Day Two in Rome

My feet hurt (past, present, and future tense).

I'm estimating 8 miles of walking today. We covered a lot of ground, literally.

We were out of the hotel by 9am, and went straight to the Colosseum. It's not small, but nothing in Rome is. We again rented some Audio Guide headsets (basically mp3 players) and listened to the history of the Colosseum as it took us to various points around the stadium. I was surprised that we could walk around the entire stadium both on the upper level and the ground level, even though there are many pieces of the stadium missing.

The Colosseum seated somewhere between 40,000 and 70,000 people back in its day. It was created in the first century A.D. It was the location of extremely popular Roman games back in the day, such as gladiator fights and fights between humans and wild, exotic animals. The grand opening of the Colosseum lasted 100 days and 5,000 exotic animals were killed during that time.



Anybody could get in to the Colosseum for free, but your social status determined where you would sit. (Hey, it's a lot like today's events, except for the "getting in free" part!) The Senators had lavish boxes on the main level of the Colosseum, with their names even carved in to marble in the box. "Common people" were relegated to the top level, and various other classes filled in the middle.



So imagine that you're sentenced to death for doing something really really naughty. But instead of getting the guillotine or hanging, they gave you a free seat on the main level of the Colosseum--except in the middle of the arena, with a panther or a lion as your opponent. Those sentenced to death probably didn't get a weapon to fight with. Anyway, I would imagine that the last few moments of your life would be really exciting, with you having the opportunity of seeing a "real live" lion REALLY close up.

Anyway, it's kind of fun to think about, isn't it?

Gladiators would fight each other to the death. If you were pretty good, you had a decent chance of not dying in the fight. Each gladiator only fought about twice a year.

Oh, and let's not forget that some of the first Christian martyrs were said to have been put to death in the Colosseum.

You can see in this picture where the floor of the Colosseum has been restored. The guys who ran the show actually built really elaborate trap doors beneath the arena, which would "magically" make the gladiator, prisoner, or exotic animal pop up out of nowhere using a system of counterweights and pulleys, and a massive laser light show as well.*

[*The laser light show has not been verified for sure yet by the author of this blog, but he's pretty sure they would have had something cool like that.]

Did I enjoy the Colosseum? Yes, I loved it. One of the best parts of the trip so far.

The above photo is the Arch of Constantine, the Roman dude that decided that Christianity was okay after all. The arch is directly outside of the Colosseum. I took this photo from the second floor of the Colosseum.

Oh, and I should post a picture I took for my cat lover, Megan. There was a cat inside the Colosseum.

Well, we only spent the morning at the Colosseum, so I should move on before all of you (3) readers fall asleep.

We then went up to Palatine Hill, which is where all of the Rich and Famous Romans live. For example, I wouldn't have lived there. I took lots of pictures, but won't share any of them with you because I know you want to focus on my descriptions and not the pictures. Anyway, I'd describe the hill as "posh."

Moving on, we visited the Forum, which consisted of the remains of many very, very old Roman temples and other buildings. The remaining columns, pillars, foundations, footings, etc. were just massive. Many of the structures were as much as 2000 or more years old, but there wasn't much left of most of them.

As we were coming out of the main area of the Forum, there was a big building with its side door open. I decided to go in. All of the writing on the walls was in Italian in the room we went into, and I couldn't make out what it said except something about Pietro and Pablo, which I figured was Peter and Paul. Oh, so they visited the place, I guess. Fortunately there was an Audio Phone for 1 euro that allowed me to get an English person to tell me about the place. What I didn't understand was that this was a prison where both Peter and Paul were kept in Rome. Wow. I think I'll share my video with you:



I know I'm boring you, and I'm tired myself, so I'll give a short overview of the rest of the day.

