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.