My travel saga 2012 - post #4 Rome & Pompeii
After the crazy and amazing convention that was Jibcon, it was off to the heart of Rome and I can say now that I am in love with Rome.
I started this trip apprehensive (let's be honest and call it scared) but left Rome delighted with the wonderful Eternal City. I had no negative incidents, fear of pickpockets being one concern that the guide books all warn about, getting lost another and not being able to speak the language the final. I was careful with my purse and/or backpack while out in public; relied on maps, good signage and the locals when I was unsure of directions; and found that most people spoke English at least enough for me to get my message across.
Even after the experience at the convention, the challenging thing for me was the personal space, comfort zone that is so different in Italy. People crowd behind, push past or butt in front of others without an excuse me that I am so used to. Once I accepted that as the cultural norm and as someone said I should just go with the flow, which granted took me a couple of days (and I admit, I'd still feel my shoulders start to rise when the invasion started but then I would turn on my Italian mode), I was fine.
I had met up with Amanda, a friend I had met at a Chicago convention, at the tail end of the Jibcon convention and we headed off together on Monday morning into Rome, grabbing the train from the hotel to the main station and walked to our respective hotels. That afternoon we got together & spent time wandering around visiting churches and believe me, there is no lack of them, all unique in their own way and grabbing a bite to eat. At the entry to a museum which was unfortunately closed by the time we arrived, we chatted with a man, a surgeon from New York who had just taken a repositioning cruise. He encouraged us to see the Church of the Resurrection, or as it is colloquially called, the Church of Bones because it is filled with people's bones but I unfortunately never did find it. That was the start of the creep factor. The wandering that day involved a lot of stairs and the one thing we never got to was the Spanish Steps because we were finally too spent that day. It was a good tired though.
The day that was planned to be a focus on ancient Rome did not turn out we planned as nobody told us that the city except for the churches closes on May 1 so there was no getting into the coliseum, the forum or onto palatine hill. We made do walking around outside it anyway and I was still a happy camper. But I think I wore Amanda out because she was done after hours of me going 'oooo, rocks!' Lol! We did stop at a cafe and shared a yummy pizza Margherita (which incidentally was originally made for Queen Margherita, the first Italian queen and is tomato sauce, a rarity on Italian pizza, lots of cheese, and salami) near the oldest temple to Vesta when the skies opened up and poured on us. It had been so hot that morning so it was almost a blessing.
I spent evenings wandering the main street near my hotel enjoying the ambience of the night, stopping and grabbing a baguette and cheese or other such for dinner and window shopping. No room in my suitcase for all the lovely things I would have loved to have grabbed.
I had a Vatican tour booked for the morning of May 2 and holy hell (pun intended), it was so busy. May 1st, in addition to being May day, it was the one year anniversary of the beatification of John Paul II so there had been many pilgrims into the city who managed to stay for the following day as well. I am so glad I booked a tour as our group didn't have to wait in any lines. Well worth the money in my mind and I got lots of info about the stuff in the Vatican museum, the Sistine chapel and Saint Peter's. Words cannot describe how in awe I am of everything I saw there. I had originally been rather indifferent about going but felt I couldn't visit Rome without a trip there. The artwork throughout the museum ranges from Greek statues to renaissance frescoes, tapestries and paintings to modern artwork including Dali. We toured through old papal apartments, one of which was the Borgia pope's. All depictions of that pope have been removed as he was not exactly a favorite, politically or morally. The Sistine chapel is breathtaking. The guide had given us an introduction to the art on the walls and ceiling but seeing it, well there are no words to adequately describe it. Standing under the ceiling that Michelangelo created by himself, under the creation painting of God giving life to Adam, rose goosebumps all over. The Last Judgement which sits behind the altar has so much detail and passion in it. Finally, I visited St. Peter's. The sumptuous marble floors, the sculptures, the building, the stained glass with the dove representing the holy spirit...again, no adequate words. The Pieta, the sculpture of Mary cradling the dead body of her son stands in the first alcove as you enter the building. Close to that is a chapel dedicated to the late pope John Paul II, the one mentioned above. They have brought him up from the floor below where most of the other popes have been laid to rest due to his beatification. While they have not yet opened his crypt, there are at least two other popes whose bodies are actually on display. The second creep factor to me and the bodies are a very dark grey looking like plastic, not real. Ah, the mysteries of the Catholic Church. All in all, the visit was fantastic, getting to see all the stories of the Christian church told in the art.
