My friends and I had a lovely weekend in Roma. Here's the news:
Journal It
Friday, June 15, 2012
Peter was a dear to drive Heidi, Brenda and me to the Torino airport to head off to Roma for the weekend. We caught the flight with no trouble. It’s a small airport and no challenge compared to Atlanta or Roma. But, when we arrived in Roma, we waited almost an hour for our luggage. Brenda and Heidi tried to get Heidi some money from an ATM, but the credit union denied the transfer. We found out later in an email from the credit union that she can only take out USA dollars equivalent to $200 each day, and the day goes from 3PM to the next day at 3PM. Heidi’s problem was that in the conversion from euros to dollars, she went over the $200 daily limit. Che bella!
I decided it would be good to give everyone some say in the decisions we had to make, so to the question “Would you rather go to the Termini (Rome’s central train station) by train and get there fast or go by bus and see more of the sights?” Heidi responded that we have plenty of time before we get our tickets at 1:00, so let’s see the sights on the bus, which we did. One and a half hours later, we finally got on a bus to fight the traffic all the way to the Termini. We did see more sight, but it did take a lot longer and a lot more traffic. Rome is much more congested that it was when I came with Gene and June, which is to be expected, since school is out for the students. Heidi took full responsibility for a bad choice, but as the day went on, we all took our turn at bad judgement calls. Again, Che bella!
At the Termini, the question was, “Should we walk the 15 minutes to the hotel with our bags or get a taxi for less thatn 10 euros. Brenda had the heaviest bag, so she decided to take a taxi. We immediately found the row of taxis ready to take us to our hotel. The driver was very nice and helped us get our bags into the trunk and into the hotel, then charged us a whopping 25 EUROS! Note to self: always ASK IN ADVANCE what the charge will be to your location. Brenda counted that as her turn in bad judgement. When we told the staff at the hotel what the taxi driver had charged, he caught his breath, but then shook his head and said, “They can charge whatever they want if they help with the bags.” We could tell he had thought we’d been ripped off. And again, Che bella!
We really liked our Hotel Modigliani. The staff was well versed in English. The location was close to everything we wanted to see. The rooms were comfortable (after Heidi’s and Brenda’s twin beds were separated and they made peace with their postage stamp sized shower by using mine-che bella!). The Wifi was available in the lovely garden and in the comfortable living room near the front desk. A delicious breakfast was served each morning in the breakfast room or in the garden. The staff helped us with directions and suggestions, and they stored our bags free on Sunday when we needed to check out before we were ready to go away from Rome. I would definitely go back to that hotel…after I checked to make sure I had a full sized shower.
I left Brenda and Heidi settling in and resting a little while I went out to get the Colosseum and Vatican tickets. Tickets4Fun.com pulled through again, and it took me less than 5 minutes to pick up the tickets and get the instructions about where to go when. Later, I had a misunderstanding with the guide that took us to St. Peter’s Basilica, which cost us 40 minutes of the hour that we were hoping to spend there…Che bella! But, for the most part, they were pleasant to work with.
Heidi and Brenda were anxious to get out in Rome by the time I returned. We stopped at the corner café for a quick sandwich, then we went off to the Colosseum for the afternoon. Unfortunately, Heidi fell down backwards while she was going down a flight of ancient, well-worn steps and sat down hard on the edge of the marble step. The next morning, she showed me a bruise the size of a large orange. She didn’t let it stop her, though. Che bella!
The Colosseum and Roman Forum were big hits with the ladies, and I decided to sit out part of it. I was really tired from the extra sprint to get our tickets, so I sat on a marble bench and waited for them to return. They woke me up about 30 minutes later. Those were healing moments for me. I had energy for the rest of the day.
When we left that area, the question was, “Should we walk back (45 minutes by way of the Trevi Fountain) or take a taxi?” Everybody wanted to see the Trevi Fountain, so I led the way back there…AFTER the 4 blocks of walking the wrong way. Heidi kept saying, “Do you need some help with the directions?” Of course, I did not, but it was not long before I found a street I knew that was not where we needed to be, so I asked someone passing by where Via del Corso was, and the directions took us back where we had started. I had hoped that the way I was going would work it’s way around to meet up with our right path, but it did not, so we went back 4 blocks to make the sharp turn left. I claimed that as my bad judgement. Che bella (Am I using that phrase a lot for Rome, or am I just imagining things???)
I think Brenda and Heidi were disappointed at the crowds at the Fountain of Trevi. It’s a beautiful spot, but in the summer, visitors are swarming there. We took a few pictures over everyone’s head and went on our way to the hotel.
Brenda had found in Bra a bakery that had focaccia bread pizza. She loved it, and she ordered that all over Rome, but it always came out as the thin-crusted pizza…good, but not what she was hoping for. She ordered it 4 times, and never did get a product that matched what she had liked so much at the bakery in Bra. Peter told me later that it was a regional dish. That made lots of sense.
