In my final installment of Easter break (and when I say of easter break I mean about easter break) we will be talking about the many goods (and bads) if Italy.
Starting in Rome.
Good. No customs.
Bad. Train to city center was15 euro...probably should have used the Eurail pass.
Good. Hostel...really nice people, free breakfast and dinner (if you signed up for the dinner), free internet (well you got a half hour free a day)
Bad. Neighborhood around hostel (basically it smelled funny...otherwise it was a pretty good neighborhood)
Good. Roman ruins...were everywhere, I mean this is a city where you are just ambling down a street and then Oh look! A dig site.
Bad. Ellen does not speak any Italian.
Ok enough with the goods and bads, Rome was pretty nice. It is not a city I will most likely ever live in, what with it being quite large, and well not quite that clean and I dunno it just didn't really feel right to me. BUT I have to admit that I did enjoy myself. In Rome I met up with a few friends from York, them being Maria, Katherine, and Lauren. Lauren ended up meeting with some of her friends as well...so our group at the hostel seemed to grow until it even encompassed a few guys we had met.
What we saw:
Well in Rome the two main attractions are the Colosseum, and then The Vatican (which technically is not in Rome). Of course these two sites are both quite large and on different sides of the city itself, so we decided to split them into two days. On our first day in Rome we really didn't see anything huge. There was a Basilica close to our hostel that we went to and then Lauren and I wandered up to a nice square thingy that was quite interesting as well...but that was it. Maria wasn't getting in till late and we really didn't want to see any big sites without her. Of course we had a lovely time just catching up. That night we ate the pasta dinner that the hostel provided every night. Let me just say that homemade Italian pasta sauce is very good...well at least this lady's was. It was spicy and just plain delish.
The next day we decided to see the Colosseum and Palatine Hill...aka all those lovely Roman Ruins. I love anything that has crumbled and fallen into disarray...makes me wonder why I didn't decide to go into archeology (oh wait...there is that thing called science involved that I am not quite that good at) but anyway. Up to the point that I got off the subway at the Colosseum stop Rome hadn't really felt that much like Rome. I always thought of it differently...but I mean when you walk out of the subway station you basically go... "hello...thats the Colosseum" because there it is. That thing that everyone always talks about in regards to Rome...where movies have decided to film, just because of how cool the building is...where people have died and survived all because of how well they fought...that place is right in front of you. And boy is it a sight. If Erica Dahl and Lauren Wallem are reading this at all, we got the color wrong when we did that one project where we had to reconstruct the Colosseum...its not really a red anymore...and I don't think it really was that red to begin with...
At the Colosseum there were tons of groups, groups of little kids and medium kids and older kids and students of varying ages. There were also a ton of tour guides just hanging out outside of the building trying to get people to join their tour group. Thats what we did...for 10 euro (less then that stupid ticket from the airport to the city) we got into both the Colosseum and Palatine Hill...and tours for both of those areas. Of course at first we didn't think this was that legit. but the guide herself was a professional. It was a good tour as well. If you visit the Colosseum you have to do a guide of some sort because inside there is no real explanation for anything, so if you want info you either buy the audio-guide (rent actually) or you hook up with a tour.
Now what I basically can say about the Colosseum is that it is a pretty impressive building, honestly a bit smaller then I expected, but I also didn't get to go upstairs at all and you really cant go all the way around the building. A few interesting facts I did learn were that most of the marble from the Colosseum front, and inside is now located in the Vatican, and any other church around Rome...because the church decided to "recycle" it all, and then another is that when the Roman's built it, they actually made it Earthquake proof...the only reason its now missing a good chunk of the outer wall is because in the "Dark Ages" when the Colosseum was abandoned the people took the metal out of the columns and walls and used it for weapons and all that...so now it's not as earthquake proof as it once was. This de-proofing of the building is also why there are holes all around the Colosseum in the walls and all that, because thats how they took the metal out (and I think recently possibly put some back in). Something else, there are four tiers of seats in the Colosseum, the first was for the rich men of Rome, second common men, third slaves and servants, and fourth and highest was for the women. Now the fact that the women were on top is not because of the fact that they were women (well it kinda was) and that they were "lower" then slaves, no it was because everyone wanted to separate the men and the women since games could last all day...people would eat and drink...and drink...and drink...while watching. So the designers decided it was probably best to separate the men drinking from the women. Smart I think.
