Rome-Part 2

Waking up in Rome was a grand experience as has been ever other morning in Italy. Pushing the window open, we allowed the city sounds to pour into our room filling it like water filling a glass. We had three major objectives for this day, The Colosseum, the Forum and St. Peter's Square. (You know, the Pope's front yard) We held a cab and set off to meet the Russell and Krystal at the Hilton, our base for the day. As we pulled along the Vatican City walls we noticed the line for the museum already stretching around the city wall. We redirected our cab to the end of the line and joined the other thousand or so people waiting to see the vast collection of art that lay with in the Roman Catholic Church museum.

The line moved quickly and we quickly figured out that we were trapped in a one directional flow that would eventually take us to the Sistine Chapel. I again can not do justice to all the things we took in wall inside Vatican City. The beauty of it all and the history made Kimbra and I simply shake our heads. We wondered through the exhibits wondering again how we could possibly convey the beauty of actually seeing the work by Michelangelo. We sit and listened to a Rick Steves podcast on the history of the room and watched as guards yelled at the visitors to be silent and to put their cameras away. NO PICTURES! SILENT! SHUSSSSH! I think Russell may have snapped a couple of photo's, but don't tell the guards!

We made our way to St. Peter's Basilica. Not being Catholic did not stop Kimbra and I feeling overwhelmed by the reverence of this majestic church. Signs of the impending Easter service were everywhere. Tourist stood in line to visit the confessionals, in their own language, and passed by Pope's laid to rest. I have read several books over the years that refer to this place and yet until I saw with my own eyes I did not appreciate the beauty and grandeur of this Holy site. If the pro's could not fully describe its splendor, I don't think this armature blog will come close either.

Not wanting to leave, but feeling the evil hand of time pressing upon us we made our way out to a tour bus that delivered us back to the Colosseum. This time we were able to fight our way inside. I say fight because, you guessed it, their was a line. We could have jumped the line by paying 60€ per couple but we didn't feel like 20 minutes would make that much of a difference.


Once we were inside the gates we used another Rick Steves podcast to fill in the story of this ancient sporting arena. We worked our way from the bottom up and imagined what it must have been like to push through the crowds to see the brutal sporting events taking place inside.
We shuffled from vantage point to vantage point like a well choreographed dance line connected by a single white ear bud tethering us all to the Ipod. I would highly recommend the Rick Steves Audio podcast while traveling. While we could have seen the sites with out the back story the experience would not have come to life in such a vivid manner. After completing our tour we headed to the Forum.

Once again we found ourselves being pushed by the hour of the day rather than our own willingness to move on. Once outside the gate we grabbed a cab the back side of the Forum only to find out that it was an exit and the entry point was down the hill right were we had just left. So we paid a cabby 4€ to take us to the entrance (so we thought) that was a 15 minute walk from the real entry gate. Normally that might have been funny, but we had 12 minutes before they closed the gates. So like track stars we began the sprint towards the park's entry point, arriving just before the gates were rolled shut. Nothing like running down a hill dodging other tourist and locals wondering what the rush is all about. Once inside, we only had an hour to take in this historic site. We strolled along paths that had once been walked by the most important people in Roman history. Now, I don't know about most people, but to me that was cool! We even got to see where Ceasar was murdered.("Et tu, Brute?")

We were sitting on some ancient steps listening to Kimbra reading about the history from her handy dandy Rick Steves book when the whistle blew signalling our need to exist. We gathered our stuff, having taken some great shots and wondering once again how do we explain the coolness of this trip to our friends and family. We still could not answer that question.

We walked down from the Forum an decided we should give the Roman Subway a ride since we had utilized every other means of public transportation on this trip. I can't say I was very impressed by the train although it did get us where we were going we felt like sardines in a can heading into an unknown world. Its hard getting on a train bound for somewhere, but not knowing where that somewhere is or how long it is going to take to get there. But, hey we were in Rome, and like Russell keeps saying, "When in Rome ..."

It turned out to be a great adventure, but not one I think I will want to repeat. We did manage to get to the Hilton shuttle and back to the hotel to pick up our luggage and back to the bus station with about 5 minutes to spare before the bus returned back to Sienna. What a rush, train, subway, bus, tour bus, cabs, we did it all in Rome. I would highly recommend this adventure, and I would even agree to be your personal tour guide.

That is the story of Rome. Bye for now. Make it a great day.

Dave