This is a brief history of the Roman Visit. (Photographs and hyperlinks are being added as we go, folks, please be patient!)
We flew in on the 17th March, from Shannon, with Ryanair. Shannon has its advantages, being small and compact, but also it's far away. But if there's serious money to be saved, then it makes sense. Parking costs the same as at Dublin, though! So, arriving at 12 midnight, we agreed with taxi driver that €50 was a fair price to the hotel from Ciampino. (There are fixed fares [check, but I think it's 30 to Ciampino and 40 for da Vinci/Fiumicino] to the airports from within the city walls, which we only realised on the way back!)
The hotel was fine, as most hotels are, clean and reasonably comfortable. Lacking in tea and coffee making facilities though. Also, being close to the Termini made it quite convenient for buses and metro - though we only realised this on the last couple of days as our feet chafed and even the blisters complained!
I've kinda lost track of when exactly we saw what we saw and did, but I'll try and list and describe as much as I can. Rome is full of things to see and do, and certainly you can't see everything in one visit - perhaps you can't even see enough in one visit to prevent a return! In brief, at almost every street junction there is a church or fountain of some repute, and the big attractions like the Vatican and Forum could possibly keep you busy for a day if not longer. Thankfully, we'd visited just before Easter (when Rome's hordes of tourists really start coming) so queuing wasn't so bad and we could see plenty. The Dorling Kindersley and Rough Guide were our weapons of choice for guide books.
In no particular order, (stream of consciousness!) we visited:
The Colosseum. Big, impressive, perhaps under-explained.M and I had seen a big, impressive amphitheatre at El Jem in Tunisia a few years back (boast, boast, boast) which was better preserved than the Colosseum. We also had a guide there which really helped to prompt the imagination. Guides, naturally, were available at the Colosseum, and perhaps it might be worth your while arranging a tour to help with imagining the spectacles that must have taken place here. Visit, and visit early to avoid the crowds (though you could say that about everything). While we were there, there was an eye-opening exhibition (literally) of ancient art relating to Eros (the god of love...). Shall we say, the Romans didn't leave much to the imagination...!
The Forum. Big, rambling collection of ruins at this stage. What really impresses about this place is that it was the centre of the world for so long, so long ago. Decisions and speeches made here might have resonated in countries far away, in Britain or France or Spain. Could you call it the first UN HQ? Again, a good amount of interpretation either from a good guide or a good guidebook is required to make sense of these ruins. We also saw the Palatine Hill, which is above the Forum (costs a couple quid or else a combined Collosseum ticket will get you in!) and is better preserved. From here there are some spectacular views of the city, and there's a lovely garden for to have a picnic in. And orange trees.
The Pantheon. Despite grumblings of disagreement from my travelling companions, I maintain this is the highlight of my trip to Rome. Perhaps its the Engineer in me, I'm not sure, but it's the first time in a long time that I've really been impressed by something. The Dome has a span of 43m, and the same height. But, there's a 9m diameter oculus (a circular opening) in the centre of the dome - i.e. it's missing it's "keystone", and all of the structure holding up this immense dome is hidden in the dome itself. Not to mention it's about 2000 years old, and made from cast in-situ concrete.... It's fantastic, impressive, huge,and at €0, is a real must-see. More information here, or here, or here.
The Spanish Steps. Some steps. In a nice piazza. With a tea-room that charged €10 for a cup of tea. Which we didn't patronise. Did I mention that these steps are really famous?
The Trevi fountain. One of all of the fountains throughout Rome. It's very nice. But how long can you look at a fountain for? Especially with the street-hawkers trying to sell you buzzing magnetite (or something), bubbles, and dodgy sunglasses. Some of these fountains marked the end of the great aqueducts that brought water to the city, but no doubt the water's pumped through them these days, in the modern fashion. This was always very busy, but then it's on one of the main tourist thoroughfares, so that's understandable. It's just up from the Pantheon. Did I mention how impressive the Pantheon is?
The Pasta Museum. We didn't visit it, it costs €9. What!? It's Pasta!
The Circus Maximus. What a field. This is one of the least well-preserved monuments I've ever seen. In Ireland we'd have already built on it (some local authority offices or somesuch), but this is/was the Circus Maximus. There's nothing left except for some earthworks. Oh well, it's good for a 100 yard dash anyway. And because it's now a field, it doesn't cost anything to see. But unless it's on your way somewhere, don't bother.
