Including The Vatican
We were excited about coming to Rome. Kristi and I had booked a holiday here that we had to cancel about five years ago. In reality, it is a couples vacation, when you ask most non-Europeans where would they like to go when visiting Europe, Rome always seems to be on the list.
We had five days to see the sights, take it all in and we were very excited. Kristi had done an awesome job of pre-booking some tours. The Sistine Chapel was on her bucket list, which meant booking our Vatican tour weeks ahead. Just figure on turning up? Forget it, at best you will be literally hours in line.
The travel from the UK to Rome was easy, not three hours on the plane gets you into Leonardo da Vinci International Airport, Rome. The issue for us was that we didn’t land until 9.30pm (been here before in a strange place). Our apartment was in the outskirts of Rome, affording accommodation for the five of us in the old city was so expensive. We had to travel right across Italy, late at night with no idea where to go. I decided to book the private transfer again and it worked a treat. Our flight was late and we arrived at the apartment close to midnight, safe and sound.
Now to get the bad bits of Rome out of way before the beautiful parts. The drive took 45 minutes from the airport, we experienced crazy, ridiculous almost stupid driving techniques by the Italians, completely irresponsible. Why do they drive at close to 90 mph and 2 feet away from the car in front of them? We were shocked and laughed at the same time, having worked for an Italian company we knew the culture was somewhat relaxed and not hurried but put them behind a wheel and everyone goes crazy. The other and almost more disturbing thing to see was the amount of graffiti everywhere. Honestly, outside of the old city, almost everything is plastered with it, even if it moves such as trains, coaches
The last thing we saw about ten minutes away from the apartment by car was clear and visible prostitution. It was literally disgusting and made us ask why? Why was the government not cracking down on this and the graffiti artist and giving Rome back its status as one of the most beautiful cities in the world? It was
Luckily, this was just outside of the old city. The inner city streets are just stunningly beautiful with not a paint mark in sight. I did however read from other traveling families that pickpockets were a real issue in the city. One family, we follow had an iPhone, a wallet and a camera all stolen on the same day in three different occasions! We, like anyone, could not afford this type of disruption, so I had to put my thinking cap on! And here it is, my wonderful plan to foil any loose hands. They would have to get inside my shirt to get anything from me. The pockets remained almost empty, enough Euros for the train and a drink. Even the phone was tucked inside.
Day 1 was an easy day, a day for us to explore our surroundings, understand how to use the train, meet our traveling family friends that we had met in Thailand and get to see the sights of the old city on foot. The subway was a
We started at the top of The Spanish Steps, outside The Trinita Dei Monti church, the central subway was right beneath this and put us in the heart of old town.
The Trinità
The 136 steps, wind on an upward path and have balustrade structures where visitors can pause during their steep climb to admire the view over the city. Although this kills any opportunity for a nice photo it does give the
This imposing construction once provided a link between a part of the city that was, occupied by the French and the area below, occupied instead by a colony of Spaniards.
Pope Urban Vlll commissioned Pietro Bernini in 1623 to erect a fountain in every major piazza in Rome. This was clearly evident at every piazza we saw water fountains everywhere. This was the first, at the bottom of steps, The Fontana della Barcaccia or in simple English, The Fountain of the Boat. The Piazza di Spagna at the bottom of the steps was also home to the late English poet John Keats who lived in here until 1821.
We were in heaven, no speeding motorist, no graffiti, just Rome in all of its glory. We got out the map and decided to hop from one Piazza to another. The most famous for us being Piazza di Trevi where of course we could find the world-famous Trevi Fountain. We had a date with this fountain for our great and longtime friend Lesley Mansell back in Auckland. She and Steve had visited the fountain and as all visitors do want to throw in a coin in, in the belief of love and the return to Rome. For some reason, we think that there was no water, she couldn’t do this so we said we would throw her $1 coin in and hope the wish still came true. We quickly found the Piazza and man oh man it was stunning. In went Lesley’s coin.
The Trevi Fountain is a fountain designed by Italian architect Nicola Salvi and stand 26.3
We loved exploring the streets on foot, finding beautiful things around almost every corner. We took our packed lunch and sat in a Piazza to fill energy tanks. This also meant that we had room for our first gelato. Italian gelato is everywhere in Rome and we couldn’t go by without trying some, daily
The weather today was hot and we were welcome of the public fountains all over the city that allowed us and many others to refill our water bottles
Next on the map of places to visit was one on Lara’s and my list of places we wanted to see. Having just watched Angels and Demons we wanted to see sights where Tom Hanks had been chasing the Illuminati around famous Piazzas in Rome. One of the best of these was The Pantheon, dating back to 126AD. We found it with ease and were welcomed by the fact we could go inside for free.
Inside Lara and I remembered where Tom stood and what he asked to realize he was in the wrong church. We weren’t though, and we spent about 30 minutes looking around, it was breathtaking inside. The ceiling was left open and the design that the rain coming in would drain away dead center was very clever in a design that was so old.
