Rome day 1

Rome – the final leg of the race… the last stop of our journey… the city that concludes our adventure.

Just going to start the blog off the right way. Rome was the best!!! Easily.

 

Now when we say best, we mean best tourist city. We don’t think we could live here, but if you want to visit a city rich in culture, has modern and ancient history side by side, great food, the Catholic church, and many other perks, Rome is the place to be. Even though we are feeling the fatigue of our trip, Rome kept us going. Every corner brought something new. Two days was not enough, but we explored from sun up to sun down and got as much out of it as possible (hence the late blog updates). Proof that Rome was a great tourist city was done by counting the number photos we took during the day. Even though we were conserving our batteries, we took 50 more pictures than the 2^nd highest city (Paris). That says enough.

We arrived into Rome late. We were hoping to see the city at night but we ran into some complications with our hotel. After getting everything sorted, we just went to bed.

We got up early on Friday morning to beat the lines into the Coliseum and the ancient ruins (Palatine Hill and Roman Forum). Thankfully, this portion of the trip was dedicated by Steven’s recently deceased uncle Tim. Thanks Tim! [On a side note, Amanda’s temporarily cell phone service in Rome is TIM – not sure what it stands for, but it was ironic and very fitting]. Our plan worked. We got the combo ticket for all sites without any wait. First we headed to Palatine Hill. There we saw the old buildings of Rome back in the 100s-300s AD. As you can see, its’ just bricks laying around in formation to what once was. It was fun to try and imagine the city life back then or games preformed at the stadiums. A museum on the grounds played a interesting movie that depicted the structures back then. They showed shining white marble floors, columns, fountains, and hot spring baths.

View from Palatine hill - that is St Peters

Inside one of their museums.

 

We then made our way to the Roman Forum. This part of the city was preserved from a later time period. Here we could imagine shops, a town hall, and large buildings from the tiny remnants left over. There was a couple small museums close to the forum that we briefly walked through too.

Up next was “The Beast.” Its the place where everlasting entertainment for the greatest of all took place and its one of the wonders of the ancient world. It upheld on its own pedestal. It’s the one and only, Thy Coliseum. It was truly a mighty beast (Steven’s word). 

Since we bought the combo pass, we skipped the hour wait and walked right in. Because we have seen numerous pictures of the place, there was not a huge “WoW,” but that did not belittle its greatness. The place was massive. Just as an example, the 2000 year old structure housed attendances similar to that of the Manchester City soccer stadium that we went to 3 weeks ago. Now that is a wonder.  

While inside, we spent over an hour and a half walking around, taking pictures, and reading some interesting facts about the place. It said that 500,000 people and 1 million animals died at that stadium. It wasn’t until the Catholic church stepped in, did it stop. Similar to the ruins, it was fun to point out sections of the Coliseum to each other and pretend what and who used to be there. Can you imagine how many people in the world over the last 2000 years has been or seen that place? It’s quite astonishing and humbling to think about it.

We tried our best to duplicate Steven’s brother (Tom) Coliseum picture when he visited it a couple years back. Steven had a mental picture of the background of Tom’s picture, but once inside it was hard to do.  We are curious to compare Tom’s picture when we return to see the difference.

(If this one is from a different, don’t worry we took a few just to make sure)

We spent 6 hours and half hours of the day at the 2 attractions. With 12 or so different attractions left on the itinerary we had to move on. From there, we stabbed westward. We walked along more ancient ruins, but didn’t have time to learn about them. Just a block away was one of the main gov’t buildings. It was made up of white marble and had a good selection of bronze statues on its steps. It was very easy to see that Romans are proud of their past. We were able to climb up 4 stories and had an okay view of the city.

Next we walked to a plaza (Plaza de Flori) that was on the map. When we arrived we noticed it was a market filled with venders selling fresh produce. In the center was a statue of scary monk (because his cloak hood was over his head). Nothing too special. However, if someone asked Steven a specific question 20 years from now, the conversation might go as so…

“Hey Steven!”

“Hey, What’s up?”

“Not much. Remember when you went to Rome and you visited Plaza de Flori?”

“Yeah.” Steven replied with a confused look on his face.

“Well, what do you remember the most?”

Without thinking Steven replied, “Having Joe Montana’s wife yell at me!”

Yeah… that happened. Joe Montana's wife yelled at Steven. But it’s not what you think. Let’s take it from the top. So, we were walking through the market when Steven noticed Joe Montana. He didn’t have any doubts. It was clear as day. It was the hall of famer and all time football legend in Rome. Steven quickly took off his camera and was going to give it to Amanda to take a picture of the 2 of them. Then, Steven’s conscience stepped in and thought it would be rude to invade his vacation. Therefore, Steven kept the camera and was going to snap a quick photo of just him. Even though Steven was sly about the situation, Joe Montana knew he was spotted. Steven tried to take a frontal photo, but Montana turned around and hid is face in a map.  

