Continued from earlier…

Rome is much bigger than I expected.

After finishing up at the Vatican and walking all around the basilica, we somehow got lost looking for food. We made our way back to Caffe Leonardo for the second night in a row.

The next day we walked around the rest of Rome that we planned to see. We started at Palantine Hill, a large group of ruins that sits above the Colosseum. We then took a guided tour of the Colosseum with an absolutely mad woman. Over the course of the tour, she managed to offend Americans, Chinese, Japanese, Romans, Fascists, Christians (sort of), and somehow animals. We walked through the Roman forums, up to the Trajan Market (the worlds first mall! – according to the map), over to Piazza Navona, and then to the Pantheon.

The Pantheon is beautiful. It’s hard to believe that it was originally used as pagan temple because when you step into the building, the presence of God is palpable. I felt extremely close to God during our time in the church. The most stunning feature of the church is obviously the oculus, which was in its full splendor when we arrived around 4 in the afternoon.

We got some gelato and then went over to Trevi Fountain where we found another American couple who we exchanged pictures with. It’s interesting – when you are in a foreign country, biases about cities you live in, etc. are thrown out the door because you are just so happy to hear English. The folks that we met at the fountain were from St. Louis, our cross-state rival, but we were pleased to speak with them for a while. We had a similar experience on our tour of the cupola where we met perhaps one of the friendliest New Yorkers we’d ever come into contact with.

After the fountain, we returned again to Caffe Leonardo for another half-liter of the house white and some dinner. It was a big day and we were pretty famished by that point. Our strategy for Rome had been to eat as much breakfast at the hotel as we could. The Rome Hilton has a “continental” breakfast that was included with our room because my dad is a gold card Hilton member and an all-around good guy. The only thing “continental” about the breakfast was that there was enough food to feed a small continent. Each morning we gorged ourselves on fresh fruit (at least I did), made-to-order omelets, 8 kinds of fresh-squeezed juice (the blood orange juice was the best), more pastries and breads than I could imagine, and the best brewed coffee I’ve tasted in my entire life. We figured with a breakfast like this, we could do 2 meals per day in Rome and dinner ended up being at Caffe Leonardo every night. Usually we ate an early breakfast, which wasn’t exactly regular, but since our favorite restaurant was open at that time, we figured it made sense to do it this way. It worked for us…people who are more “foodie” will probably choose a different way.

That evening after we returned to the hotel, we headed down to the lobby terrace that overlooked the pool for the evening. We caught up on our journaling for a few hours while we drank more of their wonderful Holland coffee (all I know about it is that it was FROM Holland, but I’ve yet to find it and figure out where I can buy it) and listened to the lounge singer who was entertaining the nighttime pool crowd (and by “crowd”, I mean the 10 or so people up on the terrace enjoying the beautiful Roman evening).

The lounge singer was great, covering everything from traditional Italian songs to “Roxanne” by The Police. Most of what she sang were lounged-up covers of American pop songs with an Italian accent. It was such an enjoyable evening sitting outside and speculating on what she would sing next. Time passed quickly and we ended up not turning in until after 1 a.m.

The next morning, on the recommendation of one of our waitresses at Caffe Leonardo, we visited the Gallery Borghese, an art museum that is a part of the large park in Rome, Villa Borghese. We had to make a reservation to get into the gallery, so we were excited about what we might see, even though we had not heard much about the collection. It turned out to be not very good at all.

The collection was very well put together and all came from one guy – some Cardinal from a long time ago who was related to some Pope (whatever happened to that vow of poverty?) – but this place was knotted up like Fort Knox. You couldn’t take ANY bags in and it cost more to enter than it did to get into the Vatican. Based on the collection that we saw, I couldn’t figure out what the big deal was all about – it was mostly sculpture and stuff that I didn’t really recognize (nor did Alli, who took Art History). Not really our cup of tea.

After our alotted two hours in the museum (we didn’t need both hours), we walked around the park a bit, stopping for a while near a fountain, where we both got out our journals and drew. Yes, I attempted to draw. While Alli took on the Colosseum, I tried my best to sketch the fountain in front of us. It was a pretty cool experience and Alli seemed proud of me, which was enough for me.

We walked to Piazza Popola at the Northern entrance to Rome and then back to…you guessed it…Caffe Leonardo for our last night in Rome. The next morning we were headed for our final destination – The Amalfi Coast.

Out of all the cities we visited, I would say that I was most looking forward to visiting Rome. There’s something about the city where modern civilization seemingly started – a city rich with both religious and political history – that made me anxious to visit it. I think that what I envisioned was something more like Paris or Venice, where the historical parts of Rome were preserved instead of intermingled with a bustling metropolis. Rome just seemed crazy to me and I didn’t like it nearly as much as I wanted to. Perhaps the terrific hotel room spoiled it for us; maybe it made us just want to hang in our room more than explore the city. I still wouldn’t trade that hotel room (and that breakfast!) for anything.

After another great night’s sleep and another wonderful breakfast, we once again found ourselves on a train headed for a new location. This time, our destination was Naples, but only briefly, as we would then meet the head of the Italian Taxi Mob himself, Claudio, who would then take us to our last stop on the trip – Villa Scarpariello Relais.

And yes…that was the view out of our room.

UPDATE: Alli’s Rome post.