Round The World: Rome - the ancient, bustling, modern, touristic city with gelato

Crowds at Trevi Fountain

Alright – trying to play proper catch up and finish off Italy as I’m technically already out of Italy and out of Hungary and sitting in Prague remembering what was happening (well that was now yesterday when I started writing this blog).

So Rome. The ancient city we’ve all heard so much about, from Biblical times all the way through to the films of Jason Bourne and Jumper.

Trevi Fountain

Whereas Venice was a city apparently only alive due to tourism, Rome is a bustling metropolis made up of all the characters that one would expect to find in a city. Traveling via public transport is the best way to see the local people. From the creepy man who uses the squash of public transport to put his hands where they don’t belong, to the “Hello Father” and deep theological discussions coming from a Nun who just boarded the bus. It’s a complete city which just happens to have some of the main tourist attractions in Italy – oh and it also happens to have another country inside it. Not too many cities in the world can claim that!

Pantheon

When I arrived, I needed to take the metro to my hostel, and clutching all my stuff to keep it safe in the metro, I found my way into a street that looked a little like down town Jo’burg with tall buildings and graffiti covering the walls. It didn’t look all that great, but the hostel was lovely and clean. Quite small actually with only 3 rooms, a ladies dorm, a mixed dorm and a private twin room. There I was met by Fabio and his brother – also ending in an “io” and “Mama”, their Mom. Mama was a typical Italian lady who made the most stunning pizza which we got a taste of while we were cooking our own dinner. She was large (but on diet), friendly and couldn’t speak much, if any, English. They assured me that the area was actually quite safe – just muggers who come out at 2am so I didn’t have any problems.

Sophie, me and Katie by the Trevi fountain

The first night the girls, Sophie and Katie, in my dorm were heading out for supper and invited me along. (I know it’s called dinner or tea in some areas of the world. I found out that supper in some cultures is the biscuit you have before bed to tide you through to the morning.) Only hitch was that we were heading out at 20:30 and the metro closed at 21:00. So it would be the night bus back for us. I trusted their sense of direction and ability to get us back home and we eventually found our way past the Trevi fountain (crowded with tourists) and the Pantheon to a restaurant called (I think) Macaroni. There we shared 3 different pastas. Our agreed favourite was gnocchi with a cheese and pear sauce. Yum!

Dinner! Yum...

After dinner, it was more sightseeing and of course the quest to find the essential ice cream shop. This one was more memorable than normal as we had some flirting guys serving us. Sophie ended up with about 6 taster spoons in her hand before actually buying any ice cream. Not bad. The flavours were also various and one named a PG rated name (I have young readers…) which they insisted we try - it tasted like candyfloss. We visited the Piazza Navona which used to be a chariot racing track and is now full of artists and fountains. We also decided it was required to re-visit the Trevi fountain now at night time with lights.

After searching for about 5 minutes we found the night bus we needed to get back to the hostel. The trouble was in knowing when to get off. The bus had no signage of which station was next and it only stopped if you pressed a little button telling the driver you wanted to get off. So, issue. Well, the others said that once they saw a certain set of arches, it would be the next stop. This took us off all the maps I had with me, but anyways. Katie ended up chatting to one of the men on the bus and he ended up leading us to the hostel, he happened to live next door. I was a little nervous of this stranger, but I have to say he was true to his word and a complete gentleman. And sure enough, he disappeared into the building opposite ours. Katie had good fun practicing her Italian with him.

Colosseum

My second day in Rome, I teamed up with our 4^th roommate to visit the Colosseum. Helen was from England / Scotland – a complex story where she is Scottish with an English accent living in Scotland in an area where the English accent is not always very welcome. She had a typical UK dry, cynical sense of humour. Rather good fun. She also knew about geocaching but wasn’t that good in keeping the fact that she was geocaching secret. We managed to find a number of caches including at the Colosseum and Trevi fountain.

The Forum

Me with make-shift hat as I seem to have lost mine

One thing I didn’t realise before I went to the Colosseum is that this ruin is only a tiny fragment of the ruins in the area. The Forum is right across the road to the Colosseum and is massive complex. This was originally the place where the government sat and where really important people lived (city centre) and also included a couple of temples to the old Roman gods. The Forum and the Colosseum is all one museum and a trick of the traveller is to go to the Forum first and buy the ticket there without the long queues. So that is what we did. The audio guide we got was a waste of time as none of the ruins were marked with numbers, so we had no idea when to listen to what and kept getting lost.

Inside the Colosseum

Proof I was there

At the Colosseum we managed to get a proper tour guide for which was really good. This stadium could seat (approximate now due to my memory being like a sieve) 25000 people. It was open to all the Roman citizens and of course the women had to sit in the “lowest class” seats right near the top. There were shows on every day. Various beasts that would be raised from the holding cells beneath the arena and of course the gladiators fighting. The complex nearby held a number of gladiator schools which taught fighting skills from certain areas of the empire, each specialising in something different. The guide also insisted that Christians were not killed in the Colosseum but rather just down the road in another big hall called Basilica of Maxentius. Just the ruins are left of this structure – one side hall. By the ruins you can really appreciate how big this structure was. I think it may have been a bit bigger than the Colosseum.

