Italy: 10 days. 3 cities. 1198 pictures. 20 meals of pizza and pasta. 7 different flavors of gelato. 100s of creeper comments by Italian men. 17 souvenirs. 1 unforgettable fall break.
Since there is just so much to write about each city I visited, I’m doing individual posts for each place. I’ll be starting with Rome, where I spent three and a half days.
Our flight left for Rome at 6:50am on Friday morning which meant we had to leave for the airport at 4am. Not fun, especially when you only get 2 hours of sleep. Similar to our Germany trip, I had booked a taxi for us since the Tube doesn’t open til 5:30am and it’s cheaper than the Heathrow Express if you have 3 people splitting the price. So we get to the airport in plenty of time and Amanda had read online that our flight was out of Terminal 3. Well, Sarah failed to inform us that the boarding passes said Terminal 4 until after our taxi drove away. We ran inside and found out that the only way to Terminal 4 was via train, which didn’t open til 5:30 and we probably wouldn’t make our flight in time. Panicking, we ran outside and asked a couple bus drivers if there were any buses going to Terminal 4. Obviously there were not. There also were not any regular taxis outside, because really, who needs a taxi at 4:30 am? After asking and being rejected by 2 prebooked taxis that had just dropped people off, we were about to cry. Finally we saw one more taxi driver who Amanda ran up to and goes PLEASE I’ll give you 20 pounds to drive us to Terminal 4. First childhood rule broken: don’t talk to strangers. After the look of confusion left his face he agreed to do so and we hopped in his car. Second childhood rule broken: don’t get in the car with strangers. The man drove like a maniac to get us to the Terminal in time (which was 10 minutes away). He also offered us lemon candy which we willingly ate to calm ourselves. Third childhood rule broken: don’t take candy from strangers. After rejecting everything our parents taught us, we finally arrived safely at our terminal, flew through bag check and security (after being randomly selected to have my bag scanned…this always happens to me. Do I really look like a sketchy person?) and made it to our gate right on time. As soon as we got on the flight we all immediately fell asleep. I’m sure we looked like quite the attractive trio: Amanda curled up in a ball on the seat, Sarah with her head back and mouth wide open, and me passed out face down on the tray table. I came out of my sleepy haze just in time to see us flying over the Swiss alps, which was absolutely breathtaking. We flew into Rome Fiumicino, which is right next to the beach, so it made for a pretty landing. We had to take a bus shuttle from the airport to the city center and then find our hostel from there. Luckily we didn’t have any trouble and our hostel was a nice little place right near the train station (convenient). All the staff there were such nice Italian men who gave us maps and highlighted routes for us to take to each major sightseeing destination.
After settling in and getting lunch (we learned when you order what you think is a slice of pizza, you just get a whole pizza), we decided to go to the Colosseum! Now, I’ve studied Ancient Roman history about 3 times and it falls right behind Ancient Greece as my favorite thing to study. The whole walk to there I tried to contain my excitement but I couldn’t hold it in anymore when I got the first glimpse of the Colosseum through the streets. I squealed and smacked Sarah with my map several times out of excitement. It took everything in me not to run down the street. After having a photoshoot on a bridge in front of the Colosseum, we decided to go in.
So excited.
Tickets were 12 euros and granted us access to both the Colosseum and the Roman Forum ruins. Walking into the Colosseum was a surreal experience. The first thing that you notice is how big it is. Seeing pictures of it doesn’t give you a correct sense of just how massive it is. There are multiple levels and you don’t realize how high up they go until you actually climb them. Second thing that hits you is the history this place holds. It was so crazy to remember everything I studied and be standing in this place that I’d heard about for so long but felt that I’d never see. It was also a bit eerie to think about what went on in there; the gladiator fights, how many people were killed, animal fights, etc. We walked around each level and got some amazing views of the city and the ruins around the area.
