Rome: The Eternal City... And Hot

We landed in Rome after only a flight just under two hours. It had reminded me from our stay with Cat & Martyn in London about the length of flights. To us, flying only to L.A. is three hours. To them, flying three hours is the longest flight! Because we were flying on RyanAir, we had to limit the size of our bag, which meant that I was wearing layers. Even shorts under my jeans so I could pack everything I needed into two pockets of my backpack instead of the typical three. I ended up leaving some things that I didn't need in Santorini with the family that owned the hostel. Hopefully the kids can wear some of the clothes. The weather in Greece wasn't that hot that it made it unbearable to be wearing layers, but once we left the airport to the shuttle that took us into the city, we were hit by 90 degrees!! Immediate sweat haha. We took the shuttle to Termini Train Station, the central station and crossing point of the two underground systems. We were later told, after asking why there were only two main underground lines for such a big city, that the city had tried to make more lines, but every time they would dig, they would run into an archaeological ruin site that would make them stop! The city is so old that no matter where you dig, you are bound to find something ancient and important. So instead, the city operates with only two underground lines, making an "X" across the city and then the rest you must take a bus. I had never seen anything like our shuttle to Termini. Like our taxi ride in Greece, the drivers didn't seem to care about the lines on the road. Instead, there were little cars cutting off semi's and nobody even remotely getting angry. It was organized chaos. We didn't see any accidents while in Rome, but the drivers just did whatever they wanted, including the buses.  Luckily for us, our hostel was only a five minute walk from one of the underground stops. We arrived at what we thought was going to be a hostel, but turned out to be an apartment building that had one floor as a bed & breakfast. We paged up and were buzzed in, and surprisingly let into a very nice private room. Not having to worry about the security of your bag while staying with strangers has become a great pleasure on the trip. Something to treasure. As you can imagine, after a never-ending ferry, a crazy night train, and crowded plane flight all in a row, we were wiped. Sarah and I ended up just taking ice cold showers, finding a local pizza place, getting some famous gelato and then headed back to our room for the night. We needed a relaxing night full of sleep. With Rome being so hot, the rooms were hot as well, but our hosts were very kind and tried to make the room bearable by giving us a fan. A nice gesture, but only worked well at night when it naturally cooled down. Hot air being blown into hot air isn't that great. But at night it did the trick! While lounging that night, we asked our host about seeing the Vatican, and without a pause, she told us to reserve our tickets online. Without them, we would be standing in line for hours, but if you paid four euro extra, you could just walk in. They only let a certain amount of people in at a time so if you don't have a reserved ticket, then you had to wait until you reached the front of the line, and the population was just right. Not wanting to stand in line with it being so hot, we agreed to reserve our tickets online. We woke up the next day, fully energized and made our way to see the inside of the Vatican City! Our ticket allowed us into the Vatican Museums as well as the Sistine Chapel and a quick path into Saint Peter's Basilica. By 11:00 am, the sun was already beaming down on everyone and the temperature had reached 90 degrees. We were given a time of noon to enter the Vatican with our tickets so we had an hour to kill. It was the perfect amount of time to fully view and appreciate the St. Peter's Square in front of the Basilica. 

Massive in size, the square is open to the public and has an obelisk in the middle (I'll tell you later how I knew that term and it's importance). The columns around the "square" make a circular shape, but stop across from the Basilica where a road begins. The amount of people around the Vatican is also amazing as every tourist that comes to Rome has to see it, and there are an equal amount of locals trying to manipulate the tourists. Luckily we had already purchased our tickets and avoided all of them. We had put our trust in our host and purchased tickets online, and it turned out to be the best decision of Rome. The line to enter the Vatican Museums and Sistine Chapel literally wrapped around 'The City.' The entrance to the Museums is on the North border of the Vatican, and the line wrapped around the outside wall to the East. So thankful for the advice, we dogged a huge bullet, and time killer by listening to our host. We walked right in, without waiting in the heat, and began our tour of the Vatican Museums. There are so many pieces of artwork in the Vatican Museums that I can't even put into words. I was surprised that we were allowed to take pictures, but then again I realized with the shear size of the Museums, mixed with the thousands of people inside the Museums at any given moment, that it would be a lost cause trying to fight that war. 

