Italy - Rome

For four hours, regional train 55007 sped through the Italian countryside passing by mountain ranges, farms, and villages built on rocky outcrops and finally brought us into the Eternal City at stazione Roma Termini.  At a bus depot in the parking lot just outside the station, we managed to buy tickets and find the correct bus in record time.  Finding our apartment was a different challenge altogether as we got off the bus five stops too early and then boarded a nearby tram hoping for the type of transportation deliverance we received in Venice.  We hopped off the tram ten stops later, fired up Google maps, held our collective breath, and darned if we weren’t only a five-minute walk from our apartment—yes!  

Our host, Cynthia, couldn’t meet us, so she sent her husband, Romano, to let us into the flat and show us around, and boy, did he ever.  Romano was five feet tall, seventy-eight years old and a real ball of Roman fire.  I told him that he looked great for seventy eight, and he said it was because he was a pole-vaulter in his youth.  He whisked us inside and showed us everything about the apartment we would need to know and then took Deena and me on a walking tour of the neighborhood to show us the markets, bus stops, and the places to buy tickets.  He told us that his wife typically handles meeting guests because he is usually tending to his beehives 100 kilometers away from the city.  Romano stopped to speak to a vendor friend of his in fluent Chinese and told us that he speaks five languages.  Back at the apartment, he tossed us the keys, gave us a background story on a few Italian idioms, and we finally said “ciao” to our five-foot, seventy-eight-year-old, pole-vaulting, beekeeping linguist.

Market near our apartment 

Per our usual custom, Deena and I left the kids to get settled in while we went out foraging for bus tickets and dinner, both of which we found in short order.  All the shopkeepers around our new neighborhood are friendly and helpful, especially the two young people at the take-away restaurant who assisted us in picking out the most perfect pizza slices for supper.  Due to our unfamiliarity with the bus routes and a pending 8:00 PM appointment at the Vatican, we didn’t have much time to rest and eat, but the coffee and Coca-Cola helped give us a second wind.  When I got online a few days ago to book reservations for Vatican Museum tickets, I discovered that on Fridays during October, the museum was offering evening visits, and I managed to score the last four 8:00 tickets—sweet.  So, after traveling all morning, finding our new home, meeting a crazy Italian, and wolfing down some incredible Roman pizza, we were off to tour the Vatican Museum...at night.

We met another angel in disguise at the bus stop who saw us struggling with a map and the schedule, and once he found out we were going to the Vatican, he told us in broken English to stay with him on the bus and get off at his stop—which we did.  After a thirty-minute bus ride, we bid “arrivederci” to our new friend and set off across the Tiber River to the city-state of the Vatican.  Everything about Rome looks big, especially to those still in a state of travel shock and walking in the dark fighting a stiff breeze blowing through the alleys.  The expanse of St. Peter’s Square came into view, and we stopped for a few minutes to look at the dimly-lit basilica and to discuss the Vatican and some of the history of the Catholic Church.  

Our reservations gained us quick entry into the Vatican Museum where we started our very focused itinerary, which included two areas:  the Raphael Rooms and the Sistine Chapel.  There’s an embarrassment of other historical riches in the museum, and we decided if anything else caught our fancy on the way to our goals, we could certainly stop to check it out.  We got sidetracked for a bit in the Egyptian rooms, but eventually the signs led us through the labyrinth of hallways into the vacuous color of the Sistine Chapel.  Deena and I were here twenty-three years ago during the day and saw Michelangelo’s frescos in natural light from the windows and thought they were great, but at night viewed with warm
incandescent lighting, they were magnificent.  Painting over wet plaster produces a soft faded look to vibrant colors and applied by a master like Michelangelo, the frescoes look like they’re floating due to the shading and depth.  We found places to sit along the edge of the chapel and stared at the ceiling and the Last Judgement painted on the far wall, over reverie broken occasionally by the guards droning “no peekchures, no peekchures pliz!”  