Then as it was only 2:30 and I had dinner plans my con friends, two women from Britain Holly, her friend Cat and Amanda from the States but not until 7pm, I figured I'd have a go at seeing the inside of the Coliseum if I could. Off I went and hooked up with a tour outside which turned out to be fantastic. The first guide for the inside of coliseum was Italian and so knowledgable about the history. Damn near killed me trying to run up the stairs at her pace though and I wasn't the only one huffing and puffing at the top of the stairs. I just kept telling myself that if I could do the hills on Hadrian's wall last year, I could bloody well make it up the stairs of the coliseum. So glad I went back for a second try at ancient Rome. The second part of the tour was led by a hilarious Brit ex-pat, Elena who has lived in Rome for 5 years and knows her history and is very passionate about it. In addition to being funny, she was my contemporary and wore a Hello Kitty t-shirt. Gotta love it.
She had some interesting stories about ancient Rome including one about the Vestal Virgins, the woman who were essentially priestesses of the goddess Vesta which I thought interesting. These priestesses were selected at an age between 6 and 10 from upper class families and served for 30 years at which time they could either stay as priestesses or return to the world as such. They were tasked with keeping the fires to Vesta burning and if they let the fire go out, they were punished by being flogged. They were also required to be celibate and if it was discovered that they had not been, primarily if they got pregnant, they were put to death. The problem with that sentence was that it was a heinous crime to harm a Vestal Virgin so the way they got around that was to bury them leaving their heads and presumably their arms free and placing in front of them a loaf of bread and some wine and leaving them. So they basically starved to death or died from dehydration.
After Elena left us, I wandered around the Forum taking far too many pictures and chatted with a couple from Las Vegas who had been in the tour group.
After meeting up with the group for the purpose of dinner, we wandered around the back streets with Cat in the lead attempting to find a suitable restaurant. After a great dinner of pasta, and SPN talk, it was off to find gelato. The goal was a place close to the Trevi fountain so I got to see it for the third time and this time lit up at night. It was as crowded as the prior two times I'd visited the location but a great time shared with fun people. And the gelato was as good as promised by my friends.
The next day was the trip to Naples and Pompeii and I had an early start. Naples, at least the small part our tour took us to was very industrialized, it being one of the two major port cities of Italy. We did get a short walking tour and saw some excavations which while they were done to expand the subway line, found evidence of the Ancient Roman settlement so that was interesting. The town centre square was gorgeous, mostly 18th century architecture and it also has a medieval castle close to the port. After that whirlwind tour, we headed for Pompeii. Lunch was included as part of the tour and I sat with two lovely women from Scotland (one actually lives in Spain now and was traveling with her aunt from Edinburgh,) and another woman from Connecticut who was going to visit some distant relatives in a small town outside of Rome for the first time.
Then the tour of Pompeii began. I won't bore with a step by step account but will say that the excavation was beyond anything I'd expected. It is huge compared to anything else I've seen like it. The city was buried under 7 meters of ash from the volcano in 79 AD and is in astounding condition. Yes, most of it is in ruins but there are still frescoes visible with brilliant colors and original marble floors and marble cisterns. Most of the statues and artifacts have been removed to museums of course but they have done a restoration of one house (still has parts of the frescoes on its walls) and also the baths which covered a huge area. The forum here has Vesuvius as a backdrop and my jaw dropped when I first walked into the area. They also have plaster castings of the bodies, or rather the hollows in the ashes that had been formed by the bodies that were caught in the eruption. Another bit of a creep factor but fascinating. Suffice it to say, the tour of these ruins was another highlight for me.
We returned to Rome and I wandered back to the hotel, feeling completely at ease walking the streets alone. I definitely want to return to Italy and Rome for sure. There is so much more to see that I did not do. Absolutely wonderful and I was sad when I left.
