ROME & VATICAN CITY

23-24 June 2017

Having shortlisted what all we wanted to see in Rome into a quite manageable whirlwind itinerary, we decided that we needn’t go tearing out and away from our lovely Sorrento.

At a leisurely pace, we prepared ourselves for the 10h20 train (the same one we’d caught the previous day for Pompeii) and took it to the end of the line to Naples (in under an hour) to change over for the final leg to Rome. There were 3 different speed options and we again went with the Express option, which had us in Rome in just over an hour.

Hotel Gallia  was very conveniently located a few hundred metres from the Centrale Termini (and all downhill, thankfully!) and we were surprised at how nice it was. Considerably cheaper than the Sorrento hotel, we had a massive suite in a 19th century classic building that still radiated old world charm and elegance. Glamourous hotels are generally wasted on us though since we spend so little time in them and this was no exception. Once our bags were in the room, we were out the door!

We’d had such a good experience with the Rick Steves audio tour for Pompeii that we left our fate in his hands to see us around Rome. We’d downloaded several of his walking tour options and had a rudimentary plan on patchworking them together to fill the next two days and cover the best the city had to offer.

The first, “The Heart of Rome” covering the major attractions, required us to be at Campo de’Fiori to begin. Thanks to Google Maps, getting there was relatively effortless and we marvelled at how Rome is like a living museum as we passed imposing statues and impressive buildings all the way along the route to the main event.

Campo de’Fiori was a very busy square, noisy from the fruit and veg sellers that had been using it as their market all morning (as had been the case for centuries, in the very beginning catching pilgrims en route to the Vatican) and now packing up for the day, such that the transformation could begin into the neighbourhood’s living room for the evening sitting.

With the appearance of a lively hub, Rick Steves filled us in on some of its darker history, starting with the statue of the hooded monk that stands in the middle. It was of Giordano Bruno who was a Dominican priest in the 1500s who tested the society of the day by voicing radical notions like the earth revolving around the sun (before Galileo did) and by scribing satirical plays about the church and its morality. He was exiled, excommunicated, returned, imprisoned and eventually burned at the stake at the very place that now hosts the monument that celebrates his nonconformity and his martyrdom to freedom of thought.

You could also see the columns from the Theatre of Pompey, on the steps of which Julius Caesar was stabbed to death. The massive theatre (it took up an entire city block) was hosting Senate at the time, but now all that was left were the columns, absorbed into the structure of modern ramshackle apartments.

The audio guide led us with magnificent accuracy through twists and turns, intuitively knowing when the pauses needed to be and filling the wait with more generic info on the city, like its attempt to make the city more livable through traffic control in the form of strict permits only for buses, taxis, delivery vans and residents. All while we waited to cross the street named after Victor Emanuel II, Italy’s first ruler after unification in 1871.

Our winding walk deposited us at Piazza Navona, the famous long oblong ex-racetrack, turned into one of Rome’s most popular sights and meeting place, built in 80 AD and recipient of a major urban renovation in the 1600s – a gift from the Popes of the time, trying to put some scandal behind them through a peace-offering to the public. They went to town (literally) on this one and added 3 massive Baroque fountains and the elaborate facade of the Church of Saint Agnes. A great spot to take a load off, listen to the elaborate stories about what every nook and cranny represented (boy, were those Romans big on symbolism!) and, so we were told, to get a legendary tartufo gelato from Tre Scalini cafe.

It was unbelievable to be wandering around a neighbourhood that was 2000 years old! Basalt cobblestones underfoot mined from volcanic mountains, exactly as the ancient Romans used to do. This was Campus Martius, a place 5 times the size of Disneyland set aside for military training. It was on the outskirts of town and besides open fields, parade grounds and barracks, it was home to racetracks like the Piazza Navona and temples to the gods like the Pantheon (which was next on the list).

As Ancient Rome fell, the Forum was constantly pillaged by barbarians, so this became the new centre for its merits of easy access to water and being close to the new centre of power, the Vatican, providing a lucrative flow of pilgrims headed to St Peter’s.

The Pantheon was the best preserved monument to the greatness, magnificence and splendour of Ancient Rome at its peak – and the scale they built on. The columns are 40 feet tall, each carved from a single huge piece of granite. The huge bronze door. The inside a magnificent room with domed ceiling that inspired later domes (including Michelangelo’s and St Peter’s). Exactly as high as it is wide, the 142 foot perfect dome and the symmetry of the building makes an overwhelming first impression. At the top of the dome was the eye-in-the-sky 30-foot opening called the Oculus – an open sun roof that serves as the building’s only light source. The altar, the statues, the niches and tombs. Magnificent survivor of plunderers and times. Really magnificent!