The front desk staff told us there was a good pizza place up the hill and around the corner to the left, so we tried it out and were not pleased. They didn’t have Brenda’s pizza. The hotel told us they thought the restaurant would, but no. And, I ordered cooked spinach to go with my pasta, and it was plain nasty. I think they substituted some other green vegetable and cooked it. When I confronted the waiter with the fact that it wasn’t spinach (We all tasted it and agreed it was not spinach.), the waiter insisted that it was. Again, Che bella!
We did get a good night’s sleep, though, and were ready for more of Rome the next day, except this time using the Metro.
It Journal
Saturday, June 16, 2012
The Metro turned out to be much better and easier than I had predicted. The hardest part was working our way through the huge parade of people who were making a political statement in a parade as long as we could see in front and behind them. We finally worked our way across them and figured out how to get tickets. At the train, we asked someone if that train were going to the Vatican, and someone responded in English just in time for us to sprint to the other train just as it pulled into the station.
Our tickets were supposed to let us get to the front of the line at St. Peter’s Basilica, but after we got our audio guides (which, by the way, were not worth having), we were directed to go outside and turn right. Upon doing that, we were met with a crowd waiting to get into the Basilica. I thought this was strange, but I noticed that several others from our group were in the crowd waiting, too. By the time we got to the entrance, I discovered that we were turning to enter a gate that would take us outside the basilica and up to the 556 stairs to go to the cupelo. Too late, we discovered we were given bad directions, so we went back and up to the front door and spent 20 minutes in the Basilica before having to leave to meet our next guide that was going to take us to the front of the line at the Vatican Museum at the last entry of the day. That worked just fine, except that Brenda took her turn falling on the sidewalk on our way around to the back door. Fortunately, she wasn’t hurt. I guess she had bounced off of some of the crowds on the sidewalk and didn’t hit too hard.
The audio guides in the Vatican Museum were much easier to use, but Heidi started feeling bad, and we jumped ahead to the Sistine Chapel. All was awesome, and when we left we knew we had seen something special.
We decided to stop for gelato and rest for a few minutes, but the proprietor ran us out saying that we couldn’t use his tables and chairs because they were for ordering customers. Yes, we did pay for our gelato, and yes, it was 4:30PM by that time. We could only see one table that was in use. I gave the proprietor my best disgusted stare, and off we went, after asking the way to the closest Metro station. I’m glad we asked, because we saved lots of walking.
Back at the hotel, Heidi got her much-needed rest, and we went next door down the hill to Osteria Barberini. Everything there was perfect! Brenda enjoyed her lasagna, and the rest of us had great meals. I even got real cooked spinach with my fish.
It Journal
Sunday, June 17, 2012
Our breakfasts were really delicious at Modigliani, and after another great one this morning, we left for the Spanish Steps, which were very close by. Then, we stopped by the Pantheon, only to learn that there would be services there until noon. We went on our way to Piazza Navonna to see Bernini’ statue of the Four Rivers. Magnificent! We wandered there for a while looking at the street art and the 3 fountains, then returned to see the Pantheon. We learned that the building was a forerunner for much of the architecture in Europe. It is gorgeous.
We found a sidewalk café to have lunch on the way back to the hotel, and Brenda asked if it were air conditioned. Yes, it was…until the air conditioning broke and water spilled all over me. Actually, it was quite cool on such a hot day, but they moved us back outside and gave us all a caprese for our inconvenience. It was delicious, and we appreciated it. The rest of the meal was fine, and it was a very short walk back to our hotel.
I took the time to rinse off and change clothes, then took my bag and said goodby to Heidi and Brenda. I went off to the Termini, and they were going to stay in that area a while longer before taking a taxi to the Sheraton for the airport shuttle the next morning. They were smart and asked the driver how much it would be. He said 30-35 euros, but only charged them 17. That sounded much more fair than our first taxi driver. It pays to ask in advance.
I didn’t have a credit card to use the self-purchase machines, so I paid an extra euro and bought my ticket through an agency for the Leonardo Express, hopped on 15 minutes later, arrived at the airport in plenty of time and was at the gate 50 minutes before time to leave.
Have you ever thought that the experience of Rome, Italy (There is a SIMILAR Rome in Georgia???!!!), is like the connection you can feel in the Giant Redwoods of the US West?
That was my response over the weekend in Rome with my good friends Heidi and Brenda...Mammoth and glorious statues everywhere, structures of all kinds that could tell impressive and irresistible stories, and beauty inside and out on every turn. The connection I felt as I "roamed" (sorry, couldn't resist) the area of central Rome, ITALY, was the same as I experienced when my sweet parents and I (and my brothers?) roamed the Giant Redwoods on a Studycade A FEW years ago... overwhelming awe, respect, spirituality, intrigue, and the feeling of being among greatness.
Grazie, Roma!
