And yet more Rome

On Saturday, we took a day trip out of Rome to Ostia Antica - the ancient Roman seaport.  It's an entire city of ruins, including an amphitheater:

Lots of great mosaics:

And this cool statue tucked away in a tunnel under the ground:

It was like being a kid again - exploring a landscape of ruins, always wondering what cool thing could be right around the corner:

Paul found the mills very interesting (as did every other single tourist there - this is by far the most people we saw in one place in all of Ostia Antica, and this was our second attempt to take a photo, too).  The millstones have holes in the top where for the whole grain and the flour came out the bottom.  Donkeys or humans pushed them in circles:

Saturday night was Rome's free museum night (just once a year!), so we went to the Capitoline Museum.  The line was long, but moved pretty quickly: 

The Dying Gaul is justifiably famous, down to the calluses on his foot:

And the pieces of the impressive statue of Constantine, originally in the Basilica of Maxentius and Constantine in the Roman Forum, were quite neat to see:

On Sunday, we wandered around, ate delicious pizza (we ate a lot of pizza in Rome!), and sunbathed on the Spanish Steps:

When in Rome...

...see all the things!  We certainly tried to.  On Friday, we checked out the Pantheon, which is awesome in and of itself but also as a bonus, it's free to visit, unlike so much of Rome.  We walked in during a church service, which is somewhat amusing since this building was originally constructed to honor all the gods of ancient Rome, but is now used to honor just one.  The original sculptures of the Roman gods have been replaced with figures important to Christianity.  It's a truly impressive structure that's been very well-preserved, probably thanks in large part to its continued use as a church:

St. Peter's Basilica (also free!) was awe-inspiring as well.  Like the School of Athens painting I mentioned in the last post, I had forgotten just how big this church is.  I know it's big, but it's hard to appreciate just how big until you're inside.  Rick Steves' audio tour said the distance from the entrance to the far wall behind the altar (straight ahead in the photo below) is two football fields.

And it contains Michelangelo's Pietà, which is beautiful:

We are both impressed, especially Paul, by how young Michelangelo was when he accomplished so many great works.  He sculpted both this piece and the famous David in his 20s.

We also walked past the building that everyone refers to as the "wedding cake" several times during our stay in Rome:

And visited the Trevi Fountain at night:

We sat there for quite a while waiting for it to get dark enough and were amused/annoyed watching all the guys (scam artists?) with instant print cameras (of incredibly poor quality, from what we could see) try to trick tourists into buying a photo.  They did this by volunteering (quite vehemently) to take photos for tourists using the tourists' cameras and then badgered the tourists into buying an instant photo from them.  One guy was particularly awful.  He was able to talk a tourist into a photo and then proceeded to force her to pay for a photo that showed pretty much none of the fountain - just the tourist.  They fought about it for quite a while.  

Wow, Rome.

Rome leaves little time for blogging.  Those of you who know me well know that I wear a pedometer (Fitbits are awesome), and the last 4 days have all been over 20,000 step days.  Yesterday we crested 25,000.  In short, we have been busy seeing everything and walking everywhere.

On Thursday, we visited the Roman Forum.  Paul was super impressed by the enormous Basilica of Maxentius and Constantine, and justifiably so - it is enormous:

Also awe-inspiring were the seventeen-centuries-old (that's right, folks, 17 centuries!) bronze doors of the Temple of Romulus: 

Then, we moved on to exploring the Colosseum with the help of one of Rick Steves' fabulous audio tours.  I'm not going to lie, they can be really hokey, but they definitely increase my enjoyment of these sites.  Sometimes ruins are just ruins (well, not the Colosseum, I suppose), so it's really great to have a (free!) audio tour to walk you through.  The app for the audio tours doesn't work very well, so Paul just downloaded the files to his phone.  We picked up a headphone splitter before we left the States, and we walk around tethered to each other while listening Rick Steves regale us with information about these incredible sites:

A better picture of the innards of the Colosseum:

The Colosseum is an incredible structure with a gory history.  It's hard to think about all the horrible things that took place there - fights to the death between animals, between humans, and between humans and animals.  They also sent Christians into the arena to their deaths (probably anyway, that is somewhat contested but sources say it seems quite likely) as well as other people that they conquered.  Not exactly a sporting event I'd like to see.

However, I was really impressed by a drawing of what it looked like when the canopy over the Colosseum was unfurled - incredible!  They showed humans actually walking on it to put it into place.  I wish I had taken a picture of that.  An extremely quick Internet search isn't yielding quite the right image, either.

