Day 7: Our Guided Tour of Rome

We met our guide, Barbara, in the lobby and talked about the different things we were going to see that day.  She said she was expecting an older couple because she forgot Americans got married so young.

We began our tour by heading to the area of the president's palace.  On our way she immediately  began picking out different details of architecture and sculptures that we wouldn't have noticed on our own.  She told us about this museum near our hotel that was the residence of a very wealthy family years ago called the Barbarinis.  She pointed out the shield of armor for them that was on columns outside this museum.  It has three honey bees on it.  After that point we saw more family crests and again saw more bees around the town. 

After she told us about the Barbarini coat of arms we then headed up to the tops of the highest of the seven hills that made up Rome.  Once we were at the top we then went into a church that had paintings on the ceiling that were made to look 3-D.  These were nothing short of breath-taking. 

Notice Jesus carrying his cross right into the clouds in the middle of the ceiling

So amazed at how they painted these columns on a flat ceiling but they look like they are going straight into the sky

After we finished with the church, we crossed the street and found ourselves in the middle of a plaza that was located directly in front of the President's Palace!  This place use to be where the ancient senators and Popes built their residences to escape malaria and other diseases of the low lying areas of the city.  The name of the President's Palace is Palazzo del Quirinale.  The fountain in the plaza were of Castor and Pollux with their horses (these are the protectors of horses.

On the balcony of the palace there are three flags, the European allegiance, Italian and the President's flag.  When the President leaves the Palace, his flag is taken down and is taken with him.  From here we made our way down to the Trevi Fountain, which depicts the God of the sea, with two mythological men with horses on either side, which depict the calmness and the fury of the sea. 

Above that are two statues of women, one describing the fruitfulness of Rome and the other being the Goddess of medicine.  At the top of the statue is smaller figures (reliefs) the one on the right is of a woman who showed the Romans the spring and the other on the left is of the architect showing the plans to the emperor of building the first aquaduct.  Above that are four female statues - one for each season (you cant see these in the above picture). 

After our guide finished showing us the fountain we were able to get some local food for breakfast called "white pizza with prosciutto."  Basically its pizza dough sliced open with the prosciutto stuffed inside - like a sandwich.  Prosciutto was a poor man's meat during the Roman's time and is now a very familiar meat to most people.  These hit the spot!  As we were eating and taking in the views of Rome, we came to the Palace of the Prime Minister which was very nice.  It had an Egyptian column (I can't remember the proper term for this) with hieroglyphics chiseled into it in the courtyard. 

Then we made our way down to one of the most astounding buildings in Rome, the Pantheon.  The structure is exactly 142 feet tall by 142 feet wide.  This creates a perfect dome inside the building.  If there was a sphere large enough, it could fit inside the building perfectly.  The ceiling is still open and when the summer solstice begins the sun is directly above the circle and it allows for a perfect cone of sunlight to enter the Pantheon - coming straight down from the heavens.  The name of the opening in the ceiling is the oculus, "eye of heaven."  This was just amazing.

They were doing construction on the right side of the Pantheon

The Oculus.  Notice how the squares are around the dome as well - this design allowed for weight to be taken out

Since the roof was open the floor was sloped and there were holes scattered around so that the rain could drain off of the floor.  The tomb of the famous architect, Raphael, is also found within the walls of the Pantheon.  He died fairly young (for that time and ours) at age 36.  He sure accomplished a lot in that time.

Raphael's tomb

After seeing the Pantheon we made a stop at a small street market.  they had some beautiful flowers, fruit and vegetables and other merchandise.  At this point we were pretty tired, so we just sat and rested.  The tour guide allowed us time to ourselves while we walked around the market. 

Our next stop was at a very large square, which was almost a "U" shape.  She told us it was in this shape because it was built over top of a racetrack from ancient times.  There was a very impressive fountain in the middle of the square (which we were told was in the "Angels and Demons" movie when the guy in the chair gets pushed into the water).  There were four men on each corner which represented the four continents which they were aware of at that time - Europe, Asia, Africa and America.  There was a cactus with the America statue.

