Our Excellent Italian Adventure – Part 3

Taking your Life in your Hands

One of the (many) things that distinguishes European cities from where we live is often that they have cobblestone streets. Rome is a perfect example of this as pretty much all of the roads inside the city are cobblestone. On face value, the cobblestones add an old world charm that a city like Vancouver totally lacks. However, the benefits of a cobblestone street ends with the charm and has little value from a practical standpoint. While driving on the streets of Rome, you should expect the fillings to be shaken out of your teeth as there’s simply no chance of anything but a constantly bumpy ride.

But wait, it gets worse.

Today it rained for a while and we quickly discovered what a death trap wet cobblestone streets were. Considering the millions of mopeds driving on the streets here, I’m truly surprised that there aren’t huge casualties every time the street get wet as it is so slippery.

But enough of me harping on the streets. This minor issue aside, when put in perspective of the overwhelmingly positive things about Rome, have us talking non-stop about how much fun we’re all having here.

Before I get into how our day went today, I have to comment on a funny observation about watching TV in our room. In most of the places that we have stayed at in Europe we have had a small TV with a limited selection of channels. One of the reoccurring things that we experience year after year is watching some older TV show in a foreign language. Just last night we watched Sanford and Son in Italian. On previous trips, I’ve watched The Fresh Prince of Bel Air in German and Bewitched in Spanish. It’s just hilarious seeing many of these iconic shows in a different language. And who says that there’s nothing worth watching on TV anymore?

Today was our first trip on the Rome subway system as we started to expand our exploration of the city. We started off our walk around the city with one of the most known sites in Europe: the Coliseum. Perhaps only second to the Eiffel tower in terms of being a universally know structure, the ancient Roman Coliseum literally packs in the visitors from all round the world. One of the difference that Barb and I remember from our first visit of the Coliseum was the fact that it was free to enter when we saw it in 1994 and it now has an admission fee. Even if you’re not a history buff, a visit to the Coliseum is simply a requirement that must be done when visiting Rome.

After leaving the Coliseum, we walked south to seek out something that I had wanting to see for many years: the Santa Maria in Cosmedin church.

Don’t feel bad if you’ve never heard of the Santa Maria in Cosmedin church. Neither had I. However, it is what this church is famous for that is what we came to see: La Bocca della Verita.

Still not ringing a bell? Well how about it’s English name: “the Mouth of Truth”?

Made famous in the movie Roman Holiday in the scene with Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck where one puts their hand in the mouth and if a lie is spoken your hand will be bitten off.

There was actually a line-up of about 30 people waiting to stand in front of the La Bocca with their hand in its mouth and waiting for their friend to take their picture.

After the Mouth of Truth, we stepped things up several notches on the art legitimacy scale and made our way to the San Pietro in Vincoli church. The English translation for this church’s name is “St. Peter in Chains”. One of the highlight of this church was a sealed display at the altar which is said to contain the actual chains that St. Peter wore when he was crucified by the Romans nearly 2000 years ago in Rome.

Under normal circumstances, St. Peter’s chains wouldn’t have been of enough interest to draw us there. However, what was of interest was the famous Michelangelo sculpture of Moses which is in this church.

The marble sculptures of the great masters like Michelangelo are simply unreal in that it looks more like was had been poured on someone instead of been hand chiseled by stone. The detail in the things like the cloth that Moses is wearing is incredible.

For anyone who has watched the movie the Agony and the Ecstasy, you will know about this sculpture. In this movie, Pope Julius II (played by Rex Harrison), demands that Michelangelo (Charlton Heston) stop work on the Moses sculpture for him to start on a more important commission: the painting of the Sistine Chapel ceiling.

After enjoying the classic renaissance art, we switched gears to visit perhaps the most touristy site in all of Rome: the Spanish Steps.

In a similar category as the Trevi Fountain, the Spanish steps is a magnet for thousands of tourists and is almost always teeming with people. Located in the Spanga (pronounced span-ya) area of Rome, the Spanish Steps can really just be called a staircase but is one of those things that has received so much notoriety that it has become one of those “must-see” spots that everyone wants to see when they visit Rome – and they were all there today when we went.