I show this picture to remind you how crowded the museums are. If you get caught behind a tour group you might as well add three hours to your visit, so Sarah and I spent a lot of time fighting and maneuvering to get around the 'blood clots.' Anyways, back to the art...

Then, after about an hour of walking around the Vatican Museums, we followed the signs that led us into The Sistine Chapel. The room had no lights, only lit by the natural light from the windows at the top of the chapel. But the aura of the Sistine Chapel made you feel you were somewhere special. It was the most crowded place yet, as everyone wanted to take their time to view the masterpieces painted by Michelangelo on the ceiling and four walls. Dead middle of the ceiling is the famous depiction of God reaching out his finger to touch Adam. Again, seeing this in person is one of those things I believe everyone should see, along with the Mona Lisa, Eiffel Tower, The Acropolis, etc. When I talked about the war being fought against tourist taking pictures was pointless, the Vatican disagreed in the Sistine Chapel. You couldn't walk five feet without seeing a security guard who was either shushing the crowd for silence or scowling at a tourist to put their camera away. They wanted to make sure that this room's artwork lasted. I don't know how, but we snuck a picture that shows the details of the ceiling. Purely amazing. 

Directly outside the Sistine Chapel, it leads you to the front of St. Peter's Basilica. The size of the Basilica, like lots of the other cathedrals we have seen on our journey, was amazing. I later found out that the Basilica can hold more than around 10 times the population of the Vatican. We entered St. Peter's and just like the museums, we were amazed at all of the artwork and sculptures. Very incredible place. 

The overall experience inside The Vatican City was incredibly memorable. The amount of people that pass through everyday is staggering. I wish I knew the number. We went on a Tuesday and I don't think I have been to a more crowded place. 

Like I said earlier, Rome was going through a minor heat wave. The amount of walking we did through the Vatican and then walking into the 90+ degree heat really took a toll on us. Thankfully, on almost every third block, there seemed to be a public fountain that was for drinking water. It was the most refreshing and cold water. The tourists lined up for this almost as much as the museums haha. It transformed not only into a drinking fountain, but also a body cooler as people, myself included, put their heads under the flow to cool off. Without these fountains, I might have only been able to see the Vatican. Instead, it rejuvenated us and we moved along to our next tourist sight, the Trevi Fountain! 

We walked from the metro station to find our destination. I didn't really know what to expect, but I figured it would be alone and around a big intersection. Instead, we found the fountain around a corner in a crowded square hidden inside taller buildings. Still, you can see, there were too many people, but we made our way down to the water and threw our coins in!

The architecture of the fountain and the sculptures are so detailed and the water literally flows from all sides of the fountain. The gallons of water per minute has to be high. And just off to the side of the fountain was another public water fountain, which meant refresher and on to the next site, The Coliseum!!!

The Coliseum wasn't as crowded as our previous stops on the Roman Tour, but we figured that even with a long line, we still needed to go inside this historic monument. A fifteen minute wait to go inside was well worth it. There isn't really a whole lot to read up on or look at individual pieces of art inside the Coliseum. The thoughts that go through your head about the events that took place there thousands of years ago hold all the majestic power needed to make the place memorable. Looking like it might collapse because it is so old and no where near how big it used to be only added to how cool the Coliseum was. I took lots of pictures of the Vatican and the Eiffel Tower and other famous sights, but everywhere I looked within the Coliseum made me want to take a picture. I couldn't get enough!

The afternoon was winding down and we had gone through our major sights of Rome in one day! We were worn out so we made our way back to our hostel to clean up and head back to our favorite pizza place! With our time winding down on our trip, we knew that we didn't want to rush to get back to Madrid. So, we decided to make our way north and make our journey to Barcelona a little easier. On our way, we would stop in Florence for the afternoon, stay the night in Milan, and then take the whole next day to get to Barcelona... Or so we thought!