Rick Steves artfully maintained our interest through some of the ‘second tier’ sights, guiding us past Palazzo Capranica and telling us about the skyline of stone towers in Medieval times, the Parliament and its Egyptian Obelisk (which didn’t sustain our interest as much as photobombing in the background of a TV reporter’s live bulletin – we may very well be famous on Italian TV by now!), Piazza Colonna and its 100-foot second-century column, the Via del Corso that for 2000 years was how travellers from Northern Europe first entered Rome… and on to Trevi Fountain.

A “liquid Baroque avalanche that showcased Rome’s love affair with water”, show-offs as they were for their mastery of aquaducts, carrying fresh water to Rome from the distant hillsides through stone channels powered exclusively by gravity. Rich people even had it pumped directly into their homes… while the poor brought their jugs to the likes of Trevi.

Besides all the crashing water, the Trevi Fountain was crushingly busy so it was a very short visit and a few snaps before moving on to the last stop on the tour. The Spanish Steps, a wide, curving staircase of 138 steps with the Sinking Boat Fountain at the bottom (designed because the water pressure was so low that they couldn’t shoot water in the air), fanning into a butterfly shape at a midway terrace and culminating at the top in an obelisk framed between 2 Baroque church towers.

As the end of the line on the audio tour, it was convenient that there was a Metro station right there on the square, for us to catch a ride to the main attraction for the day, our Vatican Tour.

We’d booked the Friday night tour summer special, extended opening hours that are rumoured to be less busy than the jam-packed all-day-every-day tours that traipse 30,000 people through this mega-museum that was once the Pope’s breezy summer palace on the hill.

We met at the tour office and were assigned to a guide that from the introduction was clear she was going to give us an interesting narrative from the way she expressed herself and set context for our evening ahead together. She walked and talked us around the corner to the Vatican City entrance. Although (allegedly) less busy than usual, the Vatican was still very busy, but at least a lot cooler than it must be in the blistering summer sun.

We entered through the new Vatican Museum entrance and our guide showed us the Apostolic House. She shared that Pope Francis refused to stay in the opulent penthouse, opting rather to stay in a small room in the guesthouse.

On to the Renaissance style basilica, which was the biggest church in the world and where by tradition St Peter, Jesus’s chief apostle and Bishop of Rome,  was buried. Roman Emperor Constantine the Great had the dome built in the 4th Century to celebrate the conversion from paganism to Christianity. The present construction took over 120 years to build, completed in 1626.

Michaelangelo was a sculptor commissioned to do the painting of the Sistine Chapel and although he thought painting was beneath him, he conceded to the request of the Pope. He worked tirelessly under crazy conditions, literally bending over backwards to paint, even sometimes with a candle on his forehead so he could see what he was doing.

It was well after 22h00 by the time our tour concluded and, sweaty and thirsty and very keen to put space between us and everybody, we passed up our primary plan of a late night dinner at the Trastevere in favour of a large refreshing granita (crushed ice drink) and a metro back towards our hotel.

SATURDAY

The next morning we were up bright and early to get a solid breakfast – served  a on the rooftop terrace with a magnificent view over Rome – and on to the Colosseum ahead of the madding crowds.

The previous day we’d been approached by several tour guides warning us that we’d not get into the Colosseum without booking ahead and that we’d spend the day in the queue etc etc. We did not buy from them, opting for online tickets at a fraction of the price… And we were in within minutes.

To call the building impressive is a colossal understatement! With a 48m outerwall housing 4 oversized storeys (the height of 12-15 conventional ones), 189m long and 156m wide with a 6 acre base area, the Flavian Amphitheatre as the biggest stadium in the Empire seated 50,000 people – and 100,000 thumbs dictating the fate of the poor souls who were made to fight to the death with wild animals and each other, all in the name of blood-thirsty spectator sport.

Although the building is stone now, it was then painted brilliant white with brightly coloured trim and statues of the Greek and Roman gods, perfectly blending genius Roman engineering with sophisticated Greek art and decor. Ironically cheery considering the intended goings-on.

With 80 arched entrances on the ground level and wide passages called Vomitoriums since they could “vomit” all those people in or out of the stadium in 15 minutes. A far cry from the bottlenecked turnstiles that are there now!