Spending Two Days in Rome

From Amalfi we headed to Rome. The car service that picked us up from the airport returned to pick us up and take us to the Naples train station. M and I had looked at the train schedule the night before and booked our tickets using the Trenitalia app. 

Booking train tickets via the app was very easy. Booking a seats is mandatory on high speed trains, no people standing in the train. You can not book seats on regional trains, so the earlier you are there the better chance you have of being able to sit together. Validating your train tickets is also very important in Italy. You are fine if it is an online purchase, otherwise you must validate your ticket. On regional trains, even if the tickets are online you still need to check in on the app when on board. 

We grabbed some coffee and croissants and boarded our first train. This probably being a more popular route, only the boys were able to sit together. 

Once in Rome we got a taxi to our hotel, Hotel Navona Colors. We checked in, Dropped off our things and headed out. 

M and I had visited Rome some 14 years ago.. oh what babies we were.

We started with the Spanish Steps. The Spanish Steps get their name from the square at their base, which is called the Spanish square, or Piazza di Spagna.  At the top of the steps is The French Church of Santa Trinità dei Monti constructed during the reign of Louis XII of France to celebrate his invasion of Naples

Next stop the Trevi Fountain. The Trevi fountain is one of the most famous fountains in the world. On this particular day the Trevi Fountain was getting cleaned, so no beautiful blue waters, no coin tossing but we still got some nice pictures.

Next up the Pantheon. The Pantheon was a temple later converted into a church. Inside are the tombs of three kings as well as the famous painter Raphael. But what is most famous about the Pantheon is it's dome and oculus. The dome was the largest in the world for 1300 years and to present remains the largest unsupported dome in the world. 

There is a 5 euro fee to enter the Pantheon. I tried to buy tickets in advance in order to skip the lines and I could not for the life of me find these 5 euro tickets. Even when I went directly to the Pantheon website or what I thought was the official Pantheon website. I ended up accidentally being slightly higher priced tickets that included an audio guide. We are not really the audio guide type of people. We like to see and learn a little but not get a whole history lesson. 

Well we had these audios so we might as well listen to them right? I kid you not, the boys were captivated! 

In the planning stages I had asked the kids about their interests and if they wanted to do some guided tours etc.. especially when in Rome. They had showed little interest and said only do what is necessary. So I took that to heart. I didn't want to be dragging them around forcing them to do things they were not interested in, technically it is there vacation too. 

Afterwards we grabbed a quick bite to eat and then while the boys grabbed some gelato from Venchi; M and I got a coffee granita from Tazza d'Oro. Yum. Like seriously, I have an Italian Ice machine, I wonder if I can replicate this at home. 

Next up the Roman Forum and Capitoline Hill. The Forum is close to 3000 years old, it was first developed in 7th Century BC as a center for temples, halls and public spaces for the people of Rome to gather. It is spread across 4.9 acres. It was wrecked by earthquake, weathering, pollution, and centuries of archeologists robbing it of its stones and columns. We did not tour the forum but viewed it from outside on the way to the Colosseum. 

We walked up to Capitoline Hill. Capitoline Hill is one of the seven hills of Rome and was once dedicated to the god Saturn. The view of the Roman Forum from the hill. 

We headed to the Colosseum next. We did not go inside. Since the kids had not shown any interest in getting a tour earlier I hadn't bought us tickets.

The Colosseum was built in 80 AD. It wasn't just humans who suffered cruel fates within the Colosseum walls. The Romans held staged hunts and had wild beasts fight humans and each other. The gruesome battles led to the deaths of thousands of animals, including lions, leopards, bears, and elephants. An estimated 400,000 people died during the 400 years that the Colosseum was used for public gladiatorial games. The Colosseum could seat up to 80,000 people and was destroyed mainly by natural disasters and neglect.

