Rome - Day Three

This morning when we woke up it was pretty cloudy out and the weather forecast was predicting rain so we planned on walking around to different churches and places where we could be inside most of the day. But when we walked outside it was cloudy but not raining so we decided to take advantage of it and head over to the Colosseum. We walked around the outside a little bit and over to the entrance before it started to drizzle so we got in line to go inside. As we were waiting it started to pour but we were inside of the Colosseum at this point so we just had to wait out the rain before walking around the interior. After spending some time in the gift shop and walking around the covered area the rain started to slow down so we could go check out the interior of the arena. We walked out onto the top level of the Colosseum and from there you could see all the way around. The floor of the arena was no longer intact and the network of passages underneath was exposed. The structure looked bigger on the inside than I thought it would from the outside and although the seating was no longer intact either you could see the slope of were it once was it was cool to imagine the place filled with spectators watching gladiators fight each other and animals on the arena floor.

After spending some time inside of the Colosseum we headed out and took some time to walk around the Arch of Constantine before heading to Palatine Hill and the Roman Forum. Palatine Hill is said to be the hill where the twin brothers Romulus and Remus were taken care of by a shewolf before they grew up and Romulus killed his brother before founding the city of Rome. There were lots of ruins on the hill including the House of Augustus which we walked through. From the Hill we headed over to the Roman Forum which was probably one of my favorite parts of the trip. The forum is a large area filled with the remains of different temples and churches. There were several temples that still had a few of their columns intact and you could begin to make out what they may have once looked like. The floor of the forum was filled with fallen walls and pieces of columns that had once been part of those temples. We happened to come upon a tour guide who was giving a free English tour of the Forum who we followed around for a while. One of the most interesting things that he pointed out was the Column of Phocus that was still standing that he explained the Pope at the time traded to the emperor Phocus in exchange for the Pantheon, turning the Pantheon from a pagan temple into a Catholic Church and explaining why it is still in such great condition today.

When we reached the end of the Forum it started to rain harder so we started to head over to the Campigdolio, a public square designed by Michelangelo. The space was smaller than I had expected and there was a 12 pointed star designed into the floor of the trapezoid shaped piazza and a statue of Marcus Aurelius in the center. Unfortunately it was raining pretty hard at this point so we couldn't spend much time here and headed down the ramped stair from the piazza. Walking down from the piazza it was hard to miss the enormous Monument of Vittorio Emanuele II to the right. The huge white monument seemed a little out of place and almost overbearing although it was cool to the see the Italian flags blowing in the stormy weather. We walked past the huge monument and over to Trajan's Forum next door where we hung out under some trees while the rain slowed down. With the weather being lousy we spent the rest of the day doing some souvenir shopping and stopping in to see some churches. We saw one church, Sant'Andrea al Quirinale, designed by Bernini, the architect and sculptor who designed the piazza at the Vatican and whose tomb we saw in the Santa Maria Maggiore. The interior had large marble columns and was heavily ornamented with sculpture. Another church that we stopped in that I really liked, San Carlo alle Quattro Fontana named for the four fountains at the corners of the intersection where the church sits, was designed by the architect Borromini. It had a small, simple white interior and an oval dome in the ceiling ornamented with a geometric pattern. One symbol that repeated throughout the church was a blue and red equal armed cross. The last church we stopped at was Santa Maria della Vittoria, which housed the famous Bernini sculpture the Ecstasy of St. Theresa.

Our hostel offered a free pasta dinner on weekdays so we decided to get some red wine and take advantage of that for dinner. We hung out at the hostel for a while before going out to the Julius Caesar Pub, a bar recommended by the receptionist at our hostel.

Vatican City - Rome Day Two

On Thursday we woke around 7am so we could head over to the Vatican by 8 since it can get pretty crowded and the lines are known for being notoriously long. We took the metro, one of only two metro lines in Rome, since it was on the other side of the river and when we got there waking up early paid off and the place was pretty empty. The piazza in front of St. Peter's was unfortunately half filled with chairs and the obelisk in the center was blocked off because they were doing some construction in front of it but the spaces in front of the two colonnades were open. The colonnades are formed by four rows of columns that are in the shape of semi circles on each side to close in the piazza. There was a point on both sides of the obelisk that you could stand on and when you looked at the colonnade all of the columns would line up and it would look like just one row. We spent some time in the piazza walking around and taking pictures before deciding to head into St. Peter's Basilica.

We had to pass through metal detectors and there were signs warning against wearing revealing clothing inside. When I walked in I immediately noticed just how big the place was and how heavily ornamented every part of the walls and ceilings were. There was gold decoration and paintings everywhere and the statues that were everywhere were bigger than any I had seen in a church before. There were statues of angels, St. Peter, and several popes. The symbol for the Vatican, a pope's headpiece above two crossed keys, was tiled in the floor and also carved into the walls in many places. This symbolizes the keys to heaven that were given to St. Peter. Throughout the Basilica there were several tombs of previous popes and wooden confessional booths. In the center of the church there was a large baldicchino, a tall structure covering the altar, designed by Bernini with large twisting columns made of bronze. There was a small side chapel to the left of the baldicchino were there was a mass going on.

After spending about two hours just walking around the enormous Basilica, we finally decided to head out and go see the Sistine Chapel. We went over to the Vatican museums, checked our bags and went in. They have several collections of art and at first we just wanted to go see the Sistine Chapel so we followed the signs and it took us through a series of several rooms to get there. There was a room of tapestries, a room of maps, and several rooms covered from floor to ceiling with art. One painting that I liked being able to see was the School of Athens by Raphael. It was painted on a wall in one of the rooms and it depicted many of the ancient philosophers, with Plato and Aristotle in the center, on a set of stairs interacting with each other, each representing their own ways of thinking. Raphael even painted a small self portrait of himself among them.

