They say Rome wasn't built in a day, but we can now say it was "sightseen" in a day and a half. Though certainly not as relaxing as we would like it to be, we saw as much as we wanted to see, and certainly enough to get a flavor of it and earn some blisters on our feet in the mean time.
So here we go recapping the day! We had reservations to see the statue of David in the Academica in Florence. The original plan was to hang out in Florence after our tour. Instead, we saw David, got our fill of some of Michelangelo's other works, and then hustled over to the train station. We actually arrived early, so we had some time to watch the local pick-pockets and "very helpful locals" create some havoc. There was a heave police presence that would intercede each time they would get close to a another person. Susanne and Christyn quickly learned how to spot the people up to no good among the travelers.
We departed Florence on a high speed train which quickly wisped us along through the countryside. We arrived in Rome just about noon, at the very busy Rome Termini train station. We made a quick stop in the tourist information office to buy our Roma Pass (which allows free public transportation and one free entrance into a site). The main benefit to us was the ability to skip the lines and use our pass to move quickly about the city. We walked to our hotel, fully loaded with big backpacks in back and day packs in front. It would have been nice to hop on the metro, but the hotel was less than one stop away and we were as wide as we were tall. Loaded down it would be hard to maneuver through the metro turnstiles and escalators...and potentially an easy target for pickpockets.
From the street our hotel "door" was a non descript wooden door with lots of buttons to ring the residences scattered throughout the five story building. We were buzzed in, and the door opened into a beautiful inner courtyard. Up one flight of stairs and the Jacksons encounter their first small lift in Europe. So many of Europes older hotels have been retrofitted with smaller elevators in the center of their internal stairways. The only issue is, these stairways were not designed to have an elevator, so they are often tinny, sometimes just for single individuals. Regardless, they are a welcome site to some weary travelers who don't want to climb 4 flights of stairs to their hotel. Two of us with bags squeeze into the lift at a time and rise up the inner shaft of the building. The hotel is a delightful, cheerily painted place. Our rooms come with balconies that open up to the inner courtyard. Unfortunately, we don't have a lot of time to sit and enjoy, we have places to go!
We hopped off of the metro and moved towards the Vatican. Because of the British Airways issue, our tickets are three days expired, and we are going to try our luck pleading our way into seeing the Vatican Museums and the Sisteen Chapel. We arrive at the ticket booth and the first ticket person directs us to the supervisor at the end of the line. A positive step...until he tells us that if we were here yesterday they could have helped us, but it is too late and the computer will not let us use the tickets. We produce documentation of the airplane delays, the apology letter we got from British Airways, anything and everything we could to try to get him to be flexible. But atlas, the computer says no, our only option is to buy new tickets. Succumbing to the reality that he was not going to help us and was not going to let us talk to another supervisor, we finally said okay. We had come this far, we needed to go in. As he looks at the screen, he tells us that today is full and he cannot sell us tickets. "Fine, can we get tickets for tomorrow at the same time as our original tickets 9AM?" No. In fact all tickets are sold out for tomorrow too. With that answer the dejected looks come out and the pleading starts anew. This time, he is more receptive. He picks up the phone, in a blur of Italian rattled off faster that we can even think, he hangs up the phone, looks at us and says "ok". "Okay? We reply" "Yes, okay you can go in. Here are your tickets, no charge. Hurry, we close in two hours". He then lets us know that he loves Southern California, having traveled there many times himself. Triumphantly Michelle and Tim walk over to Susanne and Christyn with tickets in hand.
Two hours is a tight timeframe to see the entire Vatican Museum and the Sistine Chapel. We use the Rick Steve's audio guide to walk us through the museum. And we even sneak in a side trip to see the Egyptian Collection that includes two mummies - a first for Michelle and Tim. We roll into the Sisteen Chapel and admire as the audio guide lays out the history of the work in front of us. It is still stunning every time we see it. We leave the Sisteen Chapel to head to St. Peter's Cathedral, but before we cross the security guard line we find out that we will not be able to re-enter the area once we leave. We quickly spin around and walk to the ticket line to buy a ticket to climb the cupola (the interior dome of St. Peter's). We are told the stairs are closed, but we can take the elevator up (and miss about 200 of the 500+ stairs) and then we can hike the rest of the way. Within 13 minutes of us buying tickets, while we are still waiting in line for the elevator, the big iron gates to this part of the museum close behind us. No one else will be allowed up today, we had just timed our purchase perfectly. Within minutes we are crammed into the elevator with 15 of our closest friends and shot up to the roof of Saint Peters Basilica. From there the hike up the stairs to the top of the dome begins, We have fun with pictures as the walls started curving in on us. The last few steps are up a spiral staircase with a rope hanging in the middle as a handrail, and you are then ejected out of the tight quarters into stunning views of Rome from the highest point around. Tim captured the moment perfectly in pictures when Susanne and Christyn hit the last step and saw the view in front of them. It is a sight to behold, especially given the 300+ steps that you still have to climb to get to the top, even when you use the elevator.
