Roma

On Thursday April 3rd, I left directly after Gaelic class to go to the airport. My flight out of Dublin was at 7:30 and I flew with my friends Mel and Jess to Ciampino airport. We arrived around 11:30 in Rome and immediately took a bus into the city center. Our hostel was in a good location and about a 5 minute walk from Termini Station. Termini Station is where busses, trains, and the metro all go so it was very good to be close. When we got to the hostel is was about 1 AM so we just checked in and went to bed with plans to wake up early and start touring.


On Friday morning we decided to go to the Vatican thinking that it may not be as busy on a weekday compared to the weekend. I'm not sure how great our logic was, but we only had to wait in line for about 20 minutes which I don't consider a long wait. Once inside the Vatican Museums we were bombarded with beautiful paintings, tapestries, and architecture everywhere. I seriously couldn't believe how beautiful everything was. We decided to head straight to the Sistine Chapel and the walk over there was through gorgeous hallways filled with paintings. We slowly made our way through the hallways with tons of other people and then were directed into the Sistine Chapel. I really wasn't expecting it to look like it did. First of all, there were so many intricate paintings that we had to search for the Creation of Adam. Once we finally found that painting it truly felt unreal. I have always seen that picture in books, online, etc, but you never thinking you'll actually be standing underneath it while in Rome. Unfortunately, we weren't allowed to take pictures in the Sistine Chapel in order to preserve the paintings and they were very strict about it so I couldn't even sneak one without my flash on. Nonetheless, we stayed in the chapel for quite some time just looking at the art in awe.


After the Sistine Chapel we made our way back to the center of the Vatican Museums and then went outside to look at the beautiful grounds. There were huge buildings everywhere, tall trees, fountains, and sculptures and the weather was amazing. After walking around for a while we went through some of the exhibits in the museums and then left to find a place to eat. We found a cute Italian Cafe and got pizza and ate it outside the restaurant. The pizza was great and I wasn't let down when it came to Italian food!


After eating and regaining energy we walked back to the Vatican and made our way to St. Peter's Basilica. This was my favorite part of my trip to Rome and a mistake we made ended up being one of the best experiences. We walked up to the Basilica and got in line for what we thought was the main part of the Basilica, but it turned out to be a line for the cupola. When we finally figured this out we had waited so long that we didn't want to leave the line so we stuck it out. We took the elevator up three large flights and then got out prepared to climb over 350 stairs. The stairs ended up being ridiculously narrow and many of them were in tight spiral staircases.

About halfway up the climb we stopped to look at the inside of the Basilica from the dome. I'm not terrified of heights, but this did make me feel uneasy. Despite the uneasy feeling I was able to take some pictures and looked over the edge a couple of times. We then continued on our way to the top and when we finally got there it was amazing. The view from the top of the dome let us see all of Rome. We stayed up there just looking at the ruins, River Tiber, and the buildings for quite some time. After this we walked down and then entered the inside of the Basilica which was more beautiful than I could imagine. This Basilica is by far the most beautiful church I have ever been in. There were so many areas to see in the Basilica and each one had great paintings, sculptures, and the domes were frequent and beautifully painted.

Continuing on we took the metro to the Spanish Steps. The steps were packed with tourists and we climbed them and got to look at the Trinta dei Monti which was very pretty. Due to all the tourists we didn't stay long, but as we were leaving we stopped in Gucci and Prada. I have to say I felt very out of place and didn't even see anything I would want even if I could afford it. In Prada there were these hedious bags I think I could have woven in elementary summer school so needless to say I didn't purchase anything. We then walked to what we thought was the Trevi Fountain, but was really the Fontana de Tritone. I was pretty surprised to see how unimpressive the fountain was and eventually figured out later that night that the reason it was unimpressive was because it's not the famous fountain. After this we took the Metro back to our hostel and rested for about an hour. We then asked our roommates about restaurants and they recommended a restaurant near the hostel. We had a long dinner with breadsticks, a cheese platter, wine, lasagna, and dessert. It was a great atmosphere and it was fun to have such a prolonged and relaxed dinner. After this we were pretty exhausted and we headed back to the hostel and called it an early night.


