Any trip to Italy just isn’t complete without going to Rome. Rome, however, is just another large city with some really cool sights. Our plan was to only be in Rome long enough to see those sights, head over to Greece, and then come back to Italy to spend most of our time in the smaller towns. But the ancient city of Rome was before us, and there are some must-sees.
One of the first things to notice when going to Italy is all the pizza shops! We soon learned that paying more than 1 Euro for a slice is a rip-off, and for 1 Euro more you can buy a half-liter of beer. Our kind of place.
On our first day in Rome we went to all the ancient sights. They weren’t hard to find because the Romans didn’t build anything on a small scale. The Coliseum is really an amazing sight when you consider that it could allow people to move through it as efficiently as any modern football stadium. (We also learned that the Coliseum is named as it is for the colossal statue of Emperor Nero that used to stand in front.) Up the street from the Coliseum is the Circus Maximus which used to be the place for chariot races, but now it’s just a large oval park where we ate a picnic lunch. The next place to see is the old Roman Forum. This was the large market area which was considered the “downtown” of Ancient Rome. There are ruins of temples, shops, baths, homes, and anything else central to daily life in Ancient Rome.
On our way over to see the Pantheon, we came across the ruins of 4 ancient temples. The area was sunken into the ground a bit and closed off from the public, but we still stopped to take a look. After a minute or two we noticed all the cats that had made this area home. We were able to count over 20 in one glance. As we walked a little farther we noticed a sign stating that the area was residence to lost and/or abandoned cats from all over the city. An organization kept track of the cats, spayed and neutered them, and helped some of them find homes. What used to be places for worship was now home to dozens of cats!
One of the most impressive sights of Ancient Rome is the Pantheon. Built long before Christ was born, it is the oldest temple in Rome and was even consecrated as a Christian church once Christianity became the religion of the empire. It has a massive domed ceiling that stumped architects for centuries because no one knew how such a large dome could be constructed out of stone. Inside the Pantheon is a very strange mix of ancient pagan and modern Christian decorations. And most important to note, the best gelato in Rome is just 2 blocks away!
Our second day in Rome was meant to be spent at the Vatican. When we arrived, however, the line to get through security was half-way around St. Peter’s Square. (This is one of the largest squares in Europe, by the way.) Being mildly hung-over from partying it up the night before with people at our hostel, standing in line for a couple of hours was not something we were too inclined to do. So we skipped the Vatican for this day, planning to come by the next morning at 8 a.m. when it opens, and spent the afternoon visiting the other squares and fountains scattered throughout the city.
Getting to the Vatican by 8 was necessary because we had to make it back to the train station by 1 p.m. in order to catch the train needed to make it to the ferry to Greece on time. If we missed that train, we would have to wait another day in Rome. Unfortunately we overslept and didn’t make it to the Vatican until 9:30. What was worse, the line to get in was even longer than the afternoon before! But this was our last day here and we had no other choice but to wait. During our wait in line, though, we joined a free tour group and skipped ahead of people waiting for individual admission and got in with a free tour of St. Peter’s Basilica.
No words can describe the sensation of entering this cathedral. During Easter Mass it holds over 60,000 people. It is adorned from top to bottom with the greatest works of art ever produced. The height of the High Alter is 26 meters (80 feet) and it would fit entirely within the dome above it. There are markings on the floor showing where next largest cathedrals in the world would come to if they were placed inside. And the most amazing feature is that it doesn’t feel massive.
When the construction of St. Peter’s began in the 15th century, it was meant to be placed over the general area of the supposed tomb of St. Peter. The actual location of the tomb was unknown at this point. During the 1970’s the Vatican was doing some excavations beneath the cathedral and discovered a tomb. A wall unearthed near the tomb proclaimed the tomb to be that of St. Peter himself, and the body found in the tomb did not have any feet. (When a person was crucified upside down, as St. Peter was, he was cut off the cross by just having his feet lopped off.) What was truly amazing about this find was that the tomb was directly below the High Alter.
St. Peter’s Basilica was one of the most amazing sights on our trip so far. Within the Basilica are the remains of most of the Popes (there was quite a line to see the tomb of John Paul II), the very spot where Charlemagne was made Holy Roman Emperor, Michelangelo’s Pieta, pieces of the spear that pierced Christ’s side as he hung on the cross, pieces of the cross itself, and so much more. We could have spent hours in St. Peter’s, but we had a train to catch and we still had to see the Sistine Chapel.
The Sistine Chapel is one of the last sights to see in the Vatican Museum. With only 45 minutes before we had to leave, we skipped right through all of the exhibits in the museum and went straight for the Chapel. This is another one of those sights that you have to actually see to believe. The ceiling is painted with scenes from the Book of Genesis. The ceiling is also painted to look as though it is arched. One of the most amazing aspects to the ceiling of the Chapel is that it is actually a flat ceiling painted to look as though it is arched. We stared up at this ceiling until our necks ached, but as I said, there was a train to catch and we had already had enough delays in this trip.