We returned to ground level about 15 minutes before St. Peter's basilica was about to close. Not wanting to miss the moment, we opted to go inside and see what we could see, knowing full well that we might not be able to come back that direction if there were other sights on the list that we wanted to see tomorrow. Time seemed to stand still once we entered the church. . The sheer massiveness of the place is overwhelming, and then you realize how close the Pope is and what he represents to millions of people around the world, and it takes your breath away.
We were one of the last groups of people to leave the church that night. Back out on the street, we started to walk towards the metro stop we needed, and then Tim realized that we also wanted to complete the night walk that we downloaded from Rick Steves. These walks tend to give us a good overview of the city and the major landmarks We all enjoy the brief history as well, but the corneyness does get a bit overwhelming at times. In this one we were able to learn about and see the history of the Campo de Fiori, Piazza Navona and the Pantheon. Because there is a restaurant near the Pantheon that Tim and Michelle love, we opted to stop our tour there and have dinner. The plan was to pick the tour back up at the Pantheon the next day.
Dinner was delicious as always. We tried to eat as the locals do in multiple course and then remembered that we couldn't eat that much food! Between the appetizers, first course an second course we all felt like we rolled out of there. Since there was no metro stop close to the Pantheon we opted to walk the entire way home. And wouldn't ya know it, in between our hotel and the Pantheon was a little thing called the Trevi fountain. :) At this point it is about 1 in the morning, which is actually the perfect time to go and visit the fountain. Most of the tourists are long in bed and the locals are out enjoying their city squares for the hang out places they were designed to be. And on top of that, the vendors and (we hope!) the thieves are also long gone. We spent about 20 minutes taking pictures and enjoying the playfulness of the moment.
Back at the room we decided that the next day in Rome would include something we have never done before on this trip. Sleep in. :) We will catch you up on the second day of Rome's happenings soon! Ciao!
We departed Florence on a high speed train which quickly wisped us along through the countryside. We arrived in Rome just about noon, at the very busy Rome Termini train station. We made a quick stop in the tourist information office to buy our Roma Pass (which allows free public transportation and one free entrance into a site). The main benefit to us was the ability to skip the lines and use our pass to move quickly about the city. We walked to our hotel, fully loaded with big backpacks in back and day packs in front. It would have been nice to hop on the metro, but the hotel was less than one stop away and we were as wide as we were tall. Loaded down it would be hard to maneuver through the metro turnstiles and escalators...and potentially an easy target for pickpockets.
From the street our hotel "door" was a non descript wooden door with lots of buttons to ring the residences scattered throughout the five story building. We were buzzed in, and the door opened into a beautiful inner courtyard. Up one flight of stairs and the Jacksons encounter their first small lift in Europe. So many of Europes older hotels have been retrofitted with smaller elevators in the center of their internal stairways. The only issue is, these stairways were not designed to have an elevator, so they are often tinny, sometimes just for single individuals. Regardless, they are a welcome site to some weary travelers who don't want to climb 4 flights of stairs to their hotel. Two of us with bags squeeze into the lift at a time and rise up the inner shaft of the building. The hotel is a delightful, cheerily painted place. Our rooms come with balconies that open up to the inner courtyard. Unfortunately, we don't have a lot of time to sit and enjoy, we have places to go!
