Third Full Day in Roma (May 22nd, 2009)

Today began with an 8 am wake-up and a trip to the local supermarket. We chose to go with our usual and walked out of the supermarket with a large block of cheese and three freshly baked small loaves of bread. Breakfast was phenomenal, which we ate while walking to the Vatican. We arrived at the entrance to the Vatican Museums just before 9 am and it was already packed. Fortunately, we only had to wait one hour from the time we got there until we had our tickets (reduced price for students, of course).

Here we are just before entering the Vatican Museums.

We spent several hours touring through the museums: the Egyptian exhibit, the Etruscan exhibit, tons of Roman sculptures, and beautiful Vatican artwork, sculpture, and paintings. It was quite crowded, as expected, but we refrained from shoving or yelling at people in tour groups. We took second breakfast on a quiet bench in the Etruscan exhibit (apparently nobody cares about the Etruscans) and spent a pleasant few minutes eating more bread and cheese. We weren’t entirely sure that food and drink were allowed, but two guards saw us and ignored us so we figured it was fine.

After second breakfast, we continued with our walk around the museum, admiring the floors and ceilings at least as much as anything else there. The intricacy of the plaster and painting on the ceilings is incredible! The floors, as well, are beautiful marble and often have quite detailed inlays. The craftsmanship is so good that there is virtually no detectable seam between the different stones. A highlight of the second half of the museum was our journey through the map room. We spent several minutes at each map, looking in detail at the many cities and admiring the paintings. Rose was quite a good travel partner and showed amazing patience during the entire affair. After at least 45 minutes, we finally left the map room and moved on to the less important parts of the museum such as the Sistine Chapel (just kidding, but the map room was still really cool!)

Philip was the happiest person in the world when he was in the map room. Rose was amazing and tolerated more than 45 minutes of nothing but maps!

After walking through more rooms of gorgeous architecture and beautiful paintings, and far too many rooms of stark, modern religious art, we finally arrived at the Sistine Chapel. While most of the ceilings in the Vatican Museums are beautiful and intricately painted, the paintings in the Sistine Chapel seem to be on an entirely different level. The attention to detail surpasses anything else we’ve seen and the figures seem to pop out of the ceiling in three dimensions. It was interesting to see how lax the guards were at controlling the talking and picture taking by people. You have to love a tourist who is willing to step around the sign saying no talking or picture taking to take the picture they want, while talking to their travel companion.

We were both getting hungry by this point, so we decided to venture out to find lunch before returning to St. Peter’s for the afternoon. We walked a few blocks away to a small bakery/pizzeria where we shared a 4 euro pie with artichokes. It was an excellent chance to talk a bit of Italian with the chef, which Philip took advantage of by asking directions to the nearest gelateria. We got our gelati and walked back to St. Peter’s square to go visit the Basilica.

Saint Peter's Basilica up close and personal.

The line into the Basilica was short and we managed to walk right in. The Basilica was extraordinary and is quite possibly the most beautiful building in the world. In every direction there are beautiful stone work, gorgeous mosaics, and incredible paintings. In particular, the mosaics in all of the domes were incredible and shined very nicely from the light streaming in through the lantern windows. While were admiring everything, a series of marching bands entered through the main door in a euphonious procession. We’re still not sure why they were there, but we did learn that the acoustics of St. Peter’s are quite good.

After leaving the main church building, we went around the corner to buy ticket to go into the main cupola (dome) of the building. We decided to save 2 euro each and gain cardio endurance by taking all 551 stairs, rather than skipping the first 230 with an elevator. Just past the top of where the elevator ended, we went through a door into the catwalk above the center of the church. From here, we could see in stunning detail the mosaics inside the dome. We could also look down to the floor far below and see the people like ants and the beautiful stone all around. We then left the catwalk and continue our climb all the way to the base of the lantern at the top of the dome. The views of Rome from the top were spectacular and the only downside was that there were way too many people on top. Fortunately, no one fell or got pushed over the railing and, to our knowledge, all tourists made it down safely.

Looking down inside Saint Peter's Basilica as we continue our climb to the top of the cupola.

The view from the top of the cupola is amazing. In this picture, you can see the Pantheon, Coliseum, Roman Forum, Piazza del Popolo, Borghese Gardens, and more!

After descending all 560 stairs, we exited back into the main basilica, just in time to watch the marching bands make their exit. Once we could pass, we walked back around the corner to tour through the Vatican Grottoes where Popes are buried. This was a really cool experience to see their intricate tombs and read a bit about what each one did. Again, it was disappointing to see how tourists blatantly ignore signs and announcements to stay silent in respect for the sacred place. In fact, there was a group of 40 or so yellow-hat wearing school children that were far better behaved than most of the adults.

After visiting the Grottoes, we were both pretty tired and decided to head back to the hostel to relax and freshen up before dinner. We did a bit of writing for the blog, and then we both took naps for about an hour. Rose’s was intentional; Philip’s started off as reading, transitioned to resting of the eyes, and concluded as peaceful sleep. We woke up refreshed and hungry so we headed back out into the city to get dinner.

In total, we spent about three and a half hours exploring the city and enjoying a lovely dinner at a restaurant we found on a quiet square. We began by walking up to the top of Piazza del Popolo to enjoy the sunset over Rome. After our dinner, we spent some time lingering about the Spanish Steps and then went back to the Trevi Fountain to see it at night. Since we left our map at the hostel, it took us a bit longer than we expected to find the Trevi Fountain, but we eventually made it safe and sound. We each threw a few eurocent into the water to ensure our eventual return to Rome, and began the 30 minute walk back to our hostel to call it a night.

The view across Rome at dusk.

Daily # of gelati: 3

Flavors:
Fragola (strawberry)
Ananas (pineapple)
Mela Verde (green apple)

Frutta di Bosca (mixed berries)
Ananas (pineapple)

Caramelo (caramel)