But, there were and are more adventures in store.
I started this trip apprehensive (let's be honest and call it scared) but left Rome delighted with the wonderful Eternal City. I had no negative incidents, fear of pickpockets being one concern that the guide books all warn about, getting lost another and not being able to speak the language the final. I was careful with my purse and/or backpack while out in public; relied on maps, good signage and the locals when I was unsure of directions; and found that most people spoke English at least enough for me to get my message across.
Even after the experience at the convention, the challenging thing for me was the personal space, comfort zone that is so different in Italy. People crowd behind, push past or butt in front of others without an excuse me that I am so used to. Once I accepted that as the cultural norm and as someone said I should just go with the flow, which granted took me a couple of days (and I admit, I'd still feel my shoulders start to rise when the invasion started but then I would turn on my Italian mode), I was fine.
I had met up with Amanda, a friend I had met at a Chicago convention, at the tail end of the Jibcon convention and we headed off together on Monday morning into Rome, grabbing the train from the hotel to the main station and walked to our respective hotels. That afternoon we got together & spent time wandering around visiting churches and believe me, there is no lack of them, all unique in their own way and grabbing a bite to eat. At the entry to a museum which was unfortunately closed by the time we arrived, we chatted with a man, a surgeon from New York who had just taken a repositioning cruise. He encouraged us to see the Church of the Resurrection, or as it is colloquially called, the Church of Bones because it is filled with people's bones but I unfortunately never did find it. That was the start of the creep factor. The wandering that day involved a lot of stairs and the one thing we never got to was the Spanish Steps because we were finally too spent that day. It was a good tired though.
The day that was planned to be a focus on ancient Rome did not turn out we planned as nobody told us that the city except for the churches closes on May 1 so there was no getting into the coliseum, the forum or onto palatine hill. We made do walking around outside it anyway and I was still a happy camper. But I think I wore Amanda out because she was done after hours of me going 'oooo, rocks!' Lol! We did stop at a cafe and shared a yummy pizza Margherita (which incidentally was originally made for Queen Margherita, the first Italian queen and is tomato sauce, a rarity on Italian pizza, lots of cheese, and salami) near the oldest temple to Vesta when the skies opened up and poured on us. It had been so hot that morning so it was almost a blessing.
I spent evenings wandering the main street near my hotel enjoying the ambience of the night, stopping and grabbing a baguette and cheese or other such for dinner and window shopping. No room in my suitcase for all the lovely things I would have loved to have grabbed.
I had a Vatican tour booked for the morning of May 2 and holy hell (pun intended), it was so busy. May 1st, in addition to being May day, it was the one year anniversary of the beatification of John Paul II so there had been many pilgrims into the city who managed to stay for the following day as well. I am so glad I booked a tour as our group didn't have to wait in any lines. Well worth the money in my mind and I got lots of info about the stuff in the Vatican museum, the Sistine chapel and Saint Peter's. Words cannot describe how in awe I am of everything I saw there. I had originally been rather indifferent about going but felt I couldn't visit Rome without a trip there. The artwork throughout the museum ranges from Greek statues to renaissance frescoes, tapestries and paintings to modern artwork including Dali. We toured through old papal apartments, one of which was the Borgia pope's. All depictions of that pope have been removed as he was not exactly a favorite, politically or morally. The Sistine chapel is breathtaking. The guide had given us an introduction to the art on the walls and ceiling but seeing it, well there are no words to adequately describe it. Standing under the ceiling that Michelangelo created by himself, under the creation painting of God giving life to Adam, rose goosebumps all over. The Last Judgement which sits behind the altar has so much detail and passion in it. Finally, I visited St. Peter's. The sumptuous marble floors, the sculptures, the building, the stained glass with the dove representing the holy spirit...again, no adequate words. The Pieta, the sculpture of Mary cradling the dead body of her son stands in the first alcove as you enter the building. Close to that is a chapel dedicated to the late pope John Paul II, the one mentioned above. They have brought him up from the floor below where most of the other popes have been laid to rest due to his beatification. While they have not yet opened his crypt, there are at least two other popes whose bodies are actually on display. The second creep factor to me and the bodies are a very dark grey looking like plastic, not real. Ah, the mysteries of the Catholic Church. All in all, the visit was fantastic, getting to see all the stories of the Christian church told in the art.