We hopped off of the metro and moved towards the Vatican. Because of the British Airways issue, our tickets are three days expired, and we are going to try our luck pleading our way into seeing the Vatican Museums and the Sisteen Chapel. We arrive at the ticket booth and the first ticket person directs us to the supervisor at the end of the line. A positive step...until he tells us that if we were here yesterday they could have helped us, but it is too late and the computer will not let us use the tickets. We produce documentation of the airplane delays, the apology letter we got from British Airways, anything and everything we could to try to get him to be flexible. But atlas, the computer says no, our only option is to buy new tickets. Succumbing to the reality that he was not going to help us and was not going to let us talk to another supervisor, we finally said okay. We had come this far, we needed to go in. As he looks at the screen, he tells us that today is full and he cannot sell us tickets. "Fine, can we get tickets for tomorrow at the same time as our original tickets 9AM?" No. In fact all tickets are sold out for tomorrow too. With that answer the dejected looks come out and the pleading starts anew. This time, he is more receptive. He picks up the phone, in a blur of Italian rattled off faster that we can even think, he hangs up the phone, looks at us and says "ok". "Okay? We reply" "Yes, okay you can go in. Here are your tickets, no charge. Hurry, we close in two hours". He then lets us know that he loves Southern California, having traveled there many times himself. Triumphantly Michelle and Tim walk over to Susanne and Christyn with tickets in hand.
Two hours is a tight timeframe to see the entire Vatican Museum and the Sistine Chapel. We use the Rick Steve's audio guide to walk us through the museum. And we even sneak in a side trip to see the Egyptian Collection that includes two mummies - a first for Michelle and Tim. We roll into the Sisteen Chapel and admire as the audio guide lays out the history of the work in front of us. It is still stunning every time we see it. We leave the Sisteen Chapel to head to St. Peter's Cathedral, but before we cross the security guard line we find out that we will not be able to re-enter the area once we leave. We quickly spin around and walk to the ticket line to buy a ticket to climb the cupola (the interior dome of St. Peter's). We are told the stairs are closed, but we can take the elevator up (and miss about 200 of the 500+ stairs) and then we can hike the rest of the way. Within 13 minutes of us buying tickets, while we are still waiting in line for the elevator, the big iron gates to this part of the museum close behind us. No one else will be allowed up today, we had just timed our purchase perfectly. Within minutes we are crammed into the elevator with 15 of our closest friends and shot up to the roof of Saint Peters Basilica. From there the hike up the stairs to the top of the dome begins, We have fun with pictures as the walls started curving in on us. The last few steps are up a spiral staircase with a rope hanging in the middle as a handrail, and you are then ejected out of the tight quarters into stunning views of Rome from the highest point around. Tim captured the moment perfectly in pictures when Susanne and Christyn hit the last step and saw the view in front of them. It is a sight to behold, especially given the 300+ steps that you still have to climb to get to the top, even when you use the elevator.
We returned to ground level about 15 minutes before St. Peter's basilica was about to close. Not wanting to miss the moment, we opted to go inside and see what we could see, knowing full well that we might not be able to come back that direction if there were other sights on the list that we wanted to see tomorrow. Time seemed to stand still once we entered the church. . The sheer massiveness of the place is overwhelming, and then you realize how close the Pope is and what he represents to millions of people around the world, and it takes your breath away.
We were one of the last groups of people to leave the church that night. Back out on the street, we started to walk towards the metro stop we needed, and then Tim realized that we also wanted to complete the night walk that we downloaded from Rick Steves. These walks tend to give us a good overview of the city and the major landmarks We all enjoy the brief history as well, but the corneyness does get a bit overwhelming at times. In this one we were able to learn about and see the history of the Campo de Fiori, Piazza Navona and the Pantheon. Because there is a restaurant near the Pantheon that Tim and Michelle love, we opted to stop our tour there and have dinner. The plan was to pick the tour back up at the Pantheon the next day.
Dinner was delicious as always. We tried to eat as the locals do in multiple course and then remembered that we couldn't eat that much food! Between the appetizers, first course an second course we all felt like we rolled out of there. Since there was no metro stop close to the Pantheon we opted to walk the entire way home. And wouldn't ya know it, in between our hotel and the Pantheon was a little thing called the Trevi fountain. :) At this point it is about 1 in the morning, which is actually the perfect time to go and visit the fountain. Most of the tourists are long in bed and the locals are out enjoying their city squares for the hang out places they were designed to be. And on top of that, the vendors and (we hope!) the thieves are also long gone. We spent about 20 minutes taking pictures and enjoying the playfulness of the moment.
Back at the room we decided that the next day in Rome would include something we have never done before on this trip. Sleep in. :) We will catch you up on the second day of Rome's happenings soon! Ciao!
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