Rome, Italy

July 13, 2010

Today we decided to depart from the typical tours and see Rome on our own. So we hopped our shuttle armed with 2 books on Rome and different 4 maps. We then gained 2 more maps when we got on the shuttle. On our 2 hour drive from Civitacchia into Rome Brice and I looked at every book and every map for about the fifth time in 24 hours to make sure we knew where all we were going to attempt to go. We finally settled on one map, grabbed a sharpie, and drew out our plan. We were ready!

The shuttle dropped us off in Vatican City at around 10:00 am and were told to meet back there at 3:55 pm. We had roughly 6 hours to go see as much as we could and get back. So we snapped a few pictures of St. Peter’s basilica and the square and off we went. First we walked over to Castle del Saint Angelo, snapped some pictures and crossed the Tiber River via the “Angel Bridge”. We then made our way to Piazza Novana, where we saw Bernini’s Fountain of the Four Rivers. From there we went to the Pantheon. Walked inside, snapped a few more pictures, and then moved on the Trevi Fountain. Right as were snapping our pictures of the fountain, I happened to look down and see Mom and Meme about to throw their coins in the fountain. So Brice and I ran down the steps and I jumped right in front of Dad who was just about to taking their photo. We successfully freaked all three out! We all got a good laugh out of it. So we all took turned tossing our coins in and taking more photos. After a few minutes of quick conversation, Brice and I were off again. This time we headed toward the Spanish Steps. The entire hike to the steps was up hill. Luckily we came upon the Steps at the top, so we walked down and snapped some more pics of the fountain at the bottom of the steps and looking back up at the steps. We did all of this by 11:30 am!

We then made our way to the “Wedding Cake”, where a guy dressed up as an ancient Roman guard freaked out that I happened to take his photo. He came at me yelling “You can’t take my picture! You must delete!!” I told him I was sorry and would delete it. He kept saying “No, no! You delete!” I told him I was trying, but by that point he was right up on my shoulder making gestures like he was going to take my camera. So I told him to just back off, I was trying to delete it. Then he went into to this whole spiel about how disrespectful we were to him and what he does. He kept asking us why we were so disrespectful of him and that it was so hard for him, but everything is so easy for us. After about a 5 minute ordeal, we just walked off. By this point I was not too happy. I think I chewed him out in my head for some 30 minutes after.

So then moving on after the ordeal, we made our way toward the Colosseum. We picked up our tickets at the Palintine Hill because the line was WAY shorter than the one at the Colosseum. The same ticket can get you into the Colosseum, Palentine Hill, and the Forum. After wondering around through the ruins on the Palentine for around 10-15 minutes and seeing the Circus Maximus from above, we moved on the Colosseum. We bypassed the incredibly LONG line to buy tickets there and walked right in. We walked around what would have been the floor level then climbed a set of crazy steep steps to the second level, wondered around up there for a few minutes and then move on the Forum. Again our visit to the Forum was quick but really neat. You don’t realize how big the columns and buildings were until you are standing at the bottom looking straight up. As we stood there looking around, we could just imagine what Rome looked like at the height of the Republic. What a sight to behold, I’m sure.
After about 10 minutes of wondering around the Forum, our time was up and we had to start making our way back to the Vatican. But first we had to get out of the Forum and to do that we had to climb this set of NEVER ENDING stairs. By this point we were so tired and our feet and legs hurt so badly, but we couldn’t stay in the Forum forever. We began to climb. It took everything we had to get up those stairs. Just about the time you figured you were at the top or at least close, you looked up the rest of the way and wanted to just sit down because you still had a long way to go, but if you did, you knew it would be an hour before you could get up again. We finally made it to the top. After looking back down, we think we climbed somewhere around 2 ½ to 3 stories straight up. The Forum itself is well below street level and the stairs ended on top of one of the seven hills in Rome. At the top we had to sit and rest for a few minutes to catch our breath. We also discovered the Capitoline Museum (the one I’d been looking for all along). By this time we had to start making our way back and didn’t have to go in. I was sad, but I at least got to snap a photo of the famous sculpture of the Shewolf suckling Romulus and Remus, which is used as an image for Rome quite a bit.

So our trek continued as we made our way back to Vatican. It was incredibly hot and our feet and legs were killing us by this point, but all we could think about was getting to Vatican City and finding something cold to drink. It was the only thing that kept us going, well that and the fact we didn’t want to get left by the shuttle. We decided to cut our way to the River and follow it until we reached our destination. It was a great decision because there were huge trees lining the River and they provided some much needed relief from the sun. All day long we’d been taking advantage of Rome’s many ice cold fountains. Thank goodness for them, otherwise we would have never survived! It took us around an hour to make it back to the Vatican, but we finally made it. We picked a couple of souvenirs and then found something cold to drink. We couldn’t get enough liquid. After sitting in the shade and resting a bit, we made our way to the meeting point where we happened to run into Mom, Dad, and Meme again. We finally were able to get back on our bus and crashed! We both slept the whole way back to the boat. What a day!!