All roads lead to Rome

[To see the pictures of the events, click on the picture above]

Thursday Oct. 6th we boarded another Ryanair flight from Zaragoza, this time heading to Rome.  Some say it is the capital of the world.  At least it was, for a long period of time and we certainly got a sense why...

We got to our hotel late at night, but the hotel room was beautiful, in a Best Western in Policlinico district, close to university of Rome.  We had a very large patio on the 5th floor with very nice exposure to the sunny side.

We had 5 days in Rome and the plan was to do 3 separate tours of the city, which we booked through Real Rome Tours, which was highly recommended through trip advisor.
The first night we did the Rome evening walking tour, which took us to the Pantheon, built in 91 BC with a spectacular dome and the tomb of Raphael, the fountain of the four rivers, Capital hill, Cat Sanctuary amid ancient ruins and the place where Julius Caesar was assassinated, Trevi Fountain, Spanish Steps and the Forum lit up at night.

The tour guide was good and the tour informative, but I would have expected more for the money.  Missing was a theme of how all the things we saw connected.  Of course, they are all Roman, but connections were weak.  The one redeeming part was that the tour guide was a young archeologist who actually worked on discovering some of the things we saw.  That day we did about 6 hours of walking.

The next day was our much anticipated Vatican tour.  The tour guide was awesome, she was very energetic and knowledgeable about everything.   A couple of highlights were seeing the Egyptian gallery with real mummies.  Tessa thought it was a little 'freaky' seeing the real hands and feet.  Our guide made the paintings in Raphael's room completely come alive with meaning and identified the faces of  Michelangelo and Raphael.  Nero's enormous purple marble bath tub, which he had filled with goat's milk, was clear evidence of his megalomania.  Grace imagined they brought all the goats to the tub and milked them directly into it.  The first sculptures that showed the human form in motion and with real faces were also incredible.

A few notes: there was some special event at the Vatican and many tours had to be re routed through other galleries.  We ended up almost missing the entry to the Sistine chapel, but thanks to the fact that our guide knew the guards, we managed to get in.

The Sistine chapel was a bit underwhelming for us.  Despite the fact that Michelangelo and Raphael both left their masterpieces there, the darkness and crushing crowdedness of the place was a bit disappointing.  We also had this vision of massive and expansive paintings that were huge, but the actual ceiling was covered in many smaller episodes, which was surprising.  Of course, the judgement day and other pieces were spectacular.  We even got to look through a keyhole into the papal apartments.  How exciting!

St. Peter's of course was amazing and while we were there a service full of cardinals was being held.  We saw the tomb of John Paul II and other popes, marveled at the sheer size of the place and later found out that there is another church in town which, in fact, is more important than St. Peter's!  It is called San Giovanni in Laterano, and it was the original home of the Pope's before the Vatican and St.Peter's were built. It is the only Archbasilica in the world that has a permanent seat of the pope and is considered the mother church of all catholic churches in the world.  While not as large, it was very impressive and ornate.  The highlights included the 12 apostles carved in stone, the Pope's throne, and the lack of crowds, it was a wonderful place to visit.
Day 2 - 8 hours of walking.

Day 3 - 7 hours of walking, we started at 9am at the Coliseum for our 3 hour Ancient Rome tour and Although interesting for us it was way too much for the girls.  In retrospect we should have just done an audio guide and spent one hour.  They hung in for
3.5 hours as he went over time, it was only after Grace had a big dish of homemade pasta at a restaurant in Trastavere that she was revived.  All in all the girls did great, despite an army level regime of touring.

A little on food in Rome: we had lots of great pizza and pasta, visited a 111 year old gelateria which served the best gellato in Rome, had a very nice dinner close to our hotel and, of course, enjoyed some excellent Italian wine, cheese and bread.  I even managed to get some white truffle oil, which I am very excited to use for my cooking.

It was a 5 day whirlwind tour of Rome, but we do feel like we got a good sense of the place, the people, the tourists, the crazy cab drivers and kamikaze scooter riders.  While the city has only 2.7 million inhabitants, the Roman empire is well and alive, with daily battles raging between street vendors and tourists, drivers and pedestrians, all at a breakneck speed, minus the blood.  Definitely an experience we recommend to everyone.

