Day three gets it's own post
Day Three
Day three was advertized to us as the March of Death. It was told to us that it was going to be an 8 hour walking tour of the city's closer places of interest. Many churches, statuary, famous places, good food, all that jazz. Now, I am all about walking. I really am. I like to walk and I came to Italy prepared to walk so this never seemed like anything than a pretty cool way to get to know the city. Even after my realization that the stairs are EVERYwhere, I was looking forward to it. There were quite a few stops that were on my agenda of things to see plus a lot of pretty churches advertized; I was all in.
Yet, sometimes reality just manages to laugh in the face of advertizing.
I will preface all by saying that it really was an interesting trip all in all. We led a winding path through the city and visited a large number of churches, monuments and tourist sites. You could not ask for more in terms of interesting content on a tour of an ancient city. Nor, all in all, was there a terrible amount of distance that we covered. Instead, much of the time was dealt with pausing to discuss content plus a couple breaks and lunch in addition to the times we spent in free tour of the churches. So for an 8 hour tour, we weren’t walking the entire time.
That defense being properly made, good Lord, that was rough.
The problem wasn’t so much the distance as much as it was the standing. Being part of an educational group, each stop was filled with the informational tidbits that would make such a trip worthwhile. I would honestly criticize anyone who gave such a tour and didn’t do the same. However, even though the day started out quite beautiful, it soon gave way to a hotter humidity and some of the areas we stopped in were less open to the near constant breezes that make that sort of weather bearable. So standing in the middle of the sun was a bit more than any educationally minded person can stand for too long. Add to it that I already knew much of what was being discussed through previous classes and self study and the knowledge that whatever I missed could also be looked up later online and my attention span began to shrink to the point of nothingness. I was already focused on taking pictures but by the time afternoon rolled around I was out of battery life and close to being out of patience (as were many of my classmates). Plus, Dr. Behr, bless him, had a tendency to sprint between spots making it a sort of game of catch up for anyone who paused to take a picture or buy a souvenir or what not.
We did stop to have lunch at the Parthenon and gelato at Trevi Fountain, plus water at the Spanish Steps (though images of Gunslinger Girl-esque assassinations kept popping up in my head from time to time amusing me in strange ways) and having the time to appreciate those sights as well as the wonderful food was amazing. But when we got to the end of our little tour, I, with my magically wonderful shoes that EVERYONE criticized my buying, was the only one not actively complaining about hurt feet. Also, since the route WAS so circuitous and so little of it was marked on our rather sad maps, I was completely disoriented and had no idea where to go. So when the suggestion came to go look at a couple other churches, I was fine with that, beauty always being one of my favorite draws.
Yet, there in possibly lay the mistake. See, the Death March was actually cut shorter from its original version. Two churches were taken off and the long walk back on foot was cut to allow for self exploration and use of public transportation. When we doubled back to see the churches we missed (which were admittedly fantastically beautiful), we also lost track of which bus to take back. So instead we wound up returning on foot, in the direct sunlight. All in all, our day was some 9+ hours long and we got to boast making the FULL Death March, which we did by walking back out and back down a few blocks to a fancy ristorante with Professor Costello in tow to join in our toast to those who survived it all.