Roamin’ Rome (Rome. Rome.) (Rome.)
Continuing on from Kristi’s last post, while Rome is definitely hot it is also definitely pretty awesome. We got through the “biggies” of the town in the first few days and had our last two days to take on some less strenuous activities and do some relaxing.
Mosaics are neat.
We awoke after a great night of sleep – primarily due to the genius idea of asking the front desk at our hotel if they had any fans we could borrow for our room. And they gave us the heavy duty model, so this lessened greatly the issue of restless, sweaty sleeping. On our second day, we had purchased a “Roma Pass” which allowed us free public transportation tickets and free/reduced entrance into most of the museums and sites. We did this in Paris, too, and I have to tell you it is greatly worth the money. If nothing else than that they allow you to skip past hundreds of sweaty tourists waiting in line for who knows how long at each place. After the Coliseum/Palatine Hill/Forum entrance we had one more freebie to use on our pass, so we went to the National Museum of Rome. I’ll tell you, the thought of meandering through another crowded museum looking at golden paintings of Mary and Jesus did not excite us at all. But we needed to kill some time and get our money’s worth, and this was supposedly one of the top museums in Europe. Plus the air conditioning sounded nice.
We headed up and found ourselves pleasantly surprised. The museum didn’t have a painting one, and was primarily full of mosaics, statues and frescoes from interiors of ancient Roman houses. AND there were only a handful of other people in the entire place, so we could sit and take our time going through it.
The main piece I wanted to check out was the famous discus guy.
Discus Guy
The main piece Kristi wanted to check out was a hermaphrodite.
Look closely...
Check and check.
Continuing on, I think I have seen too many of the Travel channels shows on weird places to check out because as soon as I read in our guidebook the word “crypt” alongside “a great place to see bones in fancy decorations” I planned our next stop. The Capuchin Crypt.
Capuchin Crypt
After Kristi took a quick chiding from the lady at the front desk for not being dressed appropriately for a place of worship (it was underneath a church), she let her go in because “frankly, it’s too hot to be wearing anything other than a light dress.” Check one in positive column for heat.
Unfortunately cameras weren’t allowed in, but I snagged this pic from the internet to give you a glimpse of the place. Very freaky, indeed. They were whole chandeliers made from jawbones (this part freaked Kristi out the most, after a few minutes staring at it trying to figure out what the hell they were), an amazing looking alter made from shoulder blades, another alter of skulls and various other oddities.
Good thing we were dressed appropriately, otherwise that place would have been WEIRD.
Traverse area in Rome
We then made our way past $10 cappuccinos and $20 sandwiches to a park for our daily nap/read session outside, and then over to a great little bohemian part of town called Traverse for dinner. Which turned out there was a festival going that night with vendors everywhere, stages set up in various plazas for concerts, and just general good vibes going on. We had yet another amazing meal, stuck around about 10 minutes watching some guitar/singing/speech thing that we couldn’t understand a single word of, and made our way back enjoying a night walk in Rome.
Traverse festival
Some sort of permanent carnival on the river
Victor Emmanuel Monument at night
Coliseum at night
We also came upon another site of ruins near the Coliseum where there seemed to be some sort of local play going on about, from what we gathered, some historical aspect of Rome, with some breakdance fighting intermingled for some reason.
Sidepoint 1: The great thing about Rome is that they like to tout how much water they have. Starting with the aquaducts and fountains, they have always seemed to want to shove it everyone’s face saying “Look what we can do with water, b*tches!” Thus, there are fountains everywhere for you to fill up your bottles with free, crazy cold water. It is great.
Sidepoint 2: The bad thing about Rome is that apparently you can get hit in the crotch by subway doors.
Nobody wants that
Inside the Pantheon
The next day was again relax-focused. We headed back to Traverse for lunch, found another park to read in, stopped by Scholar’s Lounge for a couple mid-day pints of beer, and headed to the Pantheon. This is supposedly the best preserved piece of Roman architecture because it is the only place to be used continuously since its construction. And impressive it was. Also, the first and second Kings of Italy are buried here, along with the artist Raphael.
We then decided it was a good idea to sit under the columns of Pantheon and read. And apparently two mid day pints makes Blake sleepy, so what better place to take a quick nap than on the front porch of a nearly 2,000 year old structure. Very relaxing.
Perfect place for a nap
We had our last meal of Rome at another amazing place. I think Rome has given us the third best food, behind Paris and Cinque Terra. Everything has been delicious. And of course, our final Italian gelato.
The final gelato
We are now on our last train headed to Zurich, and one night away from flying back to Dallas. We will have a Europe wrap up post later, but I can tell you it has been a great experience and one that we will never forget. At least for me. Kristi is passed out in the chair across from me, so I can’t speak for her at the moment.
UPDATE: On the train, this 5th grader was bawling in some other language a few rows behind us. It had been going for about 15 minutes straight. This is my imitation of them. If you turn up the volume, you can hear them crying over our childish snickers.