The next morning we got up early again and went straight to the Colosseum. This was also so crazy to actually see- it's such a famous sight that it feels so weird to really be visiting it. I can't really explain the shock of turning the corner and seeing the huge Colosseum right in front of you with the Palatino next to it. Anyway, the Colosseum was pretty packed so we decided to spring for a tour. Our tour guide was Italian and pretty hard to understand and I think she was a bit off her rocker. She brought us in the Colosseum and to the top tier where we overlooked the entire Colosseum. She told us some history, some of which I understood and other parts that were not very clear. We then spent about a half an hour walking around the Colosseum by ourselves and were shocked to see how impressive it truly is. The stage area no longer has the floor so you can look down and see the rooms where animals were held and pushed up through trap doors. It was insane to think about how many men were killed in the Colosseum- our tour guide estimated over a million men were killed in total (but I'm not sure how accurate her word is). As we were leaving the Colosseum we were a bit pissed at how crappy her tour was and that we paid so much for it. Then we met for the free 2nd tour of the Palatino and were pleasantly surprised at how great it was. Our tour guide was American so it was easy to understand and he gave us a mythological and historical tour of the Palatino. We walked around the ruins of the palaces of the Roman Empire, looked out over the Circus Maximus (which is where the chariot races took place), saw aqueducts, gardens, and so much more. We also learned about various rulers that I can't really remember- there was just too much history and names to remember!

After our tour we were really hot and tired so we stopped for Gelato which was delicious. We then continued walking by the river which was really pretty as well. As we were walking we passed through the Jewish Ghetto which was recommended by our hostel as an interesting walking area. As we left the Jewish Ghetto we saw the sight where Caesar was killed and I was very creeped out by the number of stray cats in the area. There were seriously 20 cats just wandering in the ruins which made me feel uneasy- cats are creepy. We then left the site and made our way to the real Trevi Fountain which was so much better than the fake one we saw the day before. There were tons of tourists and the fountain was absolutely beautiful. After the fountain we went down to the Pantheon which was a very different experience than I expected. For some reason I thought the Pantheon was in ruins which it totally isn't. There was also a huge political rally right outside the Pantheon complete with a rock band, posters, balloons, and lots of enthusiastic Italians. Due to the huge crowds we didn't spend a long time at the Pantheon, but it was still very pretty. Nothing can really compare to St. Peter's Basilica so I wasn't as impressed by the Pantheon- maybe I should have saved the Basilica for last so I didn't have such high standards...

After this we went back to the Hostel and the walk was killer. Our feet were killing us because of all the cobblestones so we laid in bed for about an hour and then found the energy to leave on the way to our pub crawl. Along the way we stopped in a jazz club for dinner and accidentally ordered an eggplant dish that was not great. The club itself was really cool and I wish we would have found it the night before for some jazz music and relaxation- but what can you do? We finally made it to our pub crawl and were a little let down by the turnout. We were the first one's to arrive and finally some other people showed up and some of them were really fun. The advertisement had said that there was an open bar from 9-10, but apparently they meant one drink from the bar and then unlimited Splürgen...which was a crappy german beer. This angered me because we had paid for the pub crawl, but we persevered and ended up having a pretty good time with some Americans, Australians, and Germans!

The next day Mel took an early flight out of Ciampino and Jess and I stayed in Rome until later that day. We checked out of the hostel and went back to the Vatican and watched the crowds of people gathered for mass at St. Peter's Basilica which was interesting to watch. I've never seen so many priests and nuns in one location! After this we shopped around for some souvenirs and then ate lunch at a small cafe. We then had to take the Metro back to Termini and get our bags. Our trip back to Dublin was long and our plane was delayed which made me miss the bus in Dublin...so I had to take a very expensive cab back to Dundrum which was unpleasant. Other than that the Rome trip was a complete success. Unfortunately the weather in Dublin was awful when we returned- it was snowing/raining and freezing cold. Rome just spoiled us with the 70's, sun, and no wind!