 

Our next stop wasn't planned.  She saw this church that she said she had never seen the doors open before today.  So we decided to check it out.  The outside of the church was decorated in skulls.  When we walked in we saw they were having some sort of stamp exhibit - stamps of different Popes.  She pointed out different things she noticed.  There was an hour-glass with wings on either side painted on the wall - depicting how "time flies."  There were skull paintings and sculptures decorated around the sanctuary.

The nun that was in the church told us that the crypt was open downstairs if we wanted to check it out.  It was very creepy.  The guide made Nate go first.  He turned on the light and we walked down the stairs to find a chandelier made of real human bones - vertebrae, sacrums and other bones.  

 

 There were real human skulls in shelves on the walls.  There was even a cross made of skulls...  We discovered some of the skulls on the shelves were written on telling of when and how they died or where killed.  You could see bullet holes in some of the skulls.  It was crazy!!  We got out of there pretty quickly!

The next stop on our tour was along the Tibre River - it is the oldest bridge in Rome.  I can't remember the exact date but I believe it was like 38 BC.  It connected to an island that was in the middle of the river.  There is a church and a huge hospital there now.  It use to be where they would isolate people with diseases so as to not spread any illnesses.

You can see the bridge on either side of the island

She brought us through the Jewish ghetto next.  We walked past the Jewish synagogue - which was very nice.  She told us about how close the most recent Pope was to the Jewish priest.  He even mentioned him in his last will and testament.  This is a pretty big deal.  We walked through some ruins that she described in a way that made them come alive.  We walked past ruins which use to be the fish market in ancient times.  There was a theater that was built by a Roman emporer in honor of his favorite nephew, Marcelo.  It was just amazing to see these pieces of buildings from nearly 2,000 years ago. 

After that she brought us to a fine little cafe that she knew of that was nice and quiet.  I ordered the gnocchi (which was shrimp and prones).  The prones tasted like dumplings but we later found out t hey're like potatoes.  Nate had himself some ravioli.  We both had ourselves some wine as well.  We have discovered that I am a white wine drinker and Nate is a red wine drinker.

After lunch we headed to Capitol Hill.  She told us that the stairs we were walking up were designed by Michelangelo.  He designed them to where your head automatically looks up in order to hold your head high in pride of yourself - versus the steps perpendicular to those which lead to a church.  These steps made you automatically look down, like you were bowing your head out of respect for the church.  The square and the face of the buildings of Capitol Hill were redesigned by Michelangelo as well.  It was impressive.

the steps on the left lead to the church and the steps on the right lead to Capitol Hill

We then walked behind the monument to King Emmanuel (the huge white building) and was told by Barbara that inside the gigantic bronze horse statue with King Emmanuel on it that the designer had supper inside the horse with 27 of his favorite workers (before the top of the horse was placed on top).  We didn't really  believe her until we saw a picture. 

After admiring the building we walked to the Roman Forum.  This was amazing.  It was discovered through excavations.  The ground was much lower in ancient Roman times.  It has gradually risen from floods placing layer upon layer of silt on the structures.  She pointed out certain structures and helped us picture what they looked like thousands of years ago.  Some buildings were for government use, some for civil use - some were  banks and some were homes.  Of course there were churches as well. 

The Roman Forum

She told us that the road we were walking on was also walked on by Caesar Augustus - the first Roman Emporer.  This road was over 2,000 years old.  She showed us the actual place that Julius Caesar was killed.  He was stabbed to death by Senators because he was looked upon as a dictator.  Julius was trying to become an emporer. 

The next thing we saw was the oldest Roman arch which was built in 80 AD.  Barbara told us how the Romans told stories by depictions within the sculptures and reliefs they made.  In this arch it showed the story of Hadrian conquering the Jewish and bringing them  back to Rome.  One side of the arch (on the inside) showed the conquered and the other showed the victorious.  On the side of the Jewish there is a Manorah within the relief - she told us this is the oldest image of the Manorah to date.

This is the oldest image of the Menorah to date - do you see it?

