The Beginning of the End

Although the last entry was for my last weekend trip for the semester, this one is for my last trip I took before my semester ended. On Wednesday, the dancers had their last class for the semester (with Rita thank goodness. It was a wonderful class and a lot of the dancers were crying at the end) which ended at 11am in the morning. Since we had nothing in our schedules planned until Thursday at 6pm, I decided to take advantage of the time by finally going back to Rome and completing my list of “places to see before mom comes”.

After class, I rushed a shower, grabbed my pre-packed things, and quickly walked down the hill to the bus stop. Unfortunately it was a holiday (Liberation Day) so the bus I had planned to take didn’t come and I had to take a bus that only dropped me off half-way. I then quickly walked to the station, only stopping for a kebab to go (the guy who works there was so nice. When he saw that I was rushing, he asked the person ahead of me in line if it would be okay if he filled my order first and she said yes), and I boarded the train with a few minutes to spare.

When I reached Rome, it was almost 3pm and I walked down to the metro, bought my ticket, and headed towards the Colosseum. Once there, I decided that the line at the Colosseum was too long and so I would go do Palantine Hill first. Although I ended up walking a round about way to reach it, the ticket line proved to wonderfully short and I headed up the hill.

I really enjoyed some of the first sites I saw in that area such as the ruins of an old temple, a giant tree at then end of an old path, and a museum filled with really wonderful marble statues that I adored. However, the rest of the ruins in that area and the gardens proved to be less exciting (though the view from the gardens was amazing) and I eventually left it to head down the hill to the other sites. I had planned to do the Colosseum next, but since my walk down lead me straight into the middle of it, I ended up walking the Forum next.

Palantine Hill

Palantine Hill 

Statue in Palantine Museum

For the most part, I wasn’t amazed by the forum; there was so little left of most of the buildings that it was much more impressive (and clear as to what things were) to view the entire site from above than to walk through it. However, I did find a few things enjoyable such as the Temple of Saturnalia (so big!), a large church tower with circles of color in every color of the rainbow, and a museum with beautiful old glass bowls that I found while trying to find the exit to Capitol Hill. I never did find that exit, so instead I headed back through the Forum to reach the Colosseum.

Roman Forum

Roman Forum museum

By the time I reached the Colosseum, the line had died down a bit but was still long enough that having bought my ticket somewhere else definitely shortened the wait. Once inside, I was definitely impressed. I quickly walked up the stairs to get the better view and walked around the second floor of the stadium, looking down. I don’t know if it was the scale or the shape or the history or what, but something in the building was definitely awe-inspiring. I walked around most of the second floor for fun and around most of the ground floor getting lost looking for the bathrooms (one of the worst public toilets I have ever been in. Women’s toilets are supposed to have a place to sit!) and then for the exit though I eventually found both.

Colosseum

Inside the Colosseum 

At that point, I had spent around 2.5 hours walking around the sites and I was dead tired. But I was so close to Capitol Hill that I couldn’t resist walking there. The buildings and the statues were impressive in scale, but it didn’t turn out to be my favorite designs ever and the view over the Forum wasn’t as amazing as I had been told (I found a better one within the sites actually).

Capitol Hill

From there, I decided to try reaching the Pantheon before it closed, but only made it about halfway before giving up. Instead, I turned in the other direction and walked to the Trevi fountain. I ended up enjoying the design more than anticipated (so much water! :D ) and I threw a coin in, but the huge amount of other tourists quickly pushed me out of the area.

Trevi Fountain

From there I then walked to the Fountain of Triton (which I loved. Such a great design!) where I then took the metro to the Spanish Steps.

Fountain of Triton

I will admit, when I first saw the steps, I thought for sure that these were not the right steps. I mean, there were a TON of bright pink flowers on them that I definitely didn’t remember from the pictures I had seen. However, after comparing the steps to the picture in my guidebook, I concluded that I was indeed in the right place and that the flowers were apparently for a fashion show. 

Spanish Steps

So I walked up the stairs to chill for a bit and to decide where I was going to eat for dinner. I knew I had to get Tiramisú (I had been told by Monica that that was something  had to do), but I had no other preferences and was not sure where a ton of restaurants would be (also, all of the restaurants around the steps were extremely expensive).

