Roma - June 4th, 2010

Wow. Our last day of our vacation was PACKED.

After grabbing the WORST breakfast in all of Italy (extremely stale corn flakes with warm milk) we hit the streets to make like Huns and conquer Rome, all in a single day.

First on our list was The Coliseum. This humongous (colossal?) ruin must be seen to be fully appreciated. It is magnificently large, steeped in history, and haunted by hundreds of thousands of ghosts.

When we first arrived we were accosted by a pushy salesman offering to 1) help us skip the two hour line and 2) give us a guided tour. We decided it was our last day, and we'd like to see as much as possible, no matter what the cost. It was 25 Euro a person. We agreed. From there, we were directed to a second man, who took our money, told us the tour would start in 10 minutes, and asked us to wait "over there, in the shade". I did so, with GREAT paranoia. "Give me 50 Euro, then go sit way over there. See my official looking badge?" Would have been a great con, but turns out this wasn't the case. Not today anyway.

From there we were introduced to our tour guide, Paola. She gave us a tour of the Coliseum, complete with colorful commentary. We learned a LOT about the history behind the Coliseum. One of the most interesting things we learned is about the sea battles. Originally the Coliseum had a sand floor. When the sand had soaked up enough blood that the place needed to be cleaned they flooded the entire floor of the Coliseum, deep enough to float boats on. They would then have battles on little boats. This meant an interesting day of sport, plus a cleaning of the Coliseum. Later they took out the sandy floor and replaced it with a series of underground tunnels with a wooden ceiling, so that animals and combatants could be raised into battle. Both showier and quicker than entering them through the outside every time.

Apparently the Coliseum was also originally covered by a linen awning that would be angled by ropes to cover the crowd from the sun. Pretty freakin sweet.

The Coliseum was REALLY impressive, and our tour was GREATLY improved with the knowledgeable guide.

After the Coliseum we took a break for lunch. Elly and I hunted down an Internet Point to pre-register our seats on the flight the next day and to grab lunch from a grocery.

After lunch we met back up at The Coliseum to continue our tour. We got a new guide, Jason, who showed us The Forum, Palatine Hill and surrounding ruins. More massive stone ruins and beautiful gardens. Again, our tour was much improved by the guide.

Among the beautiful trees, vines, flowers, etc. were the umbrella pines. Rome imported these trees from the Middle East and lined their roads with them to shade their armies as they marched. These trees have extremely tall trunks topped by a wide canopy, perfect for the purpose of shade.

We learned about the significance of the ruins, the history of the founding of Rome and the start of the Roman Empire, of Mussolini building his palace on Palatine Hill amongst the ruins of previous emperors during World War 2. Our guided tour was WELL worth the money spent, I recommend it to anyone. The admission costs of the sites alone was worth 18 Euro a pop, and we had WAY more than 7 Euro of added enjoyment.

After the Roman ruins we moved on to Catholic Churches. We saw Saint Peter's Basilica and The Pantheon. The Pantheon was originally a building of the Roman Empire but was later remodeled by the Catholic Church. It used to sport a huge bronze dome, but now it has the world's largest unreinforced concrete dome.

The Pantheon was impressive, but it was NOTHING compared to St. Peter's. A huge piazza encircled with columns and statues stood in front of the entrance to this huge church. Inside were many memorials to dead popes, erected to mark their burial sites, tombs, and urns. There were also several churches inside the basilica. Many of the ceilings had painted domes around a sky light, and ALL of the walls and ceilings were illuminated with paintings, gold, intricate carvings, and the like. It is also the site of Michelangelo's "La Pietà", a statue of Mary holding Jesus's corpse. The basilica really must be seen to be understood. I'm not catholic myself, but the church shocked into me a deep sense of reverence.

We saw the Trevi Fountain, a pretty awesome fountain built into the back of a building. It features Oceanus, the god of all water. By this point in the day we were both near dead from exhaustion, so I don't remember it all that well.

Finally we declared ourselves too exhausted to go on. We still had a 30 minute hike back to our hotel. we barely spoke to each other as we plodded back, we were SOOOO tired.

I took a quick shower to reenergize and we went out to dinner at "Sette Oche". Sette Oche is a great little restaurant. Elly and her parents went there for dinner when she was in Italy the first time, and it was good enough she wanted to take me back there. One of the memorable things about Sette Oche is that it has its own cat. This chubby cat wandered around from table to table offering affection, but (unexpectedly) scorning offered treats.

The waiter could tell we were both pretty exhausted, and suggested some wine. At first we turned him down, but thought better of it. After a few glasses of wine and some food we felt much better. After the rest of a liter of wine and a glass of limoncello (on the house, served in the traditional style) we were drunk. Fortunately we were on the same block as our hotel.

After drunkenly stumbling back to our hotel, we packed for leaving the next morning. Somewhere during our drunken packing Elly broke the pinky toe of her left foot. Somehow we got most of what we needed accomplished before crashing to sleep.

We woke up at 5:30 the next morning, finished packing, and hiked 25 minutes to the subway. Subway to Roma Termini station, train to the airport, jet to London, another jet to Denver. Bus from Denver to park-and-ride, then a ride with our friends Woggy and Karen to Buffalo Wild Wings. Karen had spent the last two weeks keeping our kitties company, feeding them, cleaning their box, watering our plants, and otherwise house sitting. We owed them BIG TIME so we treated them to dinner. Also, I was seriously craving spicy food by the second week in Italy, so the pain and suffering of BWW Blazin' sauce was appealing.

Over 24 hours after we woke up, and suffering from hallucinations of all our senses, we finally crashed in our own bed, Westminster, Colorado, USA, North America.

Ciao l'Italia!

Photos