Algemesi: fiestas del pueblo!

[To see the pictures of the events, click on the picture above]


During the first week of October, our Spanish friend Katia (she is one of the managers working for me, from Valencia) her husband Vicente and their daughter Paula invited our family to their home town Algemesi, which Is very close to Valencia.  Every October, for hundreds of years, they hold their 'Fiesta de Taurino' where for 9 days the town completely shuts down to enjoy fiestas, bull runs, daily bull fights  and, of course, food, lots of food!

We arrived Friday night and were able to stay in the beautiful apartment of our hosts.  The apartment overlooked the main street of the town, with views of the main basilica and the bull ring: plaza del toros.

The bull ring is a special matter in Algemesi.  It is temporary, being built and later dismantled every year just for the 9 days of fiesta.  It takes several weeks to build and is the only one of it's kind in Spain because of it's rectangular shape, which is unique (typically bullrings are round).  A little trivia: the bullring has 29 sections (imagine slices of cake) which are sold every year through an auction to the 29 highest bidders.   Bidders are typically groups of local people that buy the whole section for the 9 days of festivities and then sell tickets to recoup the funds.  They never intend to make money, rather they spend it by installing 29 "restaurants/eateries" that get you a free meal and drinks with your bull fight tickets.  To buy a ticket for the whole 9 days will cost you 500-600€, but to go to one bullfight and dinner may set you back only 20-30€, depending on the seats you get.  The proceeds from the section auction goes to buy entertainment, bulls and bull fighters.  This event is a barometer of how well the times are: this year the bull fighters were very young and very few known ones.  Crisis is good for the bulls.

The Saturday morning we got up at 7am and ran to check out the daily bull run through the streets of Algemesi.  It was slightly anticlimactic: the run was 30 minutes late and the people didn't run with the bulls.  Instead, they would climb up the walls while the bulls ran by.  I suppose after the experience of The Bull Run in Pamplona, it would be hard to expect more.  Later we had a very nice breakfast in a huge hall, with all three girls dressed up in their beautiful traditional dresses, complete with fans,bracelets and hair combs.  They looked very lovely, thank you to Katia's family for providing these special outfits.

Later we went off to lunch with twenty of Katia and Vicente's friends.  The lunch lasted about 3 hours complete with 3 courses of food, beer, wine and shots.  Needless to say we all felt very pro-siesta, But that was not to be as we were heading to the bullfight next, which started at 5:30.

Before I go on, I will say that I am very aware of multiple and controversial views about this sport.  Especially when it was officially the last bullfight in Barcelona when we were at the bullfight in Algemesi.  We decided to go and experience it first hand to then make our own judgment.

The bullfight involved toreadors, 5 bulls and some bullfighters on horses.  The event lasted about 3 hours, leading to the relatively bloody end of each of the five bulls.  The young toreadors got jostled by the bulls also: some very close calls, none of which ended in more serious matters.  The color, the movements, the tradition was all well and live that evening.  And the show was sold out.  I suppose Paul Watson will never run out of things to do...

During the show our seats were great: they were in a shady part of the ring, which allowed for a very pleasant temperature and uninhibited view of the event.  We were worried about the girls watching the event, but they did fine, and Tessa actually liked it.

That night Cathy and the girls stayed at home and Katia, her husband and I went out for another dinner and a small pub crawl.  We were concerned that we might get hungry, so we had to keep it going.

The next morning we had a special excursion to Katia's in-law's orange plantation very close to town.  The region is the largest producer of citrus fruit and the season is coming in November and December.  We even got to take a few locally grown squashes and melons back, which were great. Later, after another beautiful three course lunch we all headed back to Zaragoza, still full from the experiences and the feasts.

This experience made us feel more authentically Spanish and we so appreciated the opportunity to be on the 'inside' of such a marvelous cultural experience. A big thank you to Katia and her family for inviting us.