After that tour we walked over to the Palatine Hill entrance to grab our next tour. Palatine hill is where the rest of the Roman (main) ruins are located, and it is also the hill where the emperors of Rome built their homes/palaces. It was also where in myth Romulus and Remus were found and raised. Hence it is the Hill that Rome began on. It is another place where a guide of some sort is necessary because again nothing is labeled and you really don't know where you are standing unless someone tells you or you did some research. What's left on the hill is the remnants of the Palace of Domecian (I think I have that right). There are some remnants of what was Caesar Augustus's living quarters (his was just a normal house, not a palace) as well and also a place where they think the two babies were brought up, but the main focus is the palace and small museum. Again there is not really that much left, but what is there is pretty cool. The view out over the city is quite nice, esp the view out over the Roman Forum which is nestled at the bottom of the hill right at the front of the palace (nice location for a governmental building I thought). Something else that is quite oddly at the top of Palatine Hill, is one of the houses of Mussolini (now used as basically a storage unit for marble statues found in the area). I guess he wanted to live where the previous rulers lived, so Palatine Hill.
As I stated as well, the Roman Forum is located at the bottom of the hill and it (I think) is more amazing then the rest, what with the white columns and ruins everywhere you can actually see how there was a town there once, the streets are still lined in stone...covered in grass...and the fronts of a few buildings still stand. Columns protrude from random areas showing where other buildings once stood and overlooking it all are some of the most beautiful buildings left in Rome.
The rest of that day was left wandering around Rome and then later meeting up with our friend Judith who was studying in Rome at the time.
Next day we went to the Vatican. Our tour guide from Palatine Hill had told us that she was doing a tour of the Vatican the next day, so we had decided to go with her, and so the next morning the three of us, plus a guy from the hostel...hopped the subway up to the Vatican for a 9:30 tour. No you do not need your passports to get across any boarders...anyone can enter...but security is quite crazy (although not as crazy as Parliament in London). There was so much within the Vatican that its very difficult to actually write about it. Let's just say that it is one of those places (just like the Louvre) that you could spend days wandering around in. For me the highlight of the whole trip was of course the Sistine Chapel, famous for its ceiling frescoes. It is also a place where you are not allowed to take pictures, not because it will ruin the frescoes or because the Vatican says no, but because the recent restoration was paid for by a Japanese company and they do not want people taking pictures, so that they can sell their postcards, and books, and posters etc. That is the reason why I have a few pictures. If the Vatican was the ones who owned it, or if it would ruin the ceilings...then I would not have taken the pictures. It was pretty remarkable though. I have never seen a place like it before.
After the Vatican (lets just say that it was about a 4-5 hour tour) we were quite hungry...so after asking around a bit someone told us that the best Roman pizza was close by at a place called Alice's. And they were right. For one thing, you paid by the 100mg...so everything was quite cheap. Another thing, instead of having tables and a sit down feeling, they had mats that you could put down on their steps and sit on. They also had a wide variety of pizzas, my favorite being just the classic prosciutto and cheese, but the potato and cheese and some cream sauce one was quite good as well.
After the Vatican we also visited Trevi Fountain where we found a place to relax and just breathed for a bit.
That night six of us, Lauren, Maria, and I...and then Jeremie, Jordan and John (yea all J's) who were the guys we met at the hostel went out for a view of the city at night. It was one of the best nights I have ever had, and Rome is a city that is (almost) as good at night as it is during the day...for one thing the place empties out pretty well, most of the sites are not populated by people everywhere and so you can actually just walk...and not have to worry. I also ended up running into two guys from Illinois (my school) who were studying in England and who I had met on the University of Illinois London Weekend trip.
The next morning Maria and I got up and got ready to head to Florence (Firenze)... Lauren and her friends would be heading our direction a day later. We went to the station and booked train tickets...and then ended up going back to the hostel to drop our backpacks off because we really didn't want to sit around the train station for two hours. Of course when we went back we hadn't eaten lunch or anything so I was all...lets grab some sandwiches for the road...and in the process of doing that...we missed our train. Yep... so...after scurrying around trying to find out where we were supposed to go to get a new ticket...we finally got onto the next train...faster, nicer, more expensive sadly...and took the train to Firenze (arriving ironically at about the same time as our previous train)
