Photos : Italy, Rome Vatican
Planes Trains And Misdirection
The subway here wasn’t too hard to navigate however you need to be aware of which station exit you need. We didn’t pay attention and when we got to our stop took the wrong exit. From the station platform to street level took about 4 minutes and 3 escalators and 2 flights of stairs. We turned left and right thinking we were heading in the right direction only to discover talking to random people on the street we weren’t. Their suggestions ranged from getting buses to walking in our current direction to heading back to the metro and taking the other exit. We chose the latter and 10 minutes later surfaced to find the street we originally sought.
We were introduced to our 4 star hotel by pleasant desk staff however standing at the counter you got the impression the hotel was a little tired. The paintwork was patchy and dirty behind the counter, there were holes in the walls where things had formerly hung. The outside of the hotel presents itself like a large stately home. It’s square standing only 4 stories tall with a dilapidated courtyard in the middle. We managed to score a room on the 3rd floor and the directions from the desk staff was ‘head to the right and take the lift to the 3rd floor then turn left and head to the end and turn left and to the end and that should be your room i.e. we are the furthest away from any lift and the exit. Although this hotel is recently renovated it’s still very tired. Each hallway is tiled with no carpets therefore each person walking to their room can be heard the entire length of the ‘wing’ as can each turn of the key in the lock. The piste de résistance in design would have very thin walls between the rooms ensuring to have the toilets and showers of the adjacent room next to the bed meaning from we were able to hear the adjoining room washing their hands plus other water related activities. All that said, it’s a room with a bed and sleep wasn’t too hard to come by.
Better Then The Paint Job I Did In My House
A late start to the day revealed the ominous sky blanketed with brooding dark grey clouds and no discernable blue sky. We took the metro a few stops to the Vatican City. When we left the hotel it was a little grey and we knew the forecast was for some showers however what a difference a few stops on the metro makes! The skies opened up and it was bucketing with rain as we exited. The station exists were swamped with water and umbrella sellers in equal portion. Dancing between the rain drops we headed to the Vatican City. Once there you see the line that winds its way 400m or more from the entrance of St Peter’s basilica to the courtyard. This is a quieter time of the year so I can imagine from the barricades and size of the area that the queues would stretch for miles. The line moves surprisingly quickly and inside about 30 mins we were through the metal detectors and x-ray machine ready to enter Pete’s home.
As soon as you walk inside you see how grandiose a building can be. It’s a mixture of gawd, opulence and craftsmanship. From the marbled floor to the ceiling, there’s something to bombard the visual senses. The ceiling is damn high and you wouldn’t want to have that cleaning job! The walls have many of the popemeisters immortalised in statue form plus many other religious symbols that I couldn’t explain if my life depended on it. There’s the body of Pope John XXIII too. Well it didn’t look too real but apparently it is.
So to put this place into perspective, you have crypts, tombs, confessionals, 17th century chapel, silver coffers, and relics that the church actually doesn’t make any claim to the authenticity. As soon as you enter you can find some work done by a young 24 year old guy called Michelangelo. Named Pietà, it’s a sculpture of the Virgin Mary cradling the dead Jesus in her lap after the crucifixion. Unlike many other works here, it’s located behind protective glass as it was vandalized with an axe in 1972. Ahhh..so that’s what the x-ray machine was for…axes!
At the center of the basilica is the dome that’s is a total height of 136.57m (448.06 ft) from the floor of the basilica to the top of the external cross. A claim to fame is it’s the tallest dome in the world. Not sure if it’s the biggest however it has an internal diameter of 41.47 metres (136.06 ft). For EUR5.00 you can walk the 551 steps to the dome or for EUR7.00 you can take a lift 3 floors up and walk 320 steps to the top of the dome. We paid the extra money. The majority of the climb is between the inner and outer part of the dome.
The higher you get the steeper the steps become. As the steeper the climb the width of the steps reduces as well so you have to mind your footing. If your shoulders are any wider than mine you would have trouble with the climb as I was already barely making along the walkways. The climb is between the inner and outer walls and as it’s a dome, the walkways have curved ceilings and you have to walk on a lean. No matter how hard you try, there’s no avoiding gently bouncing of the walls as you almost stagger up the steps. The final 15 feet are up an extremely steep and narrow spiral staircase. At the exit of the staircase you find yourself on the external walkway around the dome and panoramic views of Rome. Well worth the climb. In total we spent almost 2 hours wandering around taking happy snaps and you could easily spend more.