The Spanish steps - and lots of tourists

Rome is an incredible city especially because of its water fountains. There are hundreds of fresh water fountains all around the city that you can use to re-fill your water bottle. They’re nick-named the “long noses” because of the shape of most of them. Really lovely and I’m sure that this is the city with the lowest amount of bottled water sold annually. Why buy when there is free drinkable water everywhere?

In the Vatican with a sculpture we
gave the nick-name of the snitch.

Corridor of statues

One of the statues

Lavish corridors

Of course no visit to Rome is quite complete without seeing the Vatican City, a country all to itself. So my hostel mates and I decided to go together. We pre-booked our Vatican tickets and after a lazy morning, we spent an afternoon at the Vatican. This included the Vatican museum filled with ornate paintings, murals on the ceilings, statues and to top it off at the end of a quarter mile of walking through the museum, the Sistine Chapel.

Sistine Chaple ceiling

Many people that I spoke to previously indicated that they were really disappointed by the Sistine Chapel. It was not nearly so big and grand as they expected. Maybe it was because I was not too sure what to expect that I really thought this was very special.

I was suddenly surrounded by those famous paintings that everyone is taught about in school. From the creation of man through to the painting of the judgement with Michelangelo’s self-portrait looking like an old skin. I also had downloaded the free audio guide to the Chapel which pointed out a number of things that me, a BCom major, just would not know anything about.

The creation of man. Not a bad for a pic of a postcard?

Like the fact that Michelangelo painted the football-field-sized ceiling in a number of phases. First half of the ceiling has smaller figures and the second half, bigger figures. This is because part-way through Michelangelo decided that the figures were not nearly as imposing as he wanted them to be. He thus increased the size for the second half of the ceiling. These paintings were all frescos. This basically meant that Michelangelo had to paint onto wet plaster which would then dry and set the paint’s colour for centuries. Slow work. So once you got over hundreds of tourists all staring upward and the guards sometimes moving through the crowd hushing everyone and telling everyone not to take photos – which everyone ignores – it’s a beautiful sight. I tend to like sneaking photos of postcards where I can't get a picture of the real thing.

Me, Brittany, Helen and Ariane by St Peter's

Inside it's huge!

The altar

The window

The other highlight was obviously St Peter’s Basilica. This I think is the largest church certainly of the cathedral era. It may not be anymore – haven’t really researched that. But it is really impressive. The home of the Pope and from the audio guide, this was rebuilt over the centuries as well, having been funded by gifts and payment given for the forgiveness of sins. The audio guide mentioned that this was a great diving factor that led to the reformation of the church and Martin Luther’s speech. So, very interesting.

A small dome

Inside, they have tried to play with dimension to make the space seem smaller than it is. So, for example the statues near the floor are about 8 feet high whereas the ones at the ceiling are closer to 15 feet high (heights are guesstimated from memory). But they don’t look all that much bigger from the ones on the ground. Also there is an altar below the domed ceiling which creates the illusion that the dome is not as high as it actually is.

The famous large dome

St Peter's square and the queue for the basilica

St Peter’s square is also impressive. Surrounded by columns and in the middle, a big obelisk. One of the girls mentioned that a Roman emperor wanted to make an impression, so he bulldozed through a number of housing areas to create wide streets and in addition set up obelisks at each of the major intersections in Rome. It would be a way for the people to navigate around. The obelisk at St Peter’s square seems to act as a sun-dial and there are also stones of the winds underneath and a zodiac line. Interesting to have so many different world-views expressed in one square.

My favourite little church

My final day in Rome I spent with Brittany, we tried to hunt for an elusive puzzle geocache and found some stunning places along the way.

My favourite was a little church off the beaten tourist path with no famous paintings or sculptures. Its ceiling was fashioned like the Pantheon, but with the hole in the middle blocked by windows and a pressed ceiling of the dove of peace. The ceiling was painted white and the church was full of light inside (not like those dark Baroque churches of old that are heavy, dark and golden inside). But the best part of it was the acoustics!

It's ceiling

Close up of ceiling

We had the church to ourselves, so I faintly started humming “Amazing Grace” and the small sound filled the whole space and reverberated through me. Wow – that was a real highlight. I would love to have heard a choir there. Or any music there that is. The fact that we had the place to ourselves was even better.

Brittany and me by the castle

We also had to make a trip past the castle and take a climb to the top. We were treated to some stunning views of Rome and we spent the rest of the evening appreciating the view until we were asked to leave as they were closing (only around 19:30). We raced back to the Metro to make the last train back to the hostel.

Rome is a beautiful city. Ancient ruins, tons of churches and a real bustling hub of civilisation even to this day.