His wife and another lady also hid him. So, Steven nonchalantly tried to go around him and take a picture from the other side. At the time, Steven didn’t think he was spotted and still wanted a picture. When Steven walked around to his front side, Joe Montana quickly turned around and hid his face again. Hmmm… was it bad luck that he kept turning around or did Joe Montana catch on? Steven tried to aim for a shot of Joe Montana’s backside when all of a sudden he made eye contact with Joe Montana’s wife. With a frustrated look on her face she mouthed the word “No” a couple times. Steven heart started racing and a quick sweat started from his forehead. It was clear to Steven that he has been spotted and kindly agreed to not take a photo. As Steven walked 10 steps away he thought that he didn’t want to regret the moment and had to get some proof. So he stopped, turned around, and snapped a picture from a far. Haha.  Steven felt bad that he inflected a stressful moment to them. From Joe Montana’s wife’s expression, it’s seemed that Steven wasn’t the first one to spot him. (In the picture on the left he was wearing the plaid shorts) Oh well.

Next stop was Plaza de Navona. It’s a large rectangle square with current artists displaying their work and 3 famous fountains. We took photos of the them and walked through the galleries.

By this time, we have been touring Rome for an entire day and were getting tired. However, we knew that there was a free walking tour at 530 that had high reviews on TripAdvisor.com. Because of the fatigue and dehydration, it was a hard decision. But, like the famous quote from Anchorman, “When in Rome,” we saddled up and decided to do it.

First, we needed to refuel and hydrate ourselves. The long morning in the sun visiting the ruins and Coliseum took a tole on us (plus the 3 weeks leading up to this point). But, we did like the Romans and made the best of the moment. We joined the 530 tour and had a blast. The older gentleman has done the same solo tour everyday of the week for years. Even after giving tours for that long we could tell he loved his job. He showed his love for his city with his great enthusiasm and filling us in on hidden gems of Rome.The best part is that the tour visited a section of Rome that we haven’t explored yet. So it worked out great.

We first started by the Spanish steps. It’s a popular hangout for locals and tourist alike. There he gave us some history of Rome and summarized the tour for us. From there we headed out. He gave some insights into Roman culture and history.

Next to the Spanish Steps was a column with Mary on the top. They add flowers to the statue once a year, and the square is filled with people as a selected fireman gets the honors.

The 2.5 hour tour’s first major stop was a church. It was very plain from the outside but the inside was nothing but. We would have never known of its beauty if it wasn’t for the guide. Inside, there were famous religious paintings and sculptures. He gave us history to it, and we moved on.

Very detailed statue of an angel holding the crown of thorns.

Dome painting...

Rome has free water all over the city. Everyone uses it to fill up their water bottles during the hot days. The Romans knew the secret to retrieve water without having a water bottle and our tour guide told us how. Amanda demonstrates how to properly use two fingers to plug the bottom and allow the water flow upwards out of a hole. Amanda did it every chance she could. 

This is a column with Emperor Maximus at the top. Along the side of the column is a famous story. Its a story that most people should know. It's about the war at the beginning of the movie the Gladiator when Russell Crowe was the general.

Here is 2000 year old columns that were preserved and used as decoration for the side of a building. I don't think there is any of those in the US. haha

We saw a few more things before he hit up another church. This one was unique. The painting on the ceiling was an illusion. It was painted on a flat ceiling that appeared to go up. There was also a painting of a dome, when there wasn’t one… kinda cool. Guess you had to be there.

Here is our guide's favorite statue. Its by his famous artist Bernini.

Next we stopped by the Pantheon. It’s a 2000 year old temple. Its dome is only 1 meter smaller than St Peters (Vatican City – the largest). That is incredible considering its so old. Another ancient Roman wonder.

One of the interesting things about the dome is that there is big hole in the top.  This helps connect heaven and earth and cools the temple by allowing the hot air escape the top. They also had Raphel’s preserved body there (more on him tomorrow).

Last stop was the greatest fountain in Rome, The Trevi Fountian. Seeing this fountain for the first time had the “Wow” factor to it, simply because of its size. You see, Rome trys to display their wealth by having many fountain in the city. Up to this point, we have see many fountains, but when we saw Trevi, we were impressed. It’s a fountain of the Ocean God and guys restraining horses.

The tradition is to throw coins behind you with your right hand over your heart/shoulder into the fountain. Thus, we did.

We then went to get some food and came back to eat while we watched the lights come on as it got dark.

On the way back to hotel, we stopped by a couple more fountains. This was the Tritone Fountain. Pretty cool.















The last fountain was in front of a current gov't building. It was dark outside, but the green lights added a cool backdrop.