Rome

Buongiorno!

So amidst all of the traveling I have been doing lately, I am happy to update my last trip for a short while, and what better way to do it with Rome for the Easter weekend! This was an awesome weekend and a very very busy one as well. I knew Rome obviously had a lot of sites to see, being the phenomenal ancient city that it is, but man were there a lot of sites! You really don't realize how much there truly is to see in this city until you get there and spend a weekend walking all day each day going to different sites. My roommates and I started our trip at the beginning of the slightly longer Easter weekend on Thursday. We took a short flight to Rome and took a shuttle into the city where I was first exposed to some of the sites of the city.

The Colosseum

Once we got into the city, our first objective was to locate our hostel. It took awhile but we eventually found it and it was only a short 10 minute walk to the Colosseum! So after we got there, we dropped off our stuff and made our way to the famous Roman Colosseum. It was later in the evening when we got there so we didn't get to go inside of it yet but it was nice to hang out around it while it was lit up. That day was actually Rome's 2,764th birthday so we thought there may be some events going on at night, but for the most part it was pretty quiet. After seeing the Colosseum, which was truly incredible and I couldn't believe I was there, we made our way back to the hostel to get some rest for the long day ahead of us in the morning. For this next day, we had planned to see the Ancient City of Rome as well as a  lot of the other sites in the center of the city. So we got up early and the first thing we went to get was the Roma Pass. This pass is an awesome deal and it allowed us to skip the line for the first two sites we saw and we got to use it for all of the public transportation in Rome for only 25 euros! So once we got the pass we immediately headed to the Colosseum to skip the line and go inside. Once we got inside I really could not believe how large the Colosseum was. It looks pretty large from the outside, but from the inside you can tell just how massive it really is, especially for the time it was used, it was truly an architectural feat. We spent a lot of time in the Colosseum and got plenty of pictures before heading off to the Roman Forum.

A view of the Forum and the Colosseum.

For those who do not know what the Roman Forum is, it is basically a very condensed area of a ton of old Roman ruins lined up along the oldest street in Rome, via Sacra. So we skipped the line for this as well and headed into the area. It was really neat to see so many ancient Roman ruins in one area and the age of the city really stands out here. After walking for a bit through all of these ruins, we made our way up to Palatine Hill, where we were able to get an amazing view of the Roman Forum, the Colosseum, and Capitoline Hill. It was really cool to be able to see this whole landscape, and on the other side of the hill we were able to see the very few remains of the massive Circus Maximus arena, where they held many of the chariot races. From Palatine Hill, we went off in search of a pizza place for lunch that we had heard was incredible.It took us a bit of time to locate the pizza place, as it was fairly small, off of a small street in the area of Trastevere. The name of the pizza place is Dar Poeta, and I can say that I had probably the best pizza of my entire life. It was a pizza with pesto, potatoes, and cherry tomatoes and the ingredients were so fresh and it was incredible. Once we finished enjoying our pizza, we went to Piazza Navona, which is a pretty large, really nice piazza, and then we went to the Pantheon. When we got there it was packed and there was a mass going on inside that everyone was trying to see. We decided that we would head there later and we then went to the Trevi Fountain. As soon as I saw the fountain I was very impressed.

The Trevi Fountain

The fountain really is quite large and the sculptures are really neat. It is a very elaborate fountain and I thought it was one of my favorite sites in Rome. We threw some coins in the fountain, and we then went to the Spanish Steps. It was quite crowded when we got there, and we headed up the steps and into the Trinità dei Monti church at the top which was nice. We got a really good view of the city, and just like most other views we had, we were able to see the massive St. Peter's Basilica looming in the distance. From there, we headed down a road to Piazza del Popolo, which is another really neat piazza in the northern part of the city. After hanging out in the piazza for a bit, we took the metro back to the area of the ancient city, where we checked out the massive monument of Vittorio Emanuele II which was extremely impressive and this was also one of my favorite sites to see in Rome. After checking out this massive monument, we started to head back to the hostel when we noticed that they were closing the entire street near the Colosseum and people were gathering all along the street for some kind of event. After asking a couple of people, I was told that there was going to be a special ceremony when the Pope was going to make an appearance down the street in his "Popemobile." Unfortunately, it wasn't for another 2 hours and people were already crowding the area. We were not able to wait that long because we were quite hungry and we had to catch the free pasta the hostel offered that evening. So we got back to the hostel and had some really good dinner. After dinner, we pretty much just hung out with some of the other people at the hostel which was fun. We then went to sleep so we can wake up early to head to the Vatican the next day. Once we got ready the next morning, we made our way to the Vatican and went over to the Vatican Museums, as those usually have the longest line to get in. Even at 9 in the morning the line was already pretty long, and we had to wait for maybe an hour to get in, knowing it was going to be worse later on.