They first day was coming to an end. We started to walk towards the Jewish Ghetto for some dinner. The ghetto was a breath of fresh air. Not many tourist. Narrow alleys.. rustic doors. Via del Portico d'Ottavia is a street lined with restaurants. Not all but many jewish and many kosher.

It was just starting to drizzle a bit when we sat down at Il Giardino Romano. 

For our appetizer we ordered artichokes done three ways.. Jewish style, tempuras and carpaccio. We did not like the carpaccio style ones. Otherwise a must try when in Rome. 

Ooh this chicken was so good. And as if this night could not end on a higher note we stopped to get gelato at Gelateria La Romana. 

Best gelato! Ever! This was a close rival to the gelato we had in Sorrento. We had three gelato's in Rome and this was by far the most amazing one. 

Day two was to be spent in the Vatican City. It’s the smallest country in the world, the population of just 594 but attracts nearly 5 ½ million visitors each year. It has its own army, the Pontifical Swiss Guard, this army is only 135 people strong. It even has its own football team.

But first breakfast at Coromandel.

The decor was really cute but the food not so much. The french toast was the best but the avocado toast was a little odd. It was on a burger bun. I don't know, maybe it's a Italian thing.

Next we walked to St. Angelo Bridge which was unfortunately under construction. Ponte Sant'Angelo, was completed in 134 AD by Roman Emperor Hadrian, to span the Tiber from the city centre to his newly constructed mausoleum, now the towering Castel Sant'Angelo. It consists of seven stone arches that span about 60 feet each, supported on piers 24 feet high. It is considered the most beautiful bridge in Rome. The angels on the bridge tell the story of the Passion of Christ.

This is a picture of the bridge from 2009 when we were last in Rome. 

Then we went to tour the Castel Sant'Angelo. I had not pre bought tickets. The kids were still high on information from our trip to the Pantheon and they wanted to go inside. The line was long to get inside and the sun was shining bright! There was no audio guide available but plenty of placards with information. 

Castel Sant'Angelo was initially commissioned by the Roman Emperor Hadrian as a mausoleum for himself and his family. The popes later used the building as a fortress, a prison and then a castle, now it is a museum.

 

This is a painting by Franz Theodor Aerni, The Pinwheel of Castel Sant’Angelo. It is a depiction of the Girandola, a firework display staged in Rome, every year on Easter Monday, and at the inauguration of a new Pope. The tradition dates by to 1481.

The statue on Castel Sant'Angelo depicts the Archangel Michael in the act of sheathing his sword. This was in fact the vision that Pope Gregory the Great had in 590 AD and which heralded the end of the plague. 

You can see St. Peter's Basilica in the background. Which happened to be our next stop. 

But when we got there the line to get in was massive. Like Disneyland long. 

This was our spot in the line. It wrapped around the entire piazza and then once it got close it was a tighter zig zag before security. It was mad. It was already past noon. We still had to have lunch, there was a gelato place nearby I wanted to try and we had 3pm tickets for the Vatican Museum. 

What to do?

Well we hoped the line would be better towards the end of the day. The basilica stays open till 7pm. So we made a beeline to get some gelato.

Good but nothing could beat last nights gelato. Then we grabbed some lunch.. sometimes you just need to eat dessert first. Once we were all full we headed to the Vatican Museum. We were a little early and there were hordes of people waiting to get in. The people at the Vatican Museum take the timed tickets really seriously and we were not allowed to enter until it was exactly 2:50pm. 

We got the audio guides and I had made a list of the rooms I really wanted to visit. The Vatican Museum is made up of 54 museums and nine miles worth of galleries, contains roughly 70,000 works, of which 20,000 are on display. It would take someone a month to see everything. Hence the list. 

When you first enter you are in the Egyptian area and you have to just power through. There are 100's of people in this area because everyone enters and just stops in the first gallery. We dodged them all and got out of the crazy mob to find ourselves in the first gallery.

1. Pio Clementino - The Pio Clementino Museum consists of 12 rooms inside the Vatican Museums and houses some of the most important collections of Greek and Roman art.