For both the Trevi fountain and the Spanish Steps, we decided to come back another time when the crowds might be thinner although we weren’t sure when exactly that might be.

Just down from the Spanish Steps is a street called Via Conditti. This street is the demarcation point for the major shopping district of Rome. Dior, Prada, Georgio Armani and Dolce and Gabana are all located on this street or on adjoining streets. I expected both Barb and Liz to wish to spend a lot of time here but surprisingly we just did window shopping and moved on toward home.

Sidebar: I found out the next day that Barb was planning on returning here the next day.

Eating Well Roman Style

One of the general rules that Barb and I have when choosing a restaurant when we are travelling is that smaller is better. In general, what we’re looking for is a nice small, out of the way restaurant that is frequented by locals. We usually keep our eyes on the tiny back streets for a good restaurant that has lots of people sitting there. Last night we struck gold with a restaurant called Perdingianu & Croccoriga.

Located about 5 blocks from out hotel, it had all of the outward signs that we were looking for and the meal was right on target. Barb and I had a wild boar dish while Peter and Liz had a lamb and sea bass dish respectively.

One of the best parts of the dinner was a full litre of their excellent house red wine which only ran us €4.50 (about $6.50 in our dollars!).

A perfect dinner to end a perfect day in Rome.

A Vatican Experience

Over dinner last night we discussed getting up early and trying to get to the Spanish Steps and Trevi fountain early to beat the crowds. “Early” mean meeting for breakfast about two hours earlier or about 7:00. We ended up doing this and then hurried out to get to these destinations. Our first stop was the Trevi Fountain.

What luck – only about 10 people there!

We took a bunch of pictures and video and then moved on to the Spanish Steps. Similarly, there were about 1/10th the number of people there so we were able to get some reasonably good pictures.

Obviously, Rome is a city that likes to sleep in.

From the Spanish Steps, we moved on to our “real” destination for the day: the Vatican City.

We took the metro to the Vatican and had to stand in line to go through the xray machines (something that was not there on our last visit in 1994). We made our way through the line up into the doors of St. Peter’s Basilica.

Before continuing, I should confess that of the 7 visits to Europe that we have made in the last 11 years, I rank St. Peter’s Basilica as by far the #1 site to see in all of Europe. #2 is of course the BMW factory tour in Munich but I’m willing to negotiate on that one. 🙂

Seriously though, when walking through St. Peter’s, it is such an incredible sight that it’s hard to imagine that the means to build such a thing existed over 400 years ago. Everything inside the Basilica is on such a grand scale that nothing I have ever seen compares to it.

Regardless of your religious convictions, if you are in Rome you absolutely must see the Vatican and St. Peter’s.

After touring the inside of the Basilica, I announced that I wanted to climb the steps to view Michelangelo’s dome which is a 375 foot climb to the top of the dome of St. Peter’s. No one else seemed to be interested in doing this so we split up and Barb, Peter and Liz headed toward the tour the Sistine Chapel. I had already seen the Sistine Chapel on our last visit and felt that the climb up the dome would be more interesting in the long run.

The climb up the stairs wasn’t really all that grueling and although it was sunny and humid, there was enough windows in the staircase that it made it tolerable. It only took about 25 minutes to climb up to the upper viewing platform and I was treated to a fantastic view of not only St. Peter’s square and the Vatican gardens but all of Rome.

Although I was finished with the dome tour and down on the ground within an hour, it was not for a full hour after that that I met up with the other three after their trip to the Sistine Chapel. All three of them were dead tired as they had to walk all the way around the other side of the Vatican to get into the Vatican Museum to get into the chapel. Without exception, they all liked the Sistine Chapel but overall were disappointed with how long it all took to get there. Peter described it like going to Ikea where you have to walk through the entire store to get to one department.

That’s all for now so until next time.

Baden

Goto the next episode of Our Excellent Italian Adventure