One of the corridors leading to the Sistine Chapel.

We got in and headed to the Sistine Chapel. It took a bit of walking to get to the chapel but the walk to the chapel was pretty neat. We went through a number of corridors that were very elaborately decorated and were lined with numerous sculptures and paintings. When we finally got to the Sistine Chapel I was pretty impressed. The artwork was very nice and we hung out in the chapel for a bit and started going to a couple other parts of the museums. There were a couple of little parks we went through that had some pretty cool works of art and then we went to a sculpture museum with a ton of really neat, elaborate sculptures of a ton of different stuff. I really enjoyed this part of the museum and I thought it was really cool to see all the different types of sculptures that were contained here. After checking that out, we exited the museum and headed to St. Peter's square in hopes of entering the Basilica. When we got to the square, I was totally blown away at how large the church was and it was a really amazing setup. However, I had never seen a line so long going into the Basilica. The line literally went around the entire square (which is huge) and it was probably at least three hours long. I think this was mostly due to the holiday weekend, and, because they were closing the Basilica in three hours to prepare for an evening vigil, we decided that it would be best to not get in the extremely long line. It was still really neat to just hang out in the square and relax in the Vatican City, I couldn't complain haha. After hanging out for a bit in the Vatican, we headed down the main street there and walked a bit along the Tiber River which was quite scenic. We got some food, and then headed back to the Pantheon to see if we could get inside. When we got to the Pantheon, there was no mass taking place so we were able to go inside. It was HUGE on the inside and I thought it was incredible. The architecture inside the Pantheon is remarkable, and we were also able to see the tomb of Vittorio Emanuele II, the first king of Italy, which I thought was awesome to see. After spending some time in the Pantheon, we ended up going back to the Vatican because I wanted to go to the post office there and get some

St. Peter's Basilica

Vatican stamps to send a postcard, it was pretty cool to see the little post office there and just outside of that was a pair of Swiss guards dressed in some pretty elaborate uniforms. We watched the changing of the guard which was cool and then we ended up seeing if there was any way to go into the rest of the city, Since St. Peter's is really near the front entrance to the city. However, after asking one of the Swiss guards, we found out that the rest of the city is private, and it is not open to the public. It was still cool to walk around a bit of the city, and when we got done with that, we headed back towards the ancient part of Rome to check out the Bocca della Verità. Legend has it that if you stick your hand in the mouth of this sculpture, it would be bitten off if you were a liar. This is a popular tourist attraction and when we got there, it was unfortunately closed. We then headed back to the hostel after that and got some dinner. After dinner, Mike and I wanted to check out some of the nightlife in the city. We didn't end up leaving the hostel until a little late that night, but we found a pub in a part of the city that we hung out at for a bit. After that, there wasn't much else to do and we basically made our way back to the hostel to get ready for our last half-day in Rome. When we got up the next day, Felix and our buddy Nick went to mass, and Mike and I went to the Trevi Fountain one more time so that he could throw a coin in the fountain. After going to the fountain again, we decided to go to the Vatican again, since it was Easter day. When we got there, there were a TON of people on the way there and when we actually got to the main square, I was able to hear an older man's voice on the loudspeakers. The entire square was packed with people and I don't know if I've ever seen that many people in one area before. After the man was finished talking, everybody was clapping and then people began to exit the square. After I heard that, I was pretty sure that it was the Pope, although I wasn't certain, since it was difficult to see him from where we were.

The Swiss Guards

Once people began to leave, me and Mike were able to get into the square and we realized that the Easter mass had just ended. I don't think we would have been able to make it to the actual mass if we had gotten there earlier though because I think we needed a special ticket to get into the city for the mass, which is free, but you need to book a year in advance! But it was still cool to see a bunch of people from different countries waving their flags and the overall atmosphere of the city on Easter was really nice. We hung out again for a bit in the square and then headed back to the hostel to get ready to head back to Torino. Before we made our way out of the city, we checked out one last church, one of the four main churches in Rome, Santa Maria Maggiore. This was a very impressive church and it is probably one of the nicest churches I have been to so far. After checking out the church, we headed back to the shuttle, and two shuttles and a flight later, we were back in Torino. This was an extremely busy trip, as we saw a lot of sites in this incredible city. Although it was quite exhausting, I was really happy with the city and I was just amazed at how much there was to see. Although I wish we could have gone into St. Peter's Basilica, which I have heard is amazing, I guess you simply cannot do everything in Rome in 3 days. This was a really awesome trip, but I gotta say that I am pretty traveled out at the moment, since I have been doing so much of it lately. I only spent one full day in Torino this week! So I am definitely excited to stay in Torino for probably the next two weeks before my program is over! That's about it for Rome.

 Ciao!