The Rest of Rome

                On Sunday, after some much needed sleep, we set out to explore the city. We did some mild exploring on our own before meeting up with a tour guide from Eyes on Rome, a super expensive tour given to us by Meg’s parents for her birthday. Our tour guide’s name was Katie, and she was originally from California, but has been living in Italy for five years and is engaged to an Italian guy. So here’s a brief summary of our tour, with some added fun facts:

               

The Spanish Steps: These were cool, just because they are really big steps. They are not at all related to anything Spanish, except that they are located in Piazza Spagna, which was formerly the location of the Spanish embassy. If you ask the locals they will simply call them “The Big Steps.”

               

The Trevi Fountain: Beautiful. None of the streets around the fountain open directly onto it because the designers wanted people to hear the water before they saw the fountain. Also, the government estimates that approximately two thousand euro is thrown into the fountain…EVERY DAY. I did my part in contributing to that by throwing in some coins. The rule of thumb is that one coin will bring you back to Rome, two coins will bring you love and three coins will bring you marriage. Bring on the wedding bells.

               

The Pantheon: The latin inscription on the front of the Pantheon translates to “Marcus Agrippa made this.” So naturally everyone assumed the building came from Marcus Agrippa’s reign. But not too long ago, some excavating of the base revealed that the Pantheon was built more than two hundred years after Marcus Agrippa walked the Earth. So why the label? It turns out that the current Pantheon is the third built on the same location. The first was built in the time of Agrippa, but was made of wood and burned down. The second was also made of wood and ALSO burnt down. Then finally, the emperor at the time decided maybe they should try something besides wood. So he had the current Pantheon constructed out of stone. He wanted credit to go to the original creator of the Pantheon, hence the marking on the front. There’s more I could say about the Pantheon but I’ll close with this. Raphael is buried there and on his tomb is an inscription in Latin that I find quite beautiful.

"Here lies Raphael, by whom nature herself feared to be outdone while he lived, and when he died, feared that she herself would die."

                We came across a guy playing guitar in the streets and unlike most people who try to pester you into giving them money, he simply had a hand lettered sign which read “need money for beer and cigarettes.” I was close to obliging because I appreciated his honesty. But I didn’t because I also need money for beer.

               

Bernini’s Pucina della Minerva: This translates to Bernini’s Little Pig of Minerva. Which is odd because it’s a statue of an elephant. At the time, however, Romans had never seen or heard of an elephant and so they referred to it as a little pig. The elephant is situated with its rear end pointed towards the building where the Rome Inquisition was held. Which was Bernini’s way of conveying his feelings on the matter.

               

Santa Maria Sopra Minerva: This church is where Michaelangelo’s The Risen Christ resides. The very cool thing about this statue is that it portrays Jesus carrying the cross to his crucifixion, looking strong and powerful. Michelangelo did this because he did not believe that Jesus would ever have been weak, even in the face of death. He did not buy into a weak Jesus.

               

`               After our tour, which was, as you can probably guess, wonderful, we found a little sidewalk café at which to have our dinner. The food was delicious and the atmosphere was charming. One our way back to the hostel we passed an Irish pub called The Abbey Theatre, and of course, we had to go in and have a shot. Which we did. Our night ended with us attempting to communicate with the two Italian boys at our hostel using nothing but gestures and Google Translate. Which was a comic disaster. So we ended up just playing music and they danced around. It was great.

                On Monday we did the Forum (which I’m not sure we ever saw), the Palpantine Museum (I’m not sure if that’s spelled right, Casa de Augustus and the Colosseum. They were interesting and beautiful, but I wasn’t too thrilled. Mostly I just realized that the American School system has failed me, at least in the European History department. Walking around Ancient Rome I had almost no idea what any of the stuff was. The Colosseum? Got it. The Forum? Uhm…there’s a strange musical about that, right? The House of Augustus? Errr…like the Fault in Our Stars? But seriously, I know nothing about Roman History.

                After all of that we did something I had always wanted to do, which was visit the Bocca della Verita, The Mouth of Truth, where Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck stuck their hands in Roman Holiday. For those of you who haven’t seen that movie, the legend is that if a liar sticks his hand in the mouth, it will be bitten off. And let me tell you, it is a little nervewracking to stick one’s own hand into that gaping hole. Luckily, both of my hands are still intact. Then we headed out for our big dinner, which was going to be at an Italian restaurant recommended to us by Katie, but after some careful map studying, we decided it was too far to go and headed to the Hard Rock Rome, much to my pleasure. We chowed down on some good ol’ American burgers and stuffed ourselves with French fries and then headed back to the Trevi fountain to see its night beauty.

                On our last day in Rome, we did the one thing which you’re probably all waiting for…The Vatican. Wooo. Lots of people, lots of tour guides, lots of money. But to be fair, it was beautiful. The Sistine Chapel was tremendous. And we learned some interesting things about Michelangelo. When he first started the project he had student helpers with them, but after a short time he told them they were lazy and boring and he wanted to work alone. Speaking of working, we all picture Michelangelo painting the chapel on his back, which sounds tough, right? Well turns out that’s just an American legend. In fact, the truth is even more painful. He painted the entire ceiling standing up and craning his neck back. Try doing that, just for a minute and see how much it hurts. That man was bad ass. Additionally, by the time he painted The Last Judgment he was almost blind. And yet he still created that masterpiece. I could ramble on about Michelangelo for a while, but I don’t want to bore my lovely readers and this is getting rather long.

               

                Also, at St. Peter’s Basilica, while wandering around, I wandered down some stairs. Now, people were walking down these stairs, but there was no indication of where the stairs led. But other tourists were going there so I figured it couldn’t be too bad. Maybe a little display or a room dedicated to a saint or something. Upon walking down the stairs I found myself in a room full of marble and eerie-ish music. The labels all read Grotto Vaticini. And then all of a sudden…BAM. TOMBS. Turns out Grotta Vaticini means “room for the dead popes.” Or something. Also, you couldn’t get out the same way you got in. You had to walk through the whole thing and then it spit you out way back before you even got in to St. Peter’s.  So that was exciting.

                While waiting at the bus station to catch a bus to the airport we met an old Italian woman, who gave us an impromptu lesson on counting in Italian. She spoke no English, we spoke no Italian. Which proves that with enough hand motions you can communicate with anyone, if you’re willing to make a complete fool of yourself.

                To wrap this all up, we jumped on a plane to Glasgow, slept on a couch in a restaurant overnight, I woke up, had a pumpkin spice latte in the nearly deserted Glasgow airport at 5am, and on we went to Ireland. I was very glad to be back. Rome is fine, but Ireland is where my heart is. Well really, its split between here and Pennsylvania. But you know what I mean. Ta-ta for now!