Italy Part 3: Rome. The Eternal City….the city of eternal aching feet! The main thing I remembered about Rome from 30 years ago was aching feet and it did not take long to relive that memory. There was so much to do in Rome and we hated to miss anything so walking was a must. Our first day, we had tickets to the Vatican late in the day so we decided to go visit a huge park near our hotel that had a villa with gardens. We are going to stop trying to do gardens on this trip because we are cursed! The bus dropped us at the entrance of the park which was around 500 acres in size. The villa was at least 499 acres from where we started. We walked and walked and arrived to find the villa closed (it appeared to have been closed for quite a while) and the gardens locked. After some more walking, we managed to escape the park and walked over to Sant Angelo’s Castle which sat right on the river. The castle was built by Hadrian over 2000 years ago and looks like it will stand another 2000 years without issue. It had been added onto throughout the years and had incredible views of St. Peter’s square and the Tiber river. We then headed over to the Vatican for our museum tour. We started in St. Peter’s square and were then routed all the way around to the back of the Vatican for the museum entrance. On my previous visit, I remember being angry at the amount of gold and wealth that was in the Vatican while so many of their parishioners lived in poverty around the world. Evidently I was not the only one because NONE of the gold was displayed anymore in the main museum. The museum was much fancier now but I can’t say it was better. We were herded through each room with a lot of other people (even though the visits were ‘timed’ to decrease crowd size) and we spent most of our time trying to get ahead of large tour groups. Once in the Sistine Chapel, we were jammed in like sardines. We were supposed to be “silent” and not take photos. To us, it seemed like the crowd was following the rules but a worker kept screaming “Silenzia” and “No photos” over the loudspeaker which was quite ironic. After fighting our way out of the mayhem, we waited in a short line to see the Basilica which was a highlight of the tour. Sunday was Don’t Know What That Building Is Tour 2022. We started at the Trevi Fountain along with everyone else in Rome and then made our way over to the Vicus Caprarious for our scheduled tour. The Vicus was an underground archeological site that looked really cool online. Not so much in person. It was an underground cistern and it took us about 5 minutes to complete our tour. We only paid $4.00 each for the tour and we both felt we overpaid. The rest of the day we spent meandering through the streets of Rome looking at very large buildings and cathedrals. I can’t tell you the names of any of them except the Pantheon but they were really cool! Lol! We came across one cathedral that had the most amazing ceiling painting that we have seen (see picture). It looked like you were just heading straight into heaven! We went to a small museum that was free and saw a few nice paintings. It was known for a tunnel that was an optical illusion based on a math equation by Borromini. The tunnel appeared to be very long and a statue at the end appeared to be very large. In reality, it was none of these things (see pics to fully appreciate). While we were at the museum, an elderly employee came to me and said, “I love America! Better than Rome!” Then, he started singing, “Sunday, Monday, Happy Days!” and “Funkytown”. We figured he learned all his English from watching sitcoms from the 70s and listening to 80s music. He just kept repeating these two things until we made our escape. Rome was full of characters! We noticed as we wandered that we have not seen any stray cats or dogs in all of Italy. We found that odd. Given the pandemic shutdowns, we are quite suspicious that there are no cats, no dogs and no pigeons either….hmmmm…… Our final day in Rome was a walk into history as we explored Palatine Hill, the Forum and the Colosseum. We arrived early and had Palatine Hill almost to ourselves but by the time our allotted time slot at the Colosseum arrived, the tour groups had caught up to us. We finished the day with a trip to see the largest building in Rome, the Palazzo Venezia. I cannot begin to describe the size of the structure so I will not try. Just put it on your bucket list! We head out of Rome in the morning to spend a few days in and around Bologna. We have quite a few surprises for you on the next leg so we look forward to sharing them with you in a few days! Ratings for Rome: Overall: 8 Points of interest: 8 Ease of communication: 8 (most people spoke English thank goodness!) Ease of transportation: 6 Friendly people: 6 Food: 7 Cost of living: 6 Weather: 10 Bill’s favorite thing: Sant Angelo Sally’s favorite thing: Sant Angelo
1 Comment
10/4/2022 10:18:36 am
I love catching up with your travels on the blog posts. You're such a good writer and they're always entertaining. I hope you are both having the time of your lives! Miss you both
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AuthorSally Miller Archives
May 2024
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