPS on the phone going nuts.  It was absolutely gorgeous inside.  Even more amazing than the Pantheon.  Don’t get me wrong, the Pantheon is an engineering marvel but this church was an interesting site.  It was called Chiesa di St. Ignazio di Loyola.

The Trevi Fountain was a beautiful as ever.  We took the opportunity to reflect on our last visit there and how fortunate we are to have each other.  We took a selfie, we kissed, and we headed back to the hotel.  I am a lucky gal even if I didn’t feel so lucky on those cobblestones during the 30 minute walk back to the hotel.

We left the hotel at 7:45 this morning and got back to the room at 3:45.  The only time we really sat down was at anni ‘60.

The Evening

After a nap and uploading of pictures on Facebook, we headed down the street to a Guy Rodgers recommendation, Marco G’s.  First because Guy recommended it and second because we didn’t have to walk far.  My feet still hurt.

Marco G’s was across the street from a restaurant the hotel recommended yesterday for lunch/dinner.  We walked right past it yesterday because the name on the street was not the name the hotel gave us.  I guess the lady at the hotel called them, because, as we passed it yesterday, the guy came after us.  He was kind of annoying so we ignored his pleas to come back.  His pleas stopped, we rounded the corner, then 2 minutes later he was on a scooter, hunting us down, telling us in broken English to come back.  I am sure he was just trying to get our business, but it was kinda creepy.  We didn’t eat there.

So as we were eating at Marco G’s right by the window, we had a perfect view of the other restaurant.  I felt bad.  The poor place was dead and Marco G’s was packed.  They guy had a menu board right at the street and he was standing by the board.  It was sad.

But not sad enough to leave Marco G’s.  The food and the service was amazing.  Blaise commented several times it was the best Italian food he has ever had.

Observation

The last time we were here was some time after Francis became pope and before JPII’s canonization.  It is a different world now.  There is a definite military presence around the city, mainly near the hot tourist areas. While it is sad, it must be done, and it provides some small comfort if something happens, they will be there quickly.  But it is doubtful they could stop any type of terroristic attempt; there are simply too many people.  It is chaotic in places, very uncontrolled.  And this is not the busiest time in Rome!  While terrorism is a concern, I cannot let it dictate everything I do.  If I want to see the Pantheon, I will do so. As carefully as I can.  With that said, there are places in this world, I will not go right now - just not safe enough.  I won’t be going to North Korea any time soon or hiking through Afghanistan.

Dana’s Food Watch

So Dana’s comment yesterday garnered a new section of the She Said portion of the blog - the summary of our food.

Breakfast - we ate at the hotel.  Nice buffet breakfast.  I had eggs, bacon, a small piece of quiche and fruit.  Blaise had eggs, bacon, and fruit.

Lunch - hot italian salami pizza at anni ‘60 for the both of us.  Not too heavy but filling enough.  The crust was great!

Dinner - @ Marco G’s.  We shared the 3 buffalo cheese bruschetta.  The 3 buffalo cheeses were mozzarella, smoked mozzarella, and ricotta.  Blaise was particularly fond of the smoked mozzarella and I favored the regular buffalo mozzarella.  You can’t get bruschetta like that in the U.S.

Blaise had chicken in red sauce with bell peppers.  Neither one of us are fond of bell peppers but he gave me a couple bites and it was amazing.

I tried the lasagna.  It was just how I love lasagna - very little sauce with crusty cheese on the top.  Some of the best I have had.

Dessert was a tasting of 4 of their desserts in little wee wee wee jars, as my mom would call them.  1) Gelato with chocolate sauce; 2) Some sort of fruit salad (not any I’ve ever tasted - it was quite tasty); 3) panna cotta; 4) tiramisu.  My favorites were the gelato and the panna cotta.

Injury Watch

Despite the cobblestones - everywhere - no injury.  I do tend to look down at where I am walking more than I did before I busted up my face.

Up Next

Tomorrow we head for Civitavecchia and hop on the Celebrity Reflection.

He Says . . .

So in English I don’t believe we have a word for yesterday, but they do in Latin/Spanish/Italian - meravigliosa - wonderful!!

We started the day with a great breakfast (bacon and eggs with lots of sundries) at the hotel around 7:15A, correct 7:15AM, I couldn’t believe it either, I thought it was a work day!!  We met our private tour guide Francesca outside the Vatican Museum under the sculptures of Raphael and Michelangelo above the portico, I liked her immediately, a cute bookish 30 something that wore blue glasses and had a smile from ear to ear with an Art History degree who grew up in Rome, I knew it was going to be a great day in the Vatican!!