After the Colosseum, we headed over to the Palatine Hill to explore even more ruins, passing by the Arch of Constantine on our way:

And finally, I leave you with one last picture of the Colosseum (the clouds cooperated nicely in this one!):

A Warm Welcome and the Vatican Museum

Short Version: The warmest welcome we've received so far this trip is certainly this one in Rome.  After host-related entertainment, we set out to explore the Vatican Museum which has a great collection but way too many gift shops.  Now scroll through and look at the pretty photos.  :)

Long Version: It took us a little while to find our hotel in Rome.  We had the address and were in approximately the right location but we couldn't find the correct street number nor could we find a sign anywhere.  It turns out that that's because our hotel is not labelled.  We've looked since and still can't find anything.

Luckily, the hotel owner had a friend (assistant?) who came out looking for us since he knew approximately when we were supposed to arrive.  After showing us to our room, this super friendly Romanian guy asked if we were hungry, started to tell us where some food options were, and then said, "It's easier if I just show you."  So he proceeded to lead us around to a bunch of pizza places until we found one that was open.  We enjoyed sampling some delicious Roman pizza:

Not the greatest photo, but I love that you can just pop into a pizza shop, get a slice or two of several different kinds of pizza, and be on your merry way - all for a pretty affordable price.   

The next day started off with a traditional minimalist Italian breakfast with the hotel owner.  Over cappuccinos and jam croissants at the espresso bar around the corner, he regaled us with information about Rome and drew all over a map of the city, making suggestions for itineraries, food, and more.  Paul had read that Wednesday mornings were a good day to go to the Vatican museum since many people are over at St. Peter's to see the Pope.  This turned out to be an excellent tip - we waited in line for less than five minutes.  

The Vatican Museum is overwhelming and has an extremely confusing layout.  To make matters worse, the map they give you is crap.  I'm willing to admit that my reading of maps isn't always the best, but when Paul has problems, you know it's not good.

However, we managed.  I mailed some postcards from the Vatican (most expensive postcard stamps ever!): 

We saw Hercules many times over (clearly, he was a popular figure to sculpt):

Paul and I both thought The River Nile was quite neat: 

And, of course, the fabulous Laocoon, which I loved seeing on my first trip to Rome in high school and was eager to see again.  Such an expressive sculpture!

Then there's the magnificent School of Athens:

I always forget how large these things are - the School of Athens takes up a huge wall.  

We topped off our visit with the Sistine Chapel, which was also larger than I remembered.  My main memory was of the crush of bodies, which held true this time as well, although not quite as bad.  The line to get in took forever.  Then we were able to stand in a somewhat less crowded space before queuing up in a tightly packed line for ages to get back out.  And the guards were worse than your worst librarian - endless loud "shhhhh-ing" to quiet the crowd.

Paul commented that the Sistine Chapel is a horrible fire hazard.  If something happened in that room, many of us would not have made it out.  There was simply no where to go.  There are other doors but Paul was not confident any of the guards could have gotten to them in time to open them for a panicked crowd.

The other nuisance in the Vatican Museum was the ridiculous amount of gift shops.  As you stroll through the endless galleries following the signs to the Sistine Chapel, they have many mini gift shops set up along the halls - in extremely inconvenient locations where they take up half the walking space in an already crowded area.  And, as you exit the museum itself, you are funneled through the biggest gift shop of all.  I expected that last part, but all the small ones spread throughout the inside were excessive.  

After the museum, we took a very long walk which included a hill with a pretty good view of part of Rome:

Our hotel folks say Rome really isn't that big of a city.  I suppose that's true - as far as the parts that most tourists want to see are concerned.  But from up high, it looks enormous.

Goodbye, Greece

After stressing over how to get to Rome, we opted to fly.  Otherwise, we would have had to take a bus, switch to another bus, somehow validate our Eurail pass (which the Eurail authorities told us they thought would be possible in Patras), catch a 24 hour ferry, and finally a 4 hour train to get into Rome about midnight.  All of which would have taken us 2 full days.

Instead, I'm sitting in an airport typing a draft of this post, feeling a bit bummed that the Greece airport security folks confiscated the small jar of honey that the lovely hotel owners gave us as a departure gift.  I was really looking forward to trying that honey, too.  It was over weight (130 when the limit is 100), but I was hoping it would just slip through.  The best part?  They never even checked any photo IDs - not even when we were boarding the plane.

Paul called this the most rigorous security he's been through, since they also wanted all electronics removed, not just computers (although they deemed his cell phone and camera small enough to be okay).  I beg to differ - that would be Japan or China - wherever they made us go through security twice.  The second security check was right before we got on the plane, and they confiscated the drink we'd just purchased in the airport (after we'd gone through the first security check!) so that we could take our malaria meds on time.  They definitely win.

Our flight was delayed 2 hours due to a strike in Rome, which was a bit of a letdown after we'd been telling ourselves how glad we'd be to leave all of Greece's transportation issues behind.  I have my fingers crossed that that was the last hiccup - ha!