 From here we walked to the Colosseum.  We were escorted by Barbara past all the people in line and straight to the elevator.  On the second level they were showing an exhibition of the gladiators.  In different cases there were replicas of original pieces of armor worn by the different types of Gladiators.  There were skulls of the different animals that were killed by the gladiators.  In other displays were the different kinds of weapons they used as well.  There were little oil lamps which were held by the spectators to give them light.  There were pieces of walls where there was graffiti of their time of gladiators fighting and also where the actual gladiators carved their own names into the wall.

here is a gladiator's name carved into the stone

We were then directed through one of the archways and into the Colosseum.   It was truly awesome.  There was little left to the imagination when trying to picture what it was like back in 20 AD.  Of course there was a lot of destruction, none of the stadium seats were in there except for the ones that were recreated in order to help visualize what it was like.  All of the arena floor was gone except for a section that was recreated to help see what the floor was like.  It was just crazy to see this in person.  It was amazing.  This was definitely one of Nate's favorite parts of the trip.

After this, Barbara took us to a church...and I cant remember the name of it but it has a very famous sculpture in it of Moses done by Michelangelo.  I actually studied this sculpture in my art class in college.  Whats so amazing in this sculpture is how he captured such detail and flow in how he sculpted Moses' fingers intertwined in his long beard.  The shear mass of Moses' body in this sculpture is spectacular.  After seeing this church, we parted ways with Barbara.  She truly did an amazing job.

We walked back to the Colosseum and sat down to rest our feet.  We were exhausted.  We had done a LOT of walking that morning.  We finally got up and walked back to the hotel.  On the way we grabbed some beers and a coke then stopped at restaurant that was close to the hotel.  I had spaghetti and Nate finally had his fettuccine alfredo.

We went to the room and relaxed for the rest of the evening.  We watched some videos on Nate's ipod and watched a movie on TV.  There is only only one English channel on the TV.  Which was pretty annoying.  One night we ended up watching Beverly Hills Chihuahuas.  Haha.  And we actually got into it. lol.

Day 6: Our first day in Roma

...we finally arrived at Roma Termini.

It was like a large airport.  There were a ton of people, stores, restaurants and it was kind of hard to find our way out of there.  We took a cab to our hotel called Hotel Barberini.  Its our least favorite of the three, but it is still ok.  The room is about as big as the room in Venice but the bathroom is much bigger.  The air didn't come on until June 15th in Venice but it did work in both Florence and Rome.  The room in Rome was pretty ugly.  The comforter, curtains and even the walls all have matching material with a horrific pattern all over them.

We decided to go do our own bit of exploring of Rome despite having our full day tour the next day.  We ended up coming across the president of Italy's home.  Its the equivalent of the White House for us.  We didn't realize that until the guard we asked for directions told us that's where we were.  We were pretty impressed.

The president's home

We did some more exploring and came across some amazing buildings/ruins.  We didn't exactly know what we were looking at.  I had my Italy book with me and we found out what we were looking at and then found it in the book.  There was a massive monument erected in the early 1900's in honor of the first King of Italy, Emmanuel II.

King Emmanuel II monument

This building is absolutely massive.  Statues decorate the top of the building and courtyard.  There are many steps leading to the top as well.  They have a memorial for an unknown soldier at the top of the first set of stairs that has soldiers guarding it.  The gate was closed that day, so we weren't able to go in.  The locals have called the building "the wedding cake" or the "typewriter" because its so big and gaudy.  But it really is beautiful.  Especially now because a year ago it was cleaned - before it was black and dirty.

We were going to wait to see the Colosseum until the next day but we couldn't help ourselves.  It took us by surprise because we were so close to it.  We started walking down a street towards it and all of a sudden we saw it!  This building was truly monumental.  It was exactly what we pictured.  We took some pictures of us in front of it and then some of us touching it!  We were so impressed!

When we saw the Colosseum in the distance

It was huge!!!

