Three of Us in Italy – Part 2

The Ride

It’s Thursday morning, and we arrived at our hotel in Rome last night. I didn’t sleep very much on the plane, and by the time we got to our hotel, it was almost 10 PM, and after setting up everyone’s Wi-Fi, I needed to sleep and this morning feel much better and well rested. It’s about 6 AM, and I’ve been up since 5 AM, which is normally the time I get up, so that’s not unusual. Barb will likely be sleeping for several more hours, and this is the ideal time for me to write my blog while everything is fresh in my head.

We debated how we would get from the Rome airport to our hotel and in the end decided that taking a taxi was the best choice. We’ve taken a lot of taxis over the years, and this itself wasn’t a big decision. It was the ride that was interesting. It’s probably an Italian thing, but we were blasting down the highway from the airport, on a posted 60 KM/hr road, easily doing 120. It must be a taxi thing, as some other taxis were passing us. Suffice to say, we made good time getting from the airport to our hotel.

The Long Walk

Yesterday was our first full day here in Rome. From our hotel, we found that within a 10-minute walk, there are a number of places to eat, and we had breakfast at a local place for some coffee and croissants, which we found they call a cornetto here. While the three of us sat at a table outside, there were many locals, well-dressed in suits, having the same, but more often standing at the bar, which is very common in Italy.

We did a lot of walking yesterday, which we often end up doing when exploring any big city. We purchased a 24-hour ticket for the subway, which we used several times to get around. On our first day, we hit many of the major sites, and while many of them were crowded, we overall didn’t feel that the city was overrun with tourists, as it probably would be during July or August. About the worst was around the Trevi Fountain, which we had originally planned to go first thing in the morning, but on the spur of the moment decided to walk there in the middle of the day, among a horde of people.

The weather throughout the day was very good, in the mid-20s, and all of us were taking layers off as we walked around. After dinner, it was quite a bit cooler, closer to 17 and in hindsight, I would have worn one of the thicker shirts I brought with me. Wendy had made reservations at a restaurant right next to the Colosseum, which was very photogenic, lit up at night, and all of us took several photos of the area, then took the subway back to our hotel, ending our first day here in Rome.

All of us watched lots of videos before leaving home on scams and pickpockets in Italy, and have been vigilant about this. However, most of the places we’ve been to so far, especially the subways, which are a pickpocket hotspot, have not been very crowded, and we’ve never felt unsafe.

The Vatican

It’s Friday today, and we had booked tickets to visit the Vatican Museum and St. Peter’s Basilica. In hindsight, it was an exhausting day with a lot of running around. Getting to the Vatican was fairly easy, and it was just a few stops on the metro. The whole area around the Vatican had about the largest crowds we’ve seen since getting to Rome. The Vatican is always popular, and we think that because this year is a Jubilee Year, there were likely lots more visitors to the Vatican. The Vatican Museum had room after room of treasures, some donated over the centuries, and a lot of Egyptian artifacts likely plundered in years gone by. It took about 90 minutes of walking with crowds through all of the rooms, up and down staircases and waiting to get to what everyone was looking to see, the Sistine Chapel, which only came at the very end, before we had to leave. Guards are walking around the chapel asking people not to take photos of the ceiling, and none of us knew why it was not allowed. Nonetheless, Barb got a picture of the ceiling on my photo website.

We ended up having to rush out of the Vatican Museum and quickly walk about a kilometre to our booking to see St. Peter’s Basilica. We ended up walking about 8 Km today, and we were all exhausted, especially from walking everywhere around the Vatican with large crowds. After two days in a row of lots of walking, almost 15 Km combined in both days, we have a slow day planned tomorrow to get our energy back.

As always, I’ve started to post my photos from Italy on my photo website here.

Baden