The Vatican

Thursday, July 10, 2014

Thursday morning we had our alarms set early, as we were to meet our guide for our Vatican tour at 7:20 am.  The breakfast spread opened about 3 minutes before our taxi arrived, allowing us to grab a croissant, and me, a cup of coffee as well.  This was a bad choice on my part, as I should have known better.  Coffee and cab drivers should never mixed.  I spilled the coffee on myself no less than 30 seconds after I got in the cab and got to display brown stains on the front of my bright blue pants the rest of the day.  Lesson learned.

Waiting for our tour to start

The Vatican tour started a bit crazy.  There were many groups there already that early, and our guide, John, said that there would be lots of people in the Sistine Chapel, but not nearly as many as if we had waited during the time it was open to the public.  We by-passed all the museums and went straight to the Sistine Chapel.  A few parts of the tour were very overwhelming to me, and the Sistine Chapel was the first one of those instances.  It nearly broke me down as I walked in, and saw the beautiful artwork, and felt the history that the chapel held.  We were only allowed to stay in the room about 20 minutes, but luckily we were given a handout explaining the ceiling of the chapel, and each of the parts of the Michelangelo work.  The rest of the work we were on our own to decipher.  Unfortunately, taking pictures in the Sistine Chapel is forbidden.  After the Sistine Chapel, we went through the Vatican museums, which were, quite frankly, dull as can be.  We were raced through them, with barely enough time for pictures.  I was anxious to get to St. Peter's Basilica. The highlight of this part of the tour were the Raphael rooms, where there were some beautiful artwork from the painter, Raphael.

 My favorite painting from Raphael....the angel freeing Peter from imprisonment.

 A close-up from the painting.

 Another famous Raphael painting.

Finally we were headed to St. Peter's Basilica, which, I cannot explain in words.  This is in fact the biggest Catholic church in the world, and it is absolutely beautiful.  With our tour we spent a good half hour in the church, and afterwards, Aaron and I went back in for more.

There is so much to say about St. Peter's Basilica!  The statues were amazingly large but detailed.  There was Mass going on, which we missed by only 5 minutes or so.  If I'd known the times beforehand, I would have drug Aaron to Mass there.  They had 6 or 8 confessionals setup for people wanting to go to confession.  Aaron encouraged me to go, but I told him Reconciliation is such an emotional thing for me anyways, as soon as I stepped in that confessional I'd be a bawling mess.  St. John Paul II's sarcophagus was there, and there were many people crowded around it praying and taking pictures.

 St. John Paul II's tomb

The Pieta was another crowded area of the church.....the famous sculpture of Michelangelo.  We visited the crypt, where many past popes are buried, and we saw the area above where St. Peter is buried.  This is another area of the Vatican where picture taking is forbidden.

If I could have stayed in this church all day, I would have.  It was such an amazing experience.  After we left the basilica, we got some outside pictures, and then headed to the temporary Vatican post office and sent a few postcards to our loved ones.

We left the country of the Vatican City and headed north, to the Castel Sant' Angelo.  Once we were nearly there I pleaded with Aaron to head back to the hotel for a nap, as the early rise time and the long emotional day were making it hard to keep my eyes open and on my feet.  We grabbed some lunch at a place that wasn't anything special and then gelato for dessert.  Chocolate and caramel for me, and Pineapple and Coconut for Aaron.  Yum.  We got back to the hotel around 3pm and the next thing we knew it was after 6pm.  Naps are allowed on vacation, right?  We skyped with the boys, who seemed to be having a great time with Aunt Cori and the girls.  I believe they were getting ready to take a nap, as they had just gotten back from swimming at the pool.  After talking to them for a bit, we headed out for dinner, stopping in one of the local eateries off the beaten path.  This place was called Urbana 46.

 Their food was amazing, as well as their "vino della casa".  We splurged for dessert, and walked around the town when we were done.  I wanted to get some pictures of the Colosseum lit up at night.

 After our evening stroll, we called it a night.

Ready or Not....Rome here we come

In true beginner form, it looks like I deleted the first of my drafts I was going to post.  It's okay though, as it was written very late, with a lingering vino buzz, it probably wasn't very good anyway.  So....here we go.  Take two.

Monday was the day Aaron and I had been looking forward to for months now.  It was here, and we were both very anxious and keyed up.  We spent the morning packing our final things, rechecking them, pacing the floor, and twiddling our thumbs.  I cleaned most of Cori's kitchen and if I had known where the mop was, I would have done her floors too.  I'm not sure about Aaron, but I was worked up about leaving the boys for so long, as well as flying, which I hate.

When we got to the airport we kissed the boys a few times each, hugged them, "I love you's" all around, and off we went.  My emotions broke for just a moment as we walked inside the airport, but soon we were headed to get checked in.  Our flight to Charlotte was easy, and we made it to our next gate in perfect time.  Our flight to Rome was as easy as an 8 1/2 hour flight could be.  We only caught about an hour of sleep each, but luckily technology has gotten better on planes since our honeymoon, and we each had touchscreen TV's in front of us to watch movies, TV, play games, or listen to music.  I watched "Labor Day" with the yummy talented Josh Brolin and Kate Winslet,

and late in the trip I discovered a bunch of Downton Abbey seasons...score!  I know what I'll be watching on the way home.

