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.