View of Rome from the Colosseum
We also were there around 4pm which made for the most perfect lighting (yes I am a photography nerd) so I have some beautiful pictures. After the Colosseum we followed signs to the entrance of the Roman Forum which was supposedly 200 meters away. Begin confusion. Suddenly the signs stop and we arrive at a gate which seems a bit too small to be the entrance. The gate is also closed. We stare at it for a little while then decide that can’t possibly be it, so we continue walking. After determining that we had walked more than 200 meters, we decided to turn around and go back to the main area around the Colosseum. We walk up a path next to the Forum that still does not lead to an entrance. We stop and ask a woman at the exit of the forum where the entrance is. She tells us to go back the way we came. We ask her if the entrance has a gate. She laughs at us and says no. We walk back the first way, even further then we walked before. We even walk all the way around the forum and still find no entrance, just stone walls. We finally give up since the Forum closes in 30 minutes and apparently no entrance exists anyway. We walked around Rome for a while, saw some big historical buildings, had dinner and went to bed early since we were exhausted.
The second day we went to the Vatican and St. Peter’s Basilica. After waiting in line for about an hour we finally got into the Vatican. We walked around through the museum and large halls of statues that, while interesting, were not enough to overcome my excitement to see the Sistine Chapel. All the ceilings in the Vatican buildings were gorgeously decorated; gold ornate decorations, paintings that actually looked like sculptures, and paintings depicting different scenes. However nothing compares to the Sistine Chapel. When you first walk in, it takes your breath away. It’s almost overwhelming there’s so much to look at. I automatically found the Creation of Adam painting and went from there. Seeing it in real life was so surreal. It’s so obvious just how talented Michelangelo was. Much to my disappointment, we were not allowed to take pictures inside of it. After the Vatican Museum we headed over to St. Peter’s Basilica. It was huge and the inside was so exquisite.
St. Peter's Basilica
We also got to see the Pieta, the sculpture of Mary holding Jesus, which is actually Michelangelo’s only sculpture that bears his name. I also couldn’t believe I was seeing that in real life. Growing up, my Mom and Dad had a small replica of the Pieta on their nightstand and I would always look at it. I never knew what it was until I was older and then seeing the real thing was once again, a totally surreal experience.
We walked along the river back to our hostel and saw some more historical sites, including the Castel St. Angelo and the Piazza del Popolo. That night we hung out at our hostel with some Spanish people we met who were also staying there. It was fun because I got to put my two years of Spanish to work, seeing as they only spoke about 2 English words.
Our last full day in Rome, a guy who worked at our hostel mapped out a walking tour for us that would take us past the major tourist sites. We started our journey at the Trevi Fountain, where we all threw coins in, guaranteeing our return to Rome.
Throwing a coin in the Trevi Fountain
We next saw the Pantheon, the giant dome with the hole in the ceiling. Then we went to Piazza Navona where we sat on the fountain there and people watched for a while. Moving on, we next reached the Spanish Steps. I was a bit disappointed because there were no flowers on the steps like you always see in the pictures. I wonder if this has to do with the season. But we still joined the hoards of people on the steps and sat and people watched again. We then headed up to the Medici Villa where we got so amazing panoramic views of the city. Sarah left Rome that evening to visit a friend in Florence a day early, so Amanda and I decided to treat ourselves to a nice last dinner in Rome. We searched Trip Advisor to find a good restaurant around our hostel and came up with one called Babbo’s. It was rated the 6th best restaurant out of the 2032 in Rome, so we knew we had to go. The restaurant had a quiet, cozy atmosphere, and would have been the perfect setting for a romantic Italian date. We started our meal with an amazing antipasti of Buffalo Mozzarella and tomatos, and then had main meals of pasta (perfectly aldente) with broccoli, olive oil sauce and pecorino cheese for me and shrimp risotto for Amanda. We finished our meal with an apple torte in cream sauce and then got complimentary biscotti dipped in Sherry. It was seriously the best food I’ve ever had. It’s worth going back to Rome just for that.
The next morning we got up to go to St. Peter’s Basilica again to climb the dome since we missed out on that the other day, but unfortunately there was about a 2 hour wait and we would have missed our train. We asked a guard (who looked like an Italian version of Bradley Cooper) if there was any way we could skip the line since we didn’t need to go back into the Basilica, but sadly there was no way around it. So instead we had a relaxing Italian breakfast and then hopped on our train to Florence!
I had to condense my pictures into the slideshow for this post so please look at those and if you are friend with me on facebook, there are about 120 pictures of Rome on there!
The Travels of Julia Sayers 