Such-and-Such-Cathedral-of-I-Thought-It-Was-St.-Andrew-but-maybe-it's-not [to-do: find the name of the place]. HO-LY COW. Ornate is an understatement. This cathedral was just around the corner from the Plaza Navona, I believe. I'm not too happy with the "put in an 'offering' and a fake candle will light up" machine in this and other places. The more I think about, it's a gimmick that's just taking money from the poor and the ignorant who think that they're getting some blessing by lighting up a fake candle. Anyway, I think I'll give you a video of the place:



Piazza Navona. Bernini is amazing. He does some cool sculptures, even if they are of the gods of the sea. We had lunch there at the side of the plaza. I had lasagna, which was really good.


Trevi Fountain: Double Wow. Amazing. Gorgeous. These Romans just must have loads of free time on their hands.

Spanish Steps: I must be missing something. It's really a popular site, and tons of people are there. I mean, the steps are really cool. Don't get me wrong--I love steps. Steps/stairs are cool. Way nice invention. And they paved the way for the escalator, which was even more important.

But really, what's the big deal about some steps? Did the Spanish people invent them? What's up with that? Anyway, I'll give credit where credit is due: Nice job on the steps, Spaniards!

I did go to the cathedral at the top of the Spanish Steps. It was interesting, but after Sistene and the other cathedral that I saw today, it was a bit of a let-down. Sorry.

Chapel of the Bones: Basically, it's not a chapel, but a bunch of rooms decorated from floor to ceiling with bones from a ton of people. Jawbones and just about every other thing you can think about are used to make fancy decorations. It's SICK, people! I just don't get it. But, yes, I'm glad I went.

We walked a mile or two from a metro station in the middle of nowhere to try to visit some of the catacombs this evening. We arrived at about 7:10pm, with really sore feet. We walked down a bunch of steps, and through the middle of an Italian mass currently "in progress." Anyway, we found a sign that said that the catacombs closed at 5pm. Dang, dang, dang. I was really looking forward to that.

Anyway, that was about it for today. We all got back to the hotel exhausted from a long day. But we saw a ton of amazing stuff. Now going back to work will be like a vacation. I guess that's what vacations are really for, aren't they?

We fly back to England first thing tomorrow morning!

First Whole Day in Rome (Jan 18 '08)

[Okay, just a little context for those of you who don't know why I'm in Rome: I am spending two weeks (minus these three days in Rome) in England working with Express Worldwide. This is my third trip in the last year. Ben and Zoe Kirby own a few Express Worldwide franchises and also work at the head office, and we've become good friends over the past year. Anyway, Ben and I decided that on my next trip we'd try to do a quick trip to Rome. Turns out that we were both actually really serious about it. So Ben, Zoe, and I booked some cheap plane tickets and a hotel, and here we are in Rome.]

Ben, Zoe, and I arrived in Rome last night on a very low-fair Irish airline called RyanAir. The flights were dirt cheap, but not too comfortable. The seats didn't recline, and my knees touched the seat in front of me most of the time. The flight lasted about 2.5 hours, but there was a warning light that came on just as we were about to take off, so we sat on the tarmac for an extra half hour while the engineer came in and just unscrewed the light bulb.* That's one way to get a warning light to go off. We're staying at a decent hotel in Rome called the Hotel Milton Roma. The room I have is a bit smaller that I had expected, with the bedroom having a twin bed, and the bedroom not even being twice as wide as the bed itself. But it's pretty decent. I can't complain. Or at least I shouldn't. :-)

[* okay, I'm not sure what he did to get it to turn off. There's a chance that he really fixed the source of the problem.]

We found a little hole-in-the-wall pizza shop down the street last night and decided to just grab a slice and come back to the hotel. Unfortunately, my pizza's crust was burnt and black on the bottom, and Zoe and Ben had a piece of meat on their pizza with a big vein in it. They said it looked like a human vein. But that's silly--how can you tell for sure it's not a monkey vein?

We spent the day touring Rome today. Since we wanted to make sure that to see the Vatican on this trip, we went there first.

