Roma

We had an excellent time in Rome. In summary; the weather was brilliant, the art was gorgeous, the food was scrumptious.

But in detail:

The trip didn't start out so well, as our flight was delayed by over an hour due to the gale force winds that have been buffeting Ireland for the past week or so. (This was the cause of the tragedy of two fishing boats being last last week, and seven fishermen with them.) And then once we were on the flight Silas wouldn't sleep, stuck his finger so far up my nose as to make it bleed, and got us in trouble with the flight attendants for standing in the aisle when the seat belt sign was on! He was fairly well behaved though, especially considering the seven year old girl who threw up across the aisle from us. At least I didn't have to contend with vomit.

We arrived safely at around midnight, got on the bus to the city center and promptly fell asleep, only to wake up as the bus was pulling into the stop. Excellent Orrin navigated us straight to the hotel, which was good since my contacts were so dry that I could barely see. The hotel had huge wooden doors and a buzzer then Orrin had to climb up four flights of stairs while Silas and I took the antiquated lift that had an inner wooden door and an outer wrought iron door.

The next morning we had breakfast at the hotel which consisted of coffee, cereal, and assorted sweet rolls. Silas ate an adult sized bowl of corn flakes and milk. We headed out to explore Rome for the day. We saw Trevi Fountain, which is a huge tourist area. You are supposed to throw a coin over your shoulder into the fountain to ensure a return trip to Rome in the future. We did not do this, although we do hope to go back some day.

We then stopped by the Pantheon. This may have been my favorite sight in Rome. It is obviously ancient and sacred, but it also feels very austere and elegant, at least compared to the the things we would see in the Vatican. It wasn't swarming with tourists this Friday morning either so that may have added to the appeal. The dome itself is so huge it feels almost magical. I didn't know this, but the dome gets thinner as it rises and the composition of the concrete gets lighter as well, so by the time you get to the center, or top, it is all pumice stone. Genius, huh?

We continued our hike across the city, through the mopeds and the extremely bumpy or non-existent sidewalks. Can you tell we were traveling with a stroller? Luckily Silas likes the cobblestone bumpiness. My sister once said that everyone in Rome rides two mopeds at the same time. I think she may be right.

We crossed the Tiber river and waited in line for the metal detectors to go into St. Peter's Basilica. The vast ornate church was overwhelming. And although it was filled with beautiful things, I can't say I really enjoyed the experience very much. It was too much, with too many people, too dark, too noisy (there was a man vacuuming some carved column near the ceiling), and not at all sacred feeling.

We wrote a quick postcard to Orrin's Grandmother and mailed it with a stamp from the Vatican. She is the only Catholic whose address I know that something from the Vatican might actually mean something. Next we went to the Vatican museum which houses a beautiful collection of Roman sculpture and most famously the Sistine Chapel. After the huge St. Peter's, the chapel seemed small, and was packed, nearly shoulder to shoulder. I can't imagine if we had gone in the summer during "tourist season". The paintings were very vibrant and absolutely stunning. The blue background to all the paintings really does make you feel as though the ceiling were opening and the figures were populating the sky.

After the Vatican Museum we grabbed our first taste of Roman pizza. This kind was on a thick foccocia type crust. I had an artichoke and mushroom concoction and Orrin had roasted sweet peppers. We each had a huge slice which was heated in an oven and then folded in half to make a cheesy gooey delicious sandwich. We sat in a square and ate while Silas chased pigeons. His discarded crust drew quite a crowd, including a seagull.

We continued on our journey to the other must-see Roman site, the Colosseum and Roman ruins. We didn't really have enough time to get the audio guide for the Colosseum, so we just wandered around as Silas stomped in the puddles, and we tried to imagine gladiators, emperors and vestal virgins. It was huge though, and amazing that all the modern stadiums are pretty much the same design.

The rest of the ruins we saw were pretty ruined so it was difficult to imagine what was what. There were many other impressive monuments and piazza's that we wandered through on our way back to the hotel. We grabbed Silas deluxe handmade train sweater as the evening was getting a little cooler.

Dinner was at a fun little place called Hosteria Romana that had a fantastic antipasti buffet, including zucchini "noodles" tossed with seafood, sliced caramelized onions that had crispy breaded coating, big balls of fresh mozzarella, and sweet soft artichokes swimming in butter. Orrin had a chick pea and white bean soup and I had a small dish of spinach and ricotta ravioli. We were so stuffed after the meal that we didn't even have gelato for dessert.

Afterwards we walked up to the Spanish steps, which are a pair of staircases in front of the Spanish embassy. There is a small piazza and fountain at the bottom and a towering white embassy at the top. We took pictures, but it was dark and, like many that we took, they don't really capture grandeur of the place.

The next day we went to a couple churches near the hotel. My favorite was Santa Maria del Vittoria. It was very ornate, but the church itself was small and felt intimate. And there were only one or two other people there so it felt kind of like a secret jewel, although I know it's fairly famous for Bernini's sculpture of St. Theresa.

We next went to the National Roman Museum, which has a huge collection of ancient roman sculpture as well as an extensive collection of coins. It was interesting that the males busts and sculptures were noteworthy for their accomplishments in battles and the female busts and sculptures were noteworthy for their hairstyles. The coin position was actually also very interesting, although I was getting fairly worn out by this time. They went into very interesting detail both to discuss how the coins were made and distributed, and also how the empire worked to maintain the value of the coins. I thought it was especially interesting that the roman coins were actually being used as the preferred monetary unit outside the empire. Prior to an area being conquered by force it was conquered by capital.

Our final stops were for pizza and gelato. This time we opted for a nice crispy thin crust. Orrin picked a delicious combination that was covered in thin slices of salami and topped with roasted eggplant and chunks of mozzarella and brie cheese. Even Silas enjoyed it. Lastly was a stop at the most famous gelateria in Rome, Giolitti's. Although there is a kind of odd, order-and-pay-at-the-till-then-take-your-receipt-to the-ice-cream-counter policy that left us a little embarrassed and the lone guy behind the counter had a hard time keeping up with the mob waiting for ice cream, it was worth it. Orrin had a dark sweet cherry cone that was perfect and I had a scoop of kiwi and a scoop of pear that were the perfect contrast of sweet and tart and could not have had a truer fruit flavor. Perfection in a cone!

We sped towards the bus station and went back to the airport to catch our flight back on Saturday night. I did buy a bottle of balsamic vinegar as my sole edible souvenir. Silas took a nice long nap on the plane and Orrin and I tried to complete a sudoku.

Because we are living in Ireland we have to register with the local police, who stamp our passport to say that we're on record and have a valid work permit. This is good for a year and had expired on the 18th. I had been calling for a couple weeks to get an appointment with the passport stamping officer, but couldn't get a hold of him. They had never looked at this stamp on any of our 6 or 8 other trips, so I wasn't too worried about it. But as luck would have it, this time the passport officer in Shannon looked for it. He didn't give us too hard of a time, just asked us what the date was and what date did we think was stamped, before letting us go. I guess we'll have to get that taken care of before we go to London in a couple weeks.

We had traffic from the rugby game in Limerick to contend with on the way back to Clonmel, as well as freezing wind and rain that greeted us back on the emerald isle. Still, it is nice to be back home, far from the buzz of mopeds!