Coffee. Coffee prices vary in Rome. Wildly. From €7 sitting outside near the Forum to €0.60 further out. Madness.
The Aurelian walls are very nice, if you like walls. I wouldn't go to see the pyramid of Caius though, because if you do, it will rain - and it will rain all day....
The Vatican (also here). We went to see the Basilica of St Peter, which is awesome. (Like the Pantheon - did I mention it's really impressive?) We first joined the queue for the dome - 550 steps of upness. But it's very cool, because you actually go up the stairs which are within the cupola of St Peter's. And the view, if it wasn't for the rain and clouds (see, we'd been to see that pyramid) is fantastic. Because the stairs are within the double-skinned dome, as you get higher and higher, you have to lean to the right as you go up! About halfway up, you find yourself on a balcony within the basilica, just at the base of the cupola. You get a feeling of being very high up, but we hadn't seen the basilica yet - and that view didn't give us any idea of the scale of this place.
You climb down 550 more steps, and arrive shaky-leggedly glad to be back on the ground, within the basilica. The Basilica of St Peter is huge. It's gigantic. It's all the big words for bigness combined, it's that big. And as big as it is, the opulence of the decoration would ruin any other church in the world. Gold and marble and bronze everywhere, statues, mosaics and paintings at every turn of the eye. And the dome's nearly as big as the Pantheon's, without an oculus. Michelangelo's Pieta is here, and it's easy to understand why it's so well appreciated, it's very well sculpted.
The Audience with the Pope happens every Wednesday morning and we'd arranged tickets to be there. If you're lucky enough to get to it, I recommend that you don't bother going up to the front or to the middle. Stick near one of the aisles marked out by the timber crowd fencing, and you'll be close enough to Il Papa as he flies past in the Popemobile. Bring a good sized chunk of patience too, as the Pope greets all the visitors in a myriad of languages and groups (schools, choirs, visiting priests etc.) get a mention from the Cardinal in charge, and feel the need to give a whoop back to the Pope!
The Vatican Museum / Sistine Chapel. Like the Pantheon (it's really impressive), this is another "must see." Queuing around 2 corners for upwards of half an hour was definitely worth it, and it costs €13 in. The Vatican has an expansive and eclectic collection of paintings and artifacts from all around the world, but the highlights of the museum for me were the map room (where all the various regions of Italy are depicted), the Raphael Rooms (boy, that lad could paint) and the, Sistine Chapel (Michelangelo could paint even better than Raphael). You go through the Raphael Rooms on the way to the Sistine Chapel, and you just know you're being built up gently to see the fantastic painting in the Chapel. Of course, you'd go to see the Raphaels on their own, but here they merely play a supporting role to the main attraction, and it really is an attraction.
The colours of the Sistine Chapel have been recently restored (enhanced?) and have such vibrancy and strength that you find it hard to believe they weren't painted last week. The clever use of light and shadow gives the ceiling a 3-dimensional appearance despite its flatness, and the figures are painted with such life and vigour, it really impresses. Apart from the hordes of visitors pressing through, you could stand and look at the ceiling all day, with your eyes pointed upwards and your jaw on the floor. All four of us left the chapel with cramped necks!
What else was there? Pizza, and pasta of course, 2 of the 3 fundamental food groups. Oh, and gelati too, the third.(The food pyramid you see, it's a triangle with 3 sides - pizza, pasta and gelati. Given that Pizza and Pasta both start with P, it's actually an iscosceles (or ilikessausages) triangle).
Castell Sant'Angelo - very brooding castle, especially when it's hailing on you (Hail, Caesar!) and the thunder echoes around the castle. The Pope has a secret passage here. Don't tell anybody. The guidebooks mentioned impressive collections of arms, but I was disappointed. There were a few swords alright, but no arms. Besides, the armoury in the Doge's palace in Venice is much betterer.
Other churches (only 2 included for brevity) visited included San Pietro in Vincoli (St. Peter in Chains) which has what are allegedly the chains that held St Peter when he was in prison. It also has a sculpture which was started by Michelangelo, but not finished, because he was busy - but this gives you a good comparison of the ability of Michelangelo compared to other sculptors as someone else did the top statues, whilst he had already finished the others. The original Vatican if you like, or San Giovanni in Laterano, was the centre of the Catholic Church until the Lateran Treaty in 1929 when the Vatican City was ceded. It is huge, and opulent too, and fantastically decorated throughout. Those heads we saw above the altar used to be attached to Ss Peter and Paul. (Rome is such a charming city, there