 We landed in Rome and our first challenge was finding baggage claim and then finding the right one to go to.  We walked past 8 baggage claim thingies, to the screen at the end to wait to see where we needed to go.  It ended up immediately on our left, AND our luggage pieces were the first two off.  We found our driver with ease amongst the probably 100 drivers waiting at the exit.  Our driver taught us two things very quickly.  Italians like speeding, and ignoring all traffic signs.  We clocked him at 170 kph.  Aaron asked me to remind him to look that up when we got to the hotel.  (107 mph)

Our hotel room was perfecto.  We were able to get a room with a balcony (thanks Helga!) and went up to unpack and get a shower before heading out on the town.  We got some pizza at a place in town we find out later is a tourist trap, but no matter...we were starving.

 .
We headed to the Spanish steps to kill some time before our "Getting to Know Rome" tour started.  The thing I remember most about the Spanish steps?  The annoying vendors.  They would walk around with long stem roses and try to shove them in your hand.  They were everywhere.  Turn to talk to Aaron.  BAM.  Roses in my face.  Try to take a picture of the Spanish Steps.

BAM.
Roses in my face.  The funny thing is we didn't even know we had this picture till after we got back to the hotel.  I learned the phrase "No, Grazie." very quickly that afternoon.

Our tour was very good, led by a guy from Dublin....I forgot his name.  He had a lot of pointers on how to avoid tourist traps and find authentic Italian eateries.  The tour, in that alone, was well worth it.

He also pointed out the great water fountains throughout the city that look like you would get malaria from, but have delicious (and free!) water coming from them.  There are 100s around the city.

We visited the Pantheon,

the Spanish Steps, the Trevi Fountain, which was covered in scaffolding and not currently working,

and got our first taste of gelato.  Gelato is made with less cream than ice cream, and stirred slower than ice cream.  I got Strawberry and Tiramisu and Aaron got Lemon and Strawberry.  It was very, very good stuff.  After our tour, we headed back to the hotel to Skype with the boys, and get some much needed rest. 

Pre-Alzheimers, I'm sure of it

I've decided to keep a blog about our big once-in-a-lifetime trip, because, well, if you know me very well, you know I have what some might call a crappy memory.  It sucks, for the most part, because I honestly remember very little of my childhood, or even my own boys' early years until I look back at pictures. 

A bad memory isn't always a bad thing.  Many times it works in Aaron's favor when I wake up the next morning after an argument and remember I was mad, but can't remember why, and decide it's more trouble than it's worth trying to figure it all out. 

So I've decided to start blogging.  First with our trip, and I'm hoping to start blogging more about life in general.  There are so many memories that I want to hold on forever.  Silly things, like the other day when Lucas told Eliott he was smarter than him.  Eliott asked him what "E" equals and Lucas confidently replied "M C squirreled".

So anyways, this is my first blog post, hopefully of many....and we'll just see where it takes us.  
I'll post the first parts of our trip tomorrow, as it is nearly 1:00 am now Rome time.  Ciao.

Colosseum and Roman Forum

July 9, 2014

Aaron and I slept well our first night in Rome, with having no more than an hour of sleep in the last 48 hours, we barely remember our heads hitting the pillow.  We slept in without an alarm and took our time getting ready, enjoying the Roman sunrise.

We had a tour planned for 1:15pm at the Colosseum.

Sophia was our guide and she was very good, although she would sometimes only half explain things.  I think that most of that had to do with English being her second language.  She told us she grew up in Northern Italy.

We visited the lower level of the Colosseum, as well as the main two levels, and the upper third level.  We learned a lot of history about the Colosseum and the surrounding area of it.

After the Colosseum we walked to the Palatino, which was, in it's time, housing for the emperor.  Lots of beautiful ruins were just a small glimpse into the past of what once was.

From the Palatino we walked to the Roman Forum, to which the phrase "wow" was uttered from my mouth no less than 50 times.  It was amazing to see how much history was covered up by time, and how much was able to be recovered.  The first steps into the forum literally brought me to tears. 

The full tour was 3.5 hours long, and although we thoroughly enjoyed it, we were absolutely beat.  On our way back to the hotel, we stopped for some gelato.  The shop we went to had Kentucky flavored gelato (chocolate and tobacco)

 which was pretty good, but I ended up with mint chocolate chip, and espresso hazelnut.  Aaron got blueberry cheesecake and creme & cookie.  The mint chocolate chip actually had real mint leaves chopped up into the gelato.  All choices were delicious ones.

Later we had dinner at a place suggested to us by the person at the front desk at the hotel.  The place was named something about a cow or bull, as this was it's picture on the door.  Aaron got lasagna, and I got a fettuccine like dish with basil, tomatoes, and mushrooms.  Both were fantastico.

 After dinner it was late, so we headed back to the hotel for the night.  Most restaurants don't open until 7:00pm for dinner.  One guy we talked to said most Italians don't eat until 8:30pm.