We had to put our bare feet on the steps of the Colosseum

One of my favorite pictures of the trip

Before we walked down to see these buildings we walked down the streets and were so impressed by the prices of certain items compared to what we had seen in other towns.  We came across one store that had the Italian beer we found we both like, called Moretti, for only 2Euro.  However, I found that I liked a different one called Peroni better.  We found some gifts for the nieces and nephews for 1Euro each and they were really neat.  They are little miniature models of buildings and statues that we've seen here in Rome.  We also found some awesome artists along the way down the road.  There was this one guy making unique paintings using spray paint.  Then we found a guy selling some really nice water-color paintings.  We ended up getting three because we really wanted to get some actual art pictures while in Italy.  However, upon examining the painting, we think it could possibly have been printed but its hard to tell.  So we're just going to go with them being the real-deal.

Apparently this guy didn't know half of his butt was hanging out...  This is the artist that used spray paint

This is what most of the streets looked like...many vendors.  Mostly selling the same thing. 

We have found really neat places to eat along the way too.  They call everything a bar or pizzeria around here.  Everyone sells pizza.  There's also a lot of gelato around too.  Another thing about Rome and Florence is there are a TON of scooters!!  They are absolutely everywhere and they are all crazy.  There's also such a variety of people here.  You walk around and hear people talking in all sorts of languages.  Mostly Italian but there are others too because this is such a tourist infested city.  There seemed to be a lot more Americans in Florence than in Venice and in Rome it seemed to be the easiest to communicate with the locals because they all speak pretty good English (for the most part).

After sitting and staring at the Colosseum we finally decided to head back.

Oh I forgot to mention seeing the Trevi Fountain.  This was the second thing we saw (after seeing the president's house).  This is one of the most famous fountains in the world.  Its been in several movies like "Le Dulci Vita," and "Roman Holiday."  It was built in the 1700's and is actually water from the only aqueduct that was reconstructed after the fall of Rome and the destruction of all the aqueducts by the Germans.

The Trevi Fountain

 It is a whimsical rendition of mythical sea creatures amid cascades of splashing water.  Legend has it that you can ensure your return to Rome by tossing a coin into the fountain.  Of course, Nate and I threw some in.

Our evening came to an end and we had called the front desk for a wake-up call at 7:45 a.m.  We had to meet our tour guide in the lobby of our hotel at 9:00 a.m.  We got a call at 6 something and it only beeped and there was no one on the other line.  So I called back and told them our wake up call was suppose to be at 7:45.  So the man apologized and Nate and I went back to sleep.  The next thing we know, I'm waking up and I ask Nate what time it is and his watch says 8:40!!  We were soooo mad!  We both needed showers and we were planning on having breakfast.  Nate called down to the front desk and expressed his anger and asked what the heck happened.  They apologized and weren't sure.  We ended up getting down there in time (without showers or breakfast) but we were not happy campers.

Day 5: Hiking through Cinque Terre

May 30, 2010

We just got on our train to Rome.  Its pretty fancy!  Seats are really comfortable.  They even recline!  We got up around 8 am and had some breakfast and packed our bags and started walking towards the train station in Florence.  The walk was pretty exhausting...  We did not want to get up this morning at all because we had a very long day in Cinque Terre.

Yesterday morning we got up at 5:00 am and headed to the train station to leave at 6:10 a.m. We had a train connection in Le Spezia.  We had to wait there for about an hour.  Our next train finally arrived and we boarded it heading to Riomaggiore (the first of five towns of Cinque Terre we came to).  Upon approaching the town we went through tunnel after tunnel and it seemed like we would never get out of them and then finally there was a break in the mountain!  We had our first glimpse of the Mediterranean!  It was beautiful!  We knew then that we were almost there!  After nearly four hours on the trains we finally arrived at 10:00 am.  We got off the train and immediately started taking pictures.  It was gorgeous!

We discovered quickly that we had to pay five euro a piece to hike the trail.  That was sort of annoying to find out.  We began up the steps and started off the trail with a gorgeous view.  The trail between Riomaggiore and the Manorola is called Via dell'Amore ("Lover's Lane").  This was a great start to the trail because it was not steep and had spectacular views.