Vatican Museum hall

Illegal Peekchure

Raphael

We backtracked through the halls and made our way to the Raphael Rooms, a reception suite of the public area in the papal apartments covered with incredible rich frescos.  These masterpieces were painted by Raphael and the assistants in his workshop, and along with Michelangelo's frescos in the Sistine Chapel, mark the pinnacle of the high renaissance in Rome.  We wandered open mouthed through the rooms for about a half hour before making our way back to the Sistine Chapel, where we sat for a while longer hoping to forever brand the images into our memories—we may or may not have snuck a peekchure or two.  It was our good fortune to visit the Vatican Museum in the mysterious dark of Rome without the usual crush of tourist crowds, and we even managed to catch the right bus home and get off at the right stop.

Next day, we were up early, and after a quick continental breakfast, we boarded another bus bound for the Colosseum, thankful again for clear weather and a warm day.  The bus line ended at the depot in front of the modern capital building, and we climbed the long stairwell to the Piazza del Campidoglio designed by Michelangelo in 1536 with the bronze copy of Marcus Aurelius presiding over the hilltop.  As we passed beyond the plaza, the mighty Colosseum appeared with the massive expanse of the Roman Forum in the foreground.  Deveny said that the Forum ruins reminded her of a huge Putt-Putt course which set off a contest to see who could come up with the best Latin phrase:  “Darnicus!  I can’t get my ball past the windmillus maximus!”  Maybe some of you hotshots that took Latin in school could finally use your knowledge to come up with a phrase of your own.  

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Since Deena and I had toured the inside of the Colosseum years ago, we decided to stay outside this time and let the children explore the interior without our looking over their shoulders.  We had reserved passes for them online earlier that day, and after retrieving their tickets onsite, they headed into the two-thousand-year old-amphitheatre looking pleased with themselves.  Deena and I spent time walking around the building reminiscing and wondering how long the Colosseum would hold the kids’ interest.  Much to our surprise, we soon received a text: “This place is awesome, we’re going to be in here a while, can you pick up lunch for later?”  How about that?  They stayed in there for an hour, and we had an Italian spread ready for them when they came out, which we enjoyed while listening to them recount their historical experience.  The Colosseum is one of those instantly recognizable icons of history, and it was fun and rewarding to take our kids there on this day. 

There was still a lot of time left in the day, so we walked a short distance to the Church of Saint Peter in Chains which houses Michelangelo’s statue of Moses and the incredible ceiling fresco by Parodi.  The Roman sky was deep blue, and the sun was bright at a low angle in the October sky as we strolled the narrow neighborhood streets to the church.  There was a larger crowd than we expected. It wasn’t a hindrance to our visit, but we were a bit disappointed that the tomb surrounding Moses was covered in scaffolding for restoration purposes. Thankfully the main statue was unobscured.  The sixteenth-century frescos in the tribune along with the intense colors of the ceiling fresco provided a relaxing, visual respite, so we found some chairs and just sat for a while.

Moses

St. Peter in Chains ceiling fresco

We began the long walk back to our bus stop with the intent to study some more aspects of the Forum, we enjoyed watching many street artists perform along the way.  The main area of the Forum sits between forty and one-hundred feet below street level depending on the vantage point. We walked around to several railed plazas while listening to a Rick Steves podcast, which helped us understand what we were seeing such as the Temple of Saturn, the Temple of Vesta, and the Arch of Titus.  Looking down on two-thousand years of history in this context was overwhelming. It amazed us to think that the Forum was only fully excavated in the beginning of the twentieth century.  After a big day of world history, we found our return bus home and rewarded ourselves with another stellar take away supper from the corner restaurant, which included roast chicken, rosemary baked potatoes, and grilled zucchini.  We took all the food back to our apartment, which reminds me somewhat of Laverne and Shirley’s place in Milwaukee. I keep expecting to see Lenny and Squiggy come bursting in at any moment.

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Never know who you'll meet in Rome!