We bought an all-day Metro pass for the subway for 4 euros [euro-dollars]. That turns out to be the best deal in all of Italy so far. Here's a short video clip of our metro ride. A guy came on to the subway and started playing his accordian. You'll hear a bit of it. But he was just amazingly good. I was impressed enough to give him 2 euros in his collection can, which is a lot of money for a cheapskate like me.



I had read Angels and Demons by Dan Brown, so I thought I kind of knew what to expect at the Vatican. Well, I was wrong. The Vatican is so much bigger that I possibly could have imagined. And everything there is so lavishly decorated, it is simply mind-blowing. It has to have the greatest collection of art in the world. Simply incredible.

The picture above makes everything look pretty small. It isn't. Believe me.






So I doubt that I can give you a feel for the size of this place, even from the pictures that I'm going to post here. The people who built this place must have been giants, needing a lot of head room. The dome of Saint Peter's Basilica, a massively huge chapel in Vatican City, is 137 meters high. That's significantly taller than a football (yes, American football) field is long, people.

Anyway, Saint Peter's Basilica was the first place we visited, and we spent nearly two hours there. We paid 5 euros for an "audio guide", which was basically an MP3 player with 20+ tracks on it that you would play as you walked around the chapel. The audio lasted an hour and 15 minutes, but it still only skimmed the surface of what was there. There were just loads of statues, murals, altars, busts, etc. from artists through the ages. I can't imagine how many man-hours of work has gone into this building, but it must be well over a million.

The image above is the bronze Baldachin that sits directly underneath the dome of St. Peter's, and directly over the place were Peter is supposedly buried. Peter's body was supposedly found years after he died in a tomb that was inscribed "Peter is here." Under the Baldachin is a spiraling staircase that goes to the lower floor, and on the way down, and behind the wall, lay the supposed bones of Peter.

After St. Peter's, we went underneath the chapel to see where a bunch of the popes are buried. And all I can say is, I hope that marble makes a nice bed, because that's what they're all sleeping on at the moment. (Note to Sidney: I want a marble coffin when I die. Make it 4.5 feet wide, 3.5 feet tall, and 18 feet long. And have them carve some nice words about me in the side. Oh, and also have them carve a marble replica of me into the top of it, except have them make me look trim and strong.)

Well, there's too much to show, and my pictures didn't all turn out that great, so I'll skip on to the Sistine Chapel. We had to pay 14 euros to get in to the "Vatican Museum" portion of the Vatican, through a separate entrance in the wall that surrounds the Vatican city/country. We followed the arrows that pointed the way to the Sistene Chapel, but probably walked almost a kilometer through various long hallways and rooms before arriving there.

You're not supposed to take photographs of the Sistine Chapel, but fortunately for you, I accidentally left my camera running in video mode as I passed through the room.



Dang, I hate it when I do that.

So, how did I like the Vatican? It's a great piece of living history. The artwork is incredible. The experience is one that I wouldn't have missed and am grateful for. I now need to go back and read Angels and Demons again so I can actually understand the places Dan Brown talks about. But I am avoiding the question. The answer is, it was a way cool experience, but it was not spiritual. It was WAY awe-inspiring, but not spiritually inspiring. Anyway, that's just my personal experience, and not necessarily anybody else's.

We also saw the Pantheon, which is a very ancient "Roman Temple of all the gods." I guess they were trying to hedge their bets just so they didn't tick off any of the gods. Anyway, I think I'll link you to Wikipedia's article on the Pantheon instead of showing you my terrible photos.

After all of the walking, my feet were sore and I was starving. We stopped on the way back from the Pantheon in a little Mediterranean-style Italian restaurant on the street and had dinner. It was a refreshingly good change from the meal that we had last night. The servers were great, and the food was also very good.



Well, we'll hopefully be visiting the Colosseum, the Forum, Piazza Navona, the Spanish Steps, and hopefully the Church of the Bones tomorrow, if I can find it. And hopefully another good little Italian restaurant. So stay tuned. I'll probably be back to post more stuff tomorrow night.