Greetings from 30,000 feet! I'm on the plane to Venezia right now, so I'm not sure when exactly this will be posted; our hotel in San Marco does not have WiFi, so I am guessing Tuesday night when we're back in Paris. Until then, I can write about Rome so the entry is ready to go when we return!
Yesterday morning we were woken with the best thing ever: breakfast, delivered to our room and set up on the table on our balcony. It was fantastic; ResLife should look into installing balconies, and BCDS should starting delivering room service. We were served tea with lemon, some cheese, ham and salami, two types of yogurt, bread fresh out of the oven with butter and jam, wrapped pieces of toast-like crackers, some cookies and pound cake, plus orange juice and two hard-boiled eggs. It was pretty much heaven, and definitely made our first full day in Rome start beautifully.
Well-fed, we walked back to the Colosseo where we would catch our hop-on, hop-off bus. Headphones were provided, so we could listen to happy Italian music and hear fun facts about things like the Jesuit church we passed on our way to the Vatican, or the rose gardens that hold a competition for new varieties of roses every year. The way the route went, we only passed a few stops before we were pulling up in front of San Pietro's square and the Basilica in Vatican City!
Using a scarf to help adhere to the dress code, we wandered into the Basilica, where there are tons of paintings, statues and even bodies of past Popes. It was slightly creepy and only vaguely relevant to someone who is not Catholic, simply because I do not know the entire history of the Vatican or who all of the Popes were slash what they did. It was definitely interesting and awe-inspiring though!
From the Basilica we wandered in the Poste Vaticane, where you can send postcards straight from Vatican City. I have now technically been in 5 countries in the past week! The gift shop was similarly fun to poke around in, though obviously nothing humorous with the Pope on it would be found within the walls of the Vatican. While unfortunate, this was expected.
Before we could completely melt into Saint Peter's Square, we decided to walk to the Vatican Museum, where the Sistine Chapel is located. I was excited to find the bas relief of the West Wind that is the air marker from Angels and Demons, centrally located around the obelisk in the center of the square. Clearly all of my knowledge of the Eternal City comes from the movie, which I saw less than a month ago. On the way to the museum who did we find but Walter and Dan and the rest of the group from the Venice summer program, Practicing Mortality! This was incredibly exciting for Maureen and I, since we had been trying to figure out how exactly to meet up with Walter in Venice, and so we made a few potential plans, gave him the address of our hotel, and continued our journey to the museum.
I had forgotten my BC ID for the discounted rate, so I had to use Maureen's card while she used her ID from Sciences-Po. It worked rather well, considering they do not check at all. Inside were thousands of statues, tapestries, paintings, pieces of furniture, pottery, sculptures...and people trying to reach the Chapel. After about an hour of winding along the hallways and climbing up and down stairs, we finally reached it. It was a huge room, covered in paintings, and the ceiling was absolutely gorgeous. I hurt my neck staring at it for so long, so I can only imagine how Michaelangelo must have felt painting the entire thing. The floor was just a sea of people slowly being pulled from one side of the room to the other, and finally we made it out, only to have to walk through another mile of hallways before reaching, as usual, a gift shop. Not even the Vatican is above trying to sell you postcards of the art you just saw.
After a slice of pizza at the Vatican cafeteria, we slowly walked back to the square so we could buy postcards, write messages on them, and mail them from the Vatican Post Office. Consider yourself special if you receive one. From there it was a walk to Castel San Angelo, the fortress that also features in Angels and Demons, before we would hop back on our bus. As were were about to cross the street to the castle, we once again bumped into Walter, who had broken off from the group! This time we commemorated the event with a photo, then talked about various things to do in Venice before he decided to walk with us to our bus stop. Such are the ways of Boston College; you can always find the people that go there!
I had a great time taking pictures of every single one of Bernini's angels on the bridge to Castel San Angelo, of which there are many. The bus took about fifteen minutes to arrive, so we stood across the street taking more pictures and discussing life back in Boston. When the bus finally did come, Walter headed back to his original destination, and Maureen and I got back on the bus, this time opting for a lower level seat to get out of the sun. We had been expecting to get off at the stop closest to the Trevi Fountain, but due to a Gay Pride parade about ten of the bus stops were closed. This was good news for us, because it meant our tickets remained valid for an extra 24 hours, but also not so good because it meant we were let off at a stop we were not expecting. C'est la vie.
Using the beautiful map of Roma that was given to us when we arrived at Ciampino, we made our way to the Fontana di Trevi, which is a pretty fantastic site. There were a ton of people around, but we still managed to throw our coins, make our wishes, and take pictures from every angle. Our route then led us past the Tempio Adriano, a rather amusing-looking fake statue who ended up being pretty lame when someone gave him money, and straight to the Pantheon. The crowd by the door informed us that it was closed for the 17:30 mass, so we wandered to Piazza Navona instead, where the Fontana dei Quattro Fuimi is. Being the water marker in Angels and Demons, it was pretty exciting to see, but didn't take up a lot of time. We decided to get dinner at a little place by the Pantheon as we waited to go in, and I ended up eating about 7/8 of a pizza. Italian food is by far the best of all the food in all the countries I've been to. You cannot go wrong with pizza and pasta.
Around 19:00 we tried to wait to get into the Pantheon again, but apparently the mass at 17:30 was private and the Pantheon would be closing when it was over. A little annoyed and knowing that our bus would not be stopping anywhere near the Colosium, we had to walk all the way back to our guesthouse for the next hour. We had been planning to go to some party in the gardens by the Colosseo that Dan had mentioned, which was going to be an opening for some new disco, but by the time we made it back to the guesthouse we were too exhausted and decided to stay in for the night. Rome may not have been built in a day, but we definitely saw most of it in one!
Breakfast was just as amazing this morning, and we packed up and checked out so we could go catch one of the first hop-on, hop-off buses, thanks to the extended 24 hours the parade gave us. The bus stop was super hard to find though, so we finally got on around 10:00. The entire route takes about 2 hours and runs backwards on Sundays, so we decided to kill time by riding it all the way around the city, taking more pictures, and then getting off at Termini so we didn't have to walk there. It was a pretty ingenious plan, and worked pretty well, minus the fact that every time the bus stopped, we would sit and melt in the sun from the upper deck. I definitely have sunburn, which has been a great thing to deal with when carrying my backpack. We saw pretty much everything we'd already seen, plus the Piazza del Popolo, where the chapel that held the Ecstasy of Saint Theresa was, the fire marker from Angels and Demons. In real life, the Ecstasy is in the chapel Santa Maria della Vittoria, which is not in the Piazza del Popolo, but oh well. So all we missed is the Chigi Chapel; I would have liked to see Habakkuk and the Angel and the Ecstasy, instead of just a bunch of obelisks. Next time!
At Termini we were able to figure out the self service ticket machine and get on a train straight to Fiumicino airport, which was awesome and air-conditioned. We are basically hoping that since Venice is on the water, it will be much cooler and not quite as ridiculous as Rome has been. I much prefer the rain that I'd brought to London, Paris and everywhere else. I guess we'll see.
Our flight was delayed, as usual, so we got to sit on the floor at the front of the line and wait for an extra half hour. We were all set to get great seats when they let us out to the airport, but instead we had to get on a bus and drive out to the middle of the tarmac to get on the plane where it was receiving fuel. Cheap flights are a joy. When we land we get to attempt to locate our "impossible to find" hotel, and potentially see Walter if he locates it too. There is much less to see in Venezia, so I guess we'll ride a few boats and do souvenir shopping. We shall see!
This flight is only 50 minutes, so we should land soon. I'm super excited for the water bus. More tomorrow!
Love,
Sam
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