2. Gallery of Tapestries - The Gallery of the Tapestries is one of the most important and spectacular rooms inside the Vatican museums. The room can be divided in two, with the tapestries on the left as you enter depicting scenes from the life of Christ and the tapestries on the left showing the life of Pope Urban VIII. The room is 800 feet long. The most important are the 12 tapestries depicting the life of Christ created by Raphael (31). He worked in the Vatican at the same time Michelangelo was painting the ceiling in the Sistine Chapel. Can you imagine?

 

3. Gallery of Geographic Maps - The Gallery of Geographical Maps. The walls of the gallery are covered with forty geographical maps of the various Italian regions, with maps of the main cities. In the ceiling adjacent to each region there are representations of the main religious events that took place in it. It is a representation of Italy as it was in the 16th century depicting the Italian regions and the possessions of the Church at the time of Pope Gregory XIII (1572-1585).

4. Raphael's Rooms - There are four rooms. They were commissioned by Pope Julius II (1503 to 1513) supposedly because he refused to live in the Borgia Apartments of his predecessor (and rival) Pope Alexander VI on the floor below due to his hatred for the man. Above is the School of Athens.

5. Sistine Chapel - is the papal chapel, erected in 1473–81 by the architect Giovanni dei Dolci for Pope Sixtus IV (hence its name). It is where the papal conclave is held. It is famous for its Renaissance frescoes by Michelangelo. Michelangelo was in his 30's when he painted it, he did most of the work standing upright and it took him four years to paint it. It is a quiet room. The is a loud message that booms through the room (which really ruins the whole quiet part) tell people to be quite, stay in the center of the room and most importantly no pictures allowed. 

We thoroughly enjoyed all the galleries. The tapestries were awe inspiring. Raphael and Michelangelo real steal the show. Even if you are not a museum person you should check out the Vatican Museums. Just see what you want to see and skip the rest like we did. The Sistine Chapel is overwhelming. I wish I could have spent more time there.. just memorizing every piece. There is just so much detail you cannot possibly absorb it all.  

Lastly the Bramante Staircase - The Bramante Staircase is an architectural marvel that comprises two spiral ramps, located in the Pio Clementino Museum. The are two Bramante staircases in the Vatican Museum, both located in the Pio Clementino Museum. The first staircase was designed and built in 1505 by Donato Bramante and is no longer in use. The second was designed by Giuseppe Momo in 1932, as a tribute to the original. Both staircases are among the world's most recognized and photographed stairways. What is unique about these staircases are there double helix structure. This design allows visitors to ascend and descend simultaneously without crossing paths, as the staircase spirals upward in a double helix formation. I even sell a photograph of the staircase in my Etsy shop. 

Done with the museum we made our way to St. Peter's Basilica. The line was considerably smaller. Thank God. St. Peter's Basilica is one of the holiest sites of Christianity, being the burial site of St. Peter. Emperor Constantine decided to build the Basilica in 4 AD. 

By this point we were too tired for pictures so I only have a few. We had initially wanted to climb the dome as well but we were just too tired and climbing 550 stairs was just not going to happen. Last time we were in St. Peter's Basilica I had taken a photograph of Bernini's famous Holy Spirit which is in my Etsy shop. The area was under renovations this time around. 

And with that our time in the Vatican City came to an end. We grabbed an Uber to dinner. We ate at a pizza place called Seu Pizza Illuminati located on the edge of Trastevere area of Rome. 

The pizza's were insanely creative. While the kids played it relatively safe, M and I ordered a roasted watermelon and feta pizza. We were undecided between a carrot based pizza and this one and our serve recommended the watermelon. And I kid you not, this pizza was phenomenal. Who would've thought.

Since we were on the edge of Trastevere we didn't really get a chance to explore the area and didn't really have the strength to walk anymore. So we grabbed another uber back to our hotel thus wrapping up our two days in Rome. 

      

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