Then as it was only 2:30 and I had dinner plans my con friends, two women from Britain Holly, her friend Cat and Amanda from the States but not until 7pm, I figured I'd have a go at seeing the inside of the Coliseum if I could. Off I went and hooked up with a tour outside which turned out to be fantastic. The first guide for the inside of coliseum was Italian and so knowledgable about the history. Damn near killed me trying to run up the stairs at her pace though and I wasn't the only one huffing and puffing at the top of the stairs. I just kept telling myself that if I could do the hills on Hadrian's wall last year, I could bloody well make it up the stairs of the coliseum. So glad I went back for a second try at ancient Rome. The second part of the tour was led by a hilarious Brit ex-pat, Elena who has lived in Rome for 5 years and knows her history and is very passionate about it. In addition to being funny, she was my contemporary and wore a Hello Kitty t-shirt. Gotta love it.
She had some interesting stories about ancient Rome including one about the Vestal Virgins, the woman who were essentially priestesses of the goddess Vesta which I thought interesting. These priestesses were selected at an age between 6 and 10 from upper class families and served for 30 years at which time they could either stay as priestesses or return to the world as such. They were tasked with keeping the fires to Vesta burning and if they let the fire go out, they were punished by being flogged. They were also required to be celibate and if it was discovered that they had not been, primarily if they got pregnant, they were put to death. The problem with that sentence was that it was a heinous crime to harm a Vestal Virgin so the way they got around that was to bury them leaving their heads and presumably their arms free and placing in front of them a loaf of bread and some wine and leaving them. So they basically starved to death or died from dehydration.
After Elena left us, I wandered around the Forum taking far too many pictures and chatted with a couple from Las Vegas who had been in the tour group.
After meeting up with the group for the purpose of dinner, we wandered around the back streets with Cat in the lead attempting to find a suitable restaurant. After a great dinner of pasta, and SPN talk, it was off to find gelato. The goal was a place close to the Trevi fountain so I got to see it for the third time and this time lit up at night. It was as crowded as the prior two times I'd visited the location but a great time shared with fun people. And the gelato was as good as promised by my friends.
The next day was the trip to Naples and Pompeii and I had an early start. Naples, at least the small part our tour took us to was very industrialized, it being one of the two major port cities of Italy. We did get a short walking tour and saw some excavations which while they were done to expand the subway line, found evidence of the Ancient Roman settlement so that was interesting. The town centre square was gorgeous, mostly 18th century architecture and it also has a medieval castle close to the port. After that whirlwind tour, we headed for Pompeii. Lunch was included as part of the tour and I sat with two lovely women from Scotland (one actually lives in Spain now and was traveling with her aunt from Edinburgh,) and another woman from Connecticut who was going to visit some distant relatives in a small town outside of Rome for the first time.
Then the tour of Pompeii began. I won't bore with a step by step account but will say that the excavation was beyond anything I'd expected. It is huge compared to anything else I've seen like it. The city was buried under 7 meters of ash from the volcano in 79 AD and is in astounding condition. Yes, most of it is in ruins but there are still frescoes visible with brilliant colors and original marble floors and marble cisterns. Most of the statues and artifacts have been removed to museums of course but they have done a restoration of one house (still has parts of the frescoes on its walls) and also the baths which covered a huge area. The forum here has Vesuvius as a backdrop and my jaw dropped when I first walked into the area. They also have plaster castings of the bodies, or rather the hollows in the ashes that had been formed by the bodies that were caught in the eruption. Another bit of a creep factor but fascinating. Suffice it to say, the tour of these ruins was another highlight for me.
We returned to Rome and I wandered back to the hotel, feeling completely at ease walking the streets alone. I definitely want to return to Italy and Rome for sure. There is so much more to see that I did not do. Absolutely wonderful and I was sad when I left.
But, there were and are more adventures in store.