We had seen such a contrast between what we had seen outside the old city the night before and what we had seen today, we were in totally two different places. We wrapped the day up with a true Italian pizza dinner close to the steps before heading home.
Day 2 was a big day, Kristi had booked our tour of the Vatican, the papal enclave within the city of Rome, and of course the world famous Sistine Chapel, along with St Peter’s Square and St Peter’s Basilica.
Today was pouring with rain, but we didn’t care. We made our way to The Vatican well ahead of our allotted time and found a great place for breakfast. We then discovered the lines to get in and were thankful we had tickets. We also found out that with babies we could go straight to the front at any time so we took off to start the tour.
We had the audio tour and we were off. One thing to note about a Vatican tour, it is packed with people. It is a self-guided tour and there must have been 10,000 people in there at the same time. You are treated to the Vatican’s private Museum collection which was unexpected but super interesting. There is an interesting tie between early Egyptians and The Roman Empire so much of what we saw related to this. I hadn’t seen a true mummified body before.
Later we saw, of course, the collections of rooms with beautiful paintings,
The last room is the much awaited Sistine Chapel, the beautiful work of Michelangelo’s and his most famous masterpiece! Restored in 1477 – 1480, It was amazing. Packed and full of people telling us not to take a photo, I think I got this one and only shot before I knew it wasn’t supposed to be, oops.
For tourists not in a group tour, the path back to St Peter’s Basilica meant going outside the Vatican, back around the walls, into St Peter’s Square and taking up a place in a line that looked two miles long. It was still pouring and we had two kids to entertain. For groups, you take another door on the right out of the Sistine Chapel and bang you are right there inside the Basilica. We had learned this short cut from social media and other traveling families. We took up our place at the back of a group leaving the Chapel and followed them through the short cut.
The Basilica is the most renowned work of Renaissance architecture and the largest church in the world. St. Peter’s is regarded as one of the holiest Catholic shrines. It has been described as “holding a unique position in the Christian world” and as “the greatest of all churches of Christendom.”
Catholic tradition holds that the Basilica is the burial site of Saint Peter. Chief among Jesus’s apostles and also the first Bishop of Rome. St Peter’s tomb is supposedly directly below the high altar of the basilica. For this reason, many popes have been interred at St. Peter’s since the Early Christian period.
Outside the Basicila is the famous St Peter’s Square where the pope presides at a number of liturgies throughout the year, drawing audiences of 15,000 to over 80,000 people, either within the basilica or in the adjoining square. It was a Wednesday and the day of such a display but we had missed it by a few hours. The place was now empty apart from the tourists but we saw the extent of the square and where the Pope would appear on his balcony.
We were exhausted and soaked through, we were glad to be meeting our traveling friends and looked forward to day 3……The Colosseum.
Day 3 we had another tour booked, the only way for us to get under the Colosseum to see where the gladiators were waiting for almost certain death was to take a tour. We left this one a little late and the only one we could get was a Spanish speaking one. Kristi picked up a bit along the tour but you didn’t need much to feel what the Gladiators may have been feeling before the trap door opened and a Tiger jumped out.
Construction started in 70AD and is the largest amphitheater ever built.
The Colosseum could hold, it is estimated, between 50,000 and 80,000 spectators, having an average audience of some 65,000; it was used for gladiatorial contests and public spectacles, animal hunts, executions, and re-enactments of famous battles. The building ceased to be used for entertainment in the early medieval era. It was later reused for such purposes as housing, workshops, quarters for a religious order, a fortress and a Christian shrine. It was every bit an awesome place to visit and so worth the effort.
We spent the last day in Rome with our friends and decided to get out of town, let the boys burn off some energy and of course Lara the same. She had her friends back so time to run around like crazy, scream at the top of her voice, and annoy the heck out of Mom and Dad, only kidding dear.
We found a spot on the map, called Appia Antica Regional Park or Aqueduct Park.
240Ha of beautiful walks right all around the remains of the Roman aqueducts that go through it. You have to hand it to the Romans. To retrieve water from the mountains some 50 Km’s away by a serious of underground and overground water channels such as these
Dating back to 80AD it was a wonderful piece of engineering and thought that gave the city their fresh water supply. Today it was a free public park, so we walked, talked, geocached and shook our heads at the graffiti that seemed to dominate outside of Rome city center, such a shameful thing to do. The kids had a blast, burnt off steam and the weather was gorgeous.
That about wrapped up our time in Rome, we loved seeing our friends – similar minded, fun people with traveling ambition like ours. We will see them again in Paris next week and back home in San Fransisco where their home is.
We loved Rome, would we come back? Probably not, certainly not with kids. It is expensive like any other European city and the world has a whole lot more to offer us yet. Are we glad we went though? You bet we are!
Have a look at the gorgeous gallery right here
Next on our stop is a four hour drive to Pompeii that simply blew us away.