After consulting my guidebook, I decided to go to Piazza della Repubblica (remember the church Santa Maria degli Angeli? That is the piazza it is in) and eat nearby at Est! Est! Est!, a cheap and old pizza place. Although, when I arrived, I was told that I would have to wait 50 minutes to get in (real time: 30 minutes, though some really kind old American men offered to let me in early and sit at their table. However, this proved unnecessary since my table was ready less than 30 seconds later), the wait was definitely worth it for this food. I can honestly say that this pizza was the best pizza I’ve had in Italy (and wonderfully thicker in crust too) and the tiramisú was the best that I have had outside of the villa.

Pizza at Est! Est! Est!

Tiramisú at Est! Est! Est!

Feeling wonderfully sated, I walked from the piazza to my hostel without incident (well…I did go in the wrong direction when I started, but after getting on the right track nothing went wrong!). Once there, the receptionists turned out to be women who spoke unaccented English, and I checked in. My room was shared with four other girls of about my age, though only one of them was there sleeping when I came in (the other two showed up much later in the night after I had gone to bed…they weren’t too quiet unfortunately). I then put my stuff away and went to bed (the beds were fine, though a bit squeaky).

In the morning, I got up at 6:20am in order to get to St. Peter’s Basilica as soon as it opened. I ended up arriving there 30 minutes after since checking out had taken longer than expected (I needed to pay in cash which I didn’t have so I had to look for an ATM and the first one I found didn’t work), but there was only an incredibly short line so this was no problem.

Inside the church, I was impressed by the size and the number of large statues they had, but was otherwise not excited by the Basilica (neither the design nor the subjects of the art were too interesting). I still wondered around taking pictures for a bit (and I discovered a passageway behind two statues that some of the priests and guards were going down. So cool!). I then exited the church to go around the side to climb up into the dome. Although the 551 (supposedly…I only counted 507 steps coming down) were not so much fun with my knee, I enjoyed seeing the art on the inside of the dome much more close up (not as incredible as the art in the Florence Duomo though) and the view of Rome spreading out in 360 degrees from the top of the church (though not the most impressive view I’ve seen).

Inside the Basilica

Inside the Basilica

View from the top 

After leaving the church, I headed back through the metro to the Colosseum since it was the nearest metro stop to the Jewish ghetto. Although I disliked the length of the walk, the many different views of Rome that I saw (including an island in the middle of the river with huge buildings on it) were wonderful. When I reached the Synagogue I was disappointed to learn that the building was closed April 26^th (no idea why), and, after taking some pictures of the outside, I started to walk to the Pantheon. This was a little quicker and I ended up reaching the site with lots of time to spare…which ended up being a bad thing since I walked around the entire site in less than 15 minutes. I will admit, this was probably my most disappointing experience in Rome. I had really expected it to be a well-preserved old temple that I could walk through. I hadn’t realized that most of it was well preserved because it had been turned into a church. An ugly church.

Synagogue

Pantheon

After that, it was around 11am and I needed to find someplace where could purchase food on the go. Around the Pantheon and the supposedly amazing gelato shop I had been told to visit there were only restaurants, so I walked back in the direction I had came from and found a shop where I bought a chicken sandwich. I still had a good 30 minutes before I needed to start eating, so I walked back to the Pantheon to chill and people watch and then ended up sitting in a piazza near the gelato shop to eat.

And then I went to get dessert. AND IT WAS AMAZING! I can hands down say that this was the best gelato I have ever had anywhere. Inside the shop there were over 50 flavors of gelato and it was incredibly hard to choose (there was an entire area dedicated to different types of chocolate and I also saw a Mars bar flavored gelato that I almost ended up buying). However, I ended up picking raspberry and profiteroles flavors and this was a fantastic choice. The raspberry flavor obviously had real raspberries in it (I could feel the seeds in the gelato) and it was not overly sweet, and the profiteroles flavor tasted just like real profiteroles and had little puffs of pastry in it so that you could chew. So amazing <3 I would go back to Rome just for that gelato.

My superb gelato!

While eating my stupendous gelato I walked to the Fountain of Triton to take the metro back to Termini (along the way, I was stopped twice in less then 10 seconds by two different groups of people asking me directions. Luckily, I had been to both sites and knew which direction to point them!). At Termini, I then waited for a bit and then got on the train back to Arezzo where I am now.

The semester is now almost over and soon I will be traveling with Mom and then coming back to the States. I’m not sure if I can quite believe it.

Ciao!