She told us what the sequence would look like and had a booklet of specific pictures that broke down some of the most detailed pictures panel by panel and after we made our way past the 3D model of where we were and where what we were going to see was she took us outside to the gardens to go over the detailed documents.   Extremely useful with many specific facts about who did what to whom, who didn’t like whom and even a fairly open discussion on the present  Pope, syphilis, his emeritus predecessor, etc., it suffices to say that she liked the new one better too.

On to the tour, we began traveling through Raphael’s rooms with some beautiful frescos for the Pope’s private apartments -- it’s a shame he passed so young (37, of yes you knew it, syphilis); he must have loved the ladies.  I digress, then it was down a massive corridor for the Tapestries rooms (these had to be my favorite and most anticipated rooms on the tour), they didn’t disappoint rugs that were 500 years old that were 100’ long and 40’ wide, designed by Raphael and made in Finland with silk from China.  I can’t imagine how many hours went into these masterpieces, and little know fact these are the tapestries that they would pull down and rehang on the walls of the Sistine chapel to keep it warm in the early years, now they have paintings of tapestries in the Sistine Chapel, back on track!!

From there is was on to the Map room, an entire hall of 40 extremely detailed Italian maps that took the non-painter (he was a surveyist) 7 years to complete, it was extremely thorough and considering the time he did them, no GPS or the survey like, it was detail that definitely made to wonder how he did it.

Then it was onto the Borgias rooms and finally, yes finally, the piece de resistance, we had arrived at our desire!!  We were a staircase away from why we had committed to coming back 4 years ago, yes, it was a Sunday and the Sistine chapel was closed to tours, we vowed to return and we had for this very moment, and the cruise of course!!  It didn’t disappoint, 4 years to paint the ceiling, and then waiting another 3 years to get paid and his first painting, words can never do it justice and you have to experience the sensory overload on your own to really understand it; it was worth the entire trip, the experience was truly amazement and wonder that only a child’s face can represent in that moment, absolutely unbelievable!!!

Beyond that was the St. Peter’s basilica which we had seen before but Francesca pointed out some details that I wasn’t aware of the first time, like St. Peter’s “tiny” little coffin under the altar, my first thought was were they all this short, if you’ve seen the coffin you’ll get the reference.  The most interesting data point I got was that the adornments above St. Peter’s altar was bronze not wood and it was 86 tons of bronze removed and recycled from the ceiling of the Pantheon by Bernini at the Pope’s request to save money.  I was shocked that saving money ever entered into the equation.

Last thing of note, if you haven’t been here for a while, was that John Paul II has been moved upstairs since his canonization - that was about 3 years ago and new for us.

Off to the post office after leaving Francesca and wrapping up our tour, that’s the only way to see places like this, otherwise you miss so much.  The nieces both got postcards from Vatican City and then it was off for our last site of interest in Rome, the Pantheon.

A quick walk across the Tiber and a pie at a corner restaurant (hot salami pizza, don’t judge it was fantastic) and we were there.

We listened to the Rick Steeves’ audio tour and received the low down on my one burning question about this place all my life, yours too right, what happens to the water when it rains, the floor is not flat which forces the water to the sides of the building which then drain out, who knew, they always left that out on NATGeo; personally I thought it was poorly thought out but I didn’t want to judge considering all of the engineering marvel that went into this place, concrete 8 feet thick tapering to 5 near the top and exactly 132’ from floor to ceiling and the same width inside of perfect square!!  Ok, I suspect they had a pretty good design all in all, I’ll give them the water remediation design considering.  That’s all for the engineering geek for this trip I suspect, but the trip would not have been complete without…

Yes, a quick make out session at the Trevi Fountain, one of my most favorite spots in Rome,  I am in awe at the size of this monument, it’s incredibly massive, it’s 5 stories high and must be 500 feet across easily; I absolutely love this place and it’s extremely nostalgic for Ami and I and it always reminds me of why I love her so much, she really does put the fun in my days, I can’t wait to wake up with her and do it all again tomorrow.  I say this while I lay here listening to her snore away while covering her eyes with one of those silly eye masks so I can type at 2:34AM.  

Lastly we wrapped up the evening with an unbelievable dinner at Marco G’s, Guy’s suggestion when he’s here, fantastic on every level, Ami had lasagna, of course, that looked perfect, I’d say it tasted that way as well but she didn’t share like I did.  But she ate every bite along with a beautiful presentation of 4 different desserts in what she would call “wi” “wi” “wi’s” that looked like mini clasped mason jars, very cute and she said delectable.  I had the chicken with peppers in red sauce; now I should say I don’t like peppers and have never loved red sauce, I did tonight, it was incredible, thanks for the excellent suggestion Guy, I’d go back if we were here another night!!  Off to Civitavecchia via the train tomorrow, good night and sleep well, can’t wait for tomorrow!!!