There's a palace in the middle of the street.
Trip Start
May 16, 2006
1
5
33
Trip End
Jun 13, 2006
Rome,
Italy
Saturday, May 20, 2006
Yesterday had perfect weather. There is no way it could have been nicer for exploring Rome. About 76°F with a light breeze. We stopped for lunch outside at a ristorante just down the street - expensive, but the pasta was excellent. I got something I can't remember the name of with mussels and tomatos and cheese and an oil/garlic based sauce and Sarah got spaghetti with meat sauce. I also had my first cappucino - yep, there really is no comparison with Starbucks. While we were eating, a huge table of tourists sat down behind us, and a guy proceeded to ask what spaghetti with meat sauce was. The waiter's response, "It's...spaghetti. With meat sauce." and then he went on about how you make pasta for a minute.
From there, we took sort of a roundabout way to the Colosseum, so that when we ended up the road leading into the Domus Aurea area, I was paused with my nose in a map telling Sarah to check the street signs, when all of a sudden I figured out that if I just turned to my right and looked down the street I could probably see it. Yup. Surreal. We headed in to the area, took a billion pictures of every bit of interesting ruin we could find and stopped some tourists to take pictures of us. (The actual Domus Aurea - Nero's golden house - was closed for restauration (sic).) On the way across the street from there to the actual Colosseum building itself, I stopped to take a shot of a ruin in the median of the street with a gelato stand in the background.
An impressive building at the Forums
Ahh. We love Rome.The Colosseum line wasn't bad, and we got to see some guys dressed up like gladiators harassing the tourists and a couple of monks, actual, I think, walking briskly somewhere (I assume the Vatican). I managed to get one rather poor shot of the monks and the gladiators in the same picture.
The Colosseum itself is just HUGE. There's really no other way to describe it. I was more interested in the architecture and vaulting, and Sarah was more interested in the history. Evidently according to the Discovery Channel, if the Romans had filled up the bottom with water, they could have had ships there. Multiple. That's how big it was. We saw the whole thing, avoiding the hordes (which could have been *much* worse) and I looked for quite some time for a wall with any sort of crumbling, but the whole thing was worn smooth, except for bits of the mortar which just fell away at a touch.
Oh, and remember my little "airport alarm faux-pas" from the other day? Sarah set off an alarm at the Colosseum by getting too close to one of the statues of Greek philosophers. Evidently you don't even have to *touch* them. It's kind of a contest to see who can manage to get us thrown out of the country first.
Since that took much longer than a paragraph in real time, I was sort of ruin-ed out by the time we were done, so decided to skip the Forums and the Palatine for the day. We had some gelato from a street vendor (lemon and pistachio) and started heading in the direction of the Trevi Fountain.
Arch of Constantine
We passed so many palaces and churches and monuments on the way there is no way I could recall them without retracing my steps with a notebook. We found the Consulate for Swaziland and took as many detours as we could down the side alleys (sometimes having to backtrack). We took one of these little quiet alleys into the piazza where the Fountain was and were immediately assaulted by the sheer number of people. Did the coin thing and left in a hurry. As we were leaving, we saw another group of tourists coming that were all wearing yellow hats. If that weren't bad enough, the leader was carrying a stuffed flower with a smiley face on a stick, that she waved above her head when she wanted them to follow her. What possesses grown people to think any of that's a good idea?Avoiding the Yellow Hat people, we turned down another alley, upon which time, we got promptly lost. (Whenever we'd see the Yellow Hat people coming, we'd duck down another alley.) An hour or two later, we emerged near a shop where we tried to activate the cell phones, which sent us to another shop down the way. Eventually we got the cell phones activated without speaking a word of Italian other than "registrazione," bought a converter, and went back in search of the Spanish steps. There was a brief pause for a bathroom and cannoli break in Barberini square, I think, then we proceeded on. We actually came upon the steps at the top, rather by surprise, and went "This is it?" A sign asked you not to litter, defecate, or sing.
Colosseum from the east
So we immediately sang the first two lines of "Do, a Deer." Did not feel like violating the other part of the edict. There was an interesting looking obelisk at the top, but the whole church was under construction, so we basically just walked down the stairs, took a picture, and continued on. There was a brief pause while I tried to work out where Byron and Keats lived, but no dice.At this point, we had been walking for about seven hours, so I suggested we take the subway back, as there was a station directly under the steps. Talk about an experience that's as far from the London Tube as possible. People were physically pushing each other trying to get just a tiny bit more space in a car so they could squeeze on. Luckily, the train ride itself only took maybe six minutes, and we were let out at the Termini Stazione, right by Maian B&B.
After we rested for a while and I puttered with paperwork so long Sarah was about ready to tear her hair out (Record-keeping and scheduling are important!), we went out to find a pizzeria for supper since we'd spent so much on lunch. Found one we approved of very close to Maian, took the pizza back, and ate it leaning out our enormous window and people watching. An accordion player was serenading outside our window to the customers at the trattoria there. The pizza was good, but I'm not sure if it was anything spectacular. Possibly I just have no palate for pizza. I also made the comment that we hadn't had any wine *yet,*" closely followed by the comment, "And...we've been here less than 24 hours. I guess that's not that bad." It just feels like we've been here for ages already. In the good way.
Finally, we became curious enough about the nationality of the people at one of the tables below to put our shoes back on to go "subtly" wander by their table. Turns out, they were a mix of British and Italian.
Since we were already out, we decided to try and figure out where all those people we'd seen walking past were going. Turns out, it was to an intercultural fair (reminding me kind of of the Serenata Yucateca in Merida or Cancun's fairs), where we finally found positions up on a hill to watch the Indian dancer with her drummers. We missed the fire eater, due to the press of people around. Hundreds, at least.
After all of this, I practically fell asleep getting ready for bed. We really, really like Rome. Possibly even more than London.
(ETA: London pics are up both here and flickr.)
ETA: Pics up! Samples here, full set at flickr, see link below.