After passing through several more rooms of art, mostly religious art of all types, we finally reached the Sistine Chapel. The chapel was rectangular in plan and had benches along both sides for people to sit on and look at the frescoes along the walls and the ceiling and back wall painted by Michelangelo. Pictures were not allowed inside and guards were walking around threatening to throw people out when they were caught with their cameras out. The paintings on the ceiling depicted the Creation with one of God creating light and dark, creating earth, creating man, creating women, and a few others. The painting on the back wall of the chapel, also by Michelangelo, called the Last Judgment depicts the apocalypse and souls rising up to be judged by God. Among the frescoes along the walls there were some that depicted the life of Moses as well as one that showed Jesus giving the keys to heaven to St. Peter. There were so many details to look at inside of the chapel that we must have spent over an hour just sitting in there and looking at all of the different scenes that were depicted.

After spending time in the chapel we walked through a few of the other galleries that were in the museum. There was a large garden and courtyard called the Pinecone Courtyard outside between the galleries where there was a sculpture of a really large gold sphere with a smaller sphere inside. The spheres were made of bronze and parts of their surfaces were missing to reveal their pieces inside. We also walked over to the Octagon Courtyard which had several sculptures as well. By this time it was later in the afternoon and realizing that we only had about an hour of daylight left, we left Vatican City and were on our way to the Piazza del Popolo.

We took the metro to the piazza and when we arrived we walked through the small courtyard entrance where the Santa Maria del Popolo church sits. We then crossed the busy street that separates the small courtyard from the giant piazza. In the center of the piazza sits a giant obelisk with a lion fountain at each corner of the base. There were also steps at the base of the obelisk where several people were sitting and hanging out. At the opposite end of the piazza from where we entered there were two twin churches, the Santa Maria dei Maricoli and the Santa Maria in Montesanto. We hung out at the piazza for a little while as it got dark and then headed back to the hostel to rest before dinner.

Although it was hard for us to remember because they don't celebrate it in Italy, today was Thanksgiving so we decided to go out to eat and have a good meal. We went to a restaurant called Al 39 that we walked to from our hostel. We had red wine again and bruschetta for appetizers. In Italy they have a first course, usually of pasta, and then a second course, usually of meat, for dinner so since it was Thanksgiving we all ordered a first and second course. I had farfalle pasta with shrimp for my first and then a pizza with shrimp for my second. The food was good and we stayed until midnight just talking and drinking wine.

Arriving in Rome

On Wednesday, November 26, John and I left Prague at on a flight to Rome and arrived around 2:30. We took the 35 minute train from Leonardo Da Vinci Airport to the center of the city where we were staying at Alessandro Downtown Hostel. We had a less than five minute walk from the train station to our hostel and we checked in and after about 20 minutes or so our other friends from studio who had come into Rome on a different flight, Ryan and Miller, showed up at the hostel too. We unpacked our things and headed out to try and see something before it got dark. One of the closer churches to our hostel was the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore, a church dedicated to the Virgin Mary. There was a large column in the piazza in front of the church and a large obelisk in the piazza behind it. We went inside and the church was very different than any church I have been in Europe so far as it had a flat, gold and coffered ceiling. There were columns down both sides and the floor had a very pretty swirling mosaic. The whole place was very dark and you had to pay 50 cents to light up the ceiling, the walls, and the apse, the area behind the altar. Underneath the altar there were two sets of stairs that led to a small area where behind two small doors we learned was the crib that belonged to baby Jesus. The tomb of Bernini, the architect who designed many structures, churches and sculptures in Rome, including the colonnade at the Vatican, was also located in the church. There were also several confessional booths were you could the feet of people who were confessing their sins to a priest sticking out of the booths.

When we came out of the church it was already dark but we were pretty close to the Colosseum so we decided to walk there to see it lit up at night. To get there we walked through a large park where we saw our first Roman ruins. Around Rome there are ruins everywhere, in parks and along the streets, it is not hard to stumble upon the foundations and walls of a temple or a house that is thousands of years old. At the end of the park we could see the Colosseum and as we approached it we saw how big it really is. There are some parts of the walls that have been rebuilt but for the most part the original structure is still standing. We walked around the whole building, reaching the Arch of Constantine on the other side and seeing a small glimpse of the Roman Forum and Palantine Hill.

By this time we were all pretty hungry so we went to eat at a place in Ryan's Let's Go guide book called Luzzi. We got there to find a small Italian restaurant where we sat down and ordered some red wine and bruschetta. I don't typically like to drink wine but after drinking beer so often in the Czech Republic I figured it would be a good time to try some wine while I was in Italy. The bruschetta were really big and very good. I also had some lasagna which was also very good. After dinner we walked around, heading back to the area where the hostel was before stopping to get some gelato. We had heard stories that good gelato with natural ingredients had a more gray color then artificially flavored gelato, which is brightly colored, so we looked around for the dullest gelato we could find before stopping to get some and it was really good. So far the food in Italy did not disappoint us.

We headed back to the hostel and had one of the guys working at the desk recommend a good place to go drink a beer and he sent us to a bar called Druid's, right behind S. Maria Maggiore. There were several soccer games on that night and Rome was playing so the bar was pretty crowded. It was nice to have some selection as they had about five or so beers on draft, typically in Prague there is one beer on tap in every restaurant. So I drank a Carlsberg and we sat and watched the soccer game and Rome ended up winning.