We headed down the street to the castle and rather than overawed with the castle we were more amazed at the birds gathering in the sky. It was like they were swarming schools of fish and the sky was the ocean. You could see them flying from miles away towards the large flock and the nucleus of swelled in a constantly changing shape. As each separate flock arrived it stayed together but joined the others and flew to the center and back out. A fellow traveller next to us put up their umbrella as they discovered birds aren’t house trained 🙂
When You’re On A Good Thing
As we arrived quite late the previous night and where we were staying was a little away from the main attractions of the city, the number of restaurants was limited. We wandered around for a few minutes and was lucky enough to find a small, cheap and very efficient place. Too much pasta too late in the night was had however this little gem proved to be our savior for the weekend. We got caught in the tourist trap restaurants near St Peter’s Basilica in an attempt to have a late afternoon snack. We paid too much money for woefully inadequate tasting food and tiny portions. After trying unsuccessfully to find a place to relax at the end of our first full day we retired hurt and headed back to the restaurant from the previous night. Rome can get called many things but don’t for one minute think there’s a good restaurant on every corner.
Step To It
You would have thought we’d learnt from the previous day and got an early start to the day. We didn’t and the extra sleep was welcomed. We will be back to Rome so left the Sistine Chapel and Vatican City sights alone on Sunday. Today was meandering day and first port of call was the Spanish steps. Not a lot to say except they’re steps. Yep, that’s about it…steps. Oh, and a church at the top Trinità dei Monti. Good place for some pics with the sunshine warming our tired bones. From there we set off down a street every man fears…the decadent name brand shopping strip from hell. Can you say Gucci, Prada, and all manner of designer labels I’d never heard of…Chris had though. Handbags for 1000’s of Euros..bargain!
From there we wandered down to the outskirts of Ancient Rome (again left that for the next visit) and in the afternoon visited the bone church aka Caphuchin Crypt located beneath the Capuchin Church of the Immaculate Conception. Catchy name huh? In order to view the bones you have to pay a ‘minimum donation’ of 1 Euro. The bones in the 6 crypts are from 4,000 individual monks nailed/tied to the walls, ceilings and pretty much anywhere they could be arranged. I’m not sure if there’s any significance to the decorating ideas however many are arranged in a the shape of a cross, triangles, circles, squares…okay so pretty much any pattern. There’s even a clock made from the bones. One of the most striking things was the size of the skeletal remains, or rather the lack of size. The size of the monks are often tiny and you’re never quite sure if it’s an adult or child. You 
receive a stern warning that no photos are to be taken and we abided by this so no pics…not even our usual sneaky ones. You can check out this site for some pics though.
From the church we kept our meandering going and found Trevi Fountain. Can you say tourist photo op? The buggers (yes us included) swarmed around the fountain and all tried to take the ‘magic’ shot of the fountain that would be different from the millions of others that had been taken of the same static object. Don’t get me wrong, there’s no way were weren’t going there and understand why tourists flock there. The hawkers of bubble machines, cheap toys and other wares get on your nerves very quickly and they are at all major sites.
Further meandering landed us at the the opera house (decidedly boring and nondescript). The Sydney Opera House pales the one we found in Rome into insignificance. The Rome Opera House looked like the old boring building ran head first into a more decorative facade. Not even worth a photo but probably should have taken one to show you how much of a yawn fest it is. As with almost anywhere in Rome, there are historic looking buildings around almost every corner. Some have become shopping malls others government buildings and many I dare say retain their original purpose. We enjoyed the day wondering around finding many of these.
Arrivederci Roma
Avoiding the tourist traps today we were quite hungry when we arrived at the train station. Our flight wasn’t for a few more hours so before boarding our train for the airport, we ate at a Chinese restaurant across the road from the main train station. Expecting to be once more overcharged and under nourished we were delighted when this restaurant provided good authentic Chinese food at good prices. Things were looking up, but not for long. It was dark already so we thought we might as well head to the airport early. We used the automated ticket machine however it swallowed some of our Euro coins and didn’t register them, so in a panic we hit cancel. In any normal city the money deposited would be returned but in Rome that would be too easy and potentially lead to someone being unemployed. In Rome what some crazed chemically imbalanced ex prison guard decided was instead of refunding money you should offer a credit note that you could exchange for money. So we headed into the terminal to get a refund to find, as with so many places in Rome, queues up to the wazoo. After waiting in line for too long and getting nowhere and watching people push past others, we decided to forego the stress and buy another two tix on credit card. Luckily this machine worked. We asked the chain smoking “I love my life and my job, it’s the career I always wanted” uniformed mudlark sitting on the platform if we could get a refund at the airport. He grunted yes (we think) and dismissively waved his hand in the direction of the train pulling in. Our gifted ears for speaking gruntenese proved correct and most of our money was returned at the airport with no queues in which to stand and become frustrated.
We will definitely head back to Rome to check out other sites we deliberately left for another day but there is no way I would ever want to live in Rome, in fact I’d have to be nailed to cross and dragged there.