We took many pictures...it was beautiful.

The trail went through each of the five towns of Cinque Terre.  Each segment had its own uniqueness.  If we wanted to take a break at each town we could.  We decided not to stop until we got to the town called Vernazza.  This was the fourth of five towns.  The trail was closed between the last two towns of Vernazza and Monterosso.  We were told that this was the most challenging of the trails too.  It was closed because of a landslide.  They had gotten a lot of rain that May.

There were vineyards on the sides of the mountains and gorgeous flowers throughout the entire trail.  I can't describe how beautiful this all was.  It left me speechless.  I'll put up some pictures of the hike before we got to Vernazza here...

The buildings were built right into the rock side!  Crazy!

Do you see the bee?

Notice the ladders to get to the next level of the vineyard...literally straight up!

We take this flag with us on all of our hiking trips.  We write the date, name of the trail and how many miles it was on the flag

It was pretty neat to come to Vernazza.  The trail was mostly downhill with a LOT of steps.  I felt bad for all the people coming up the steps just starting the trail because it was pretty demanding and they had quite a bit to go!  Nate and I were both pretty impressed by some of the older folks that were just trucking along like it was nothing!  We saw people like this all over the trail.

The town you see here is Vernazza.  The town in the distance that the boat is headed is Monterosso.

When we finally made it down the steps into the town of Vernazza there was a pizzeria right in front of us.  We were both thinking the same thing.  We chugged some water and had some great pizza for lunch.  We then tried to find Nate some swim trunks and that went badly.  We found some nice trunks but they wouldn't let him try them on.  They were his size but when he put them on in the next town (after we took the water ferry across the water way) they did not fit at all.  They were incredibly tight.  And he had paid quite a bit for them... We were both extremely mad about this.

When we were in Vernazza we sat out on some rocks and watched the waves crash against the rocks.  There were people climbing up onto the tall rocks and jumping off into the water.  Maybe 15-20 feet up.

Notice the girl jumping off the rock

We bought a ferry ticket and fought the crowd to get on the boat.  It was really neat to use each of the three only ways to travel between town to town - train, hike and ferry.

The next town had a great beach that we wanted to go to.  We were in for a surprise!  The beach was covered in pebbles!  It was pretty difficult to walk on, and really uncomfortable to lay on.  We also forgot towels so I used my jacket to sit on and back pack to lean against.  Nate wanted to get in the water but when he went to put his feet in he quickly reconsidered.  It was freezing!!!  He finally got the courage to get in when he saw there were elderly women in the water up to their neck.  I finally got the courage to go in myself.  It took me a good while though.  It really was extremely cold.  I stayed in as long as I could but the sun kept getting covered by the clouds and it was getting colder by the minute.  It was also getting close to 5-6 p.m.  I got out at one point because I was so cold and we were having to air dry.  Nate wanted me to get back in the water but I refused.  Finally I thought..."how many times do I get to swim in the Mediterranean with my husband?"  So...I got back in again!!

We finally dried off and relaxed on the beach a bit before changing again and heading up to town for dinner.

 

Some of their vehicles are TINY!!! I just don't understand!  There's no way Nate could fit in this thing

We both had lasagna (which wasn't very impressive) while we sat at this restaurant with spectacular views of the mountains and the sea.  It finally was time for our train to arrive and we departed for Florence again.

We tried so hard not to fall asleep but we did anyway!  We had one connection to make and then it was straight to Florence.  We got back at like 11:00 p.m.  We had a tiring walk back to the hotel from the train station but when we got back to the room we took showers and immediately fell asleep.

We had to get to our train the next morning at 10:00 a.m. to head to Rome.  We did the "duffle shuffle" from our hotel to the train station which pretty much sucked but a taxi would've been 10 Euro so we were ok with it.

We got to our train just fine and it was really nice.  A man sat beside Nate who was with his wife and daughter.  We talked with him for awhile on our ride.  They were from California.  It made our trip go by pretty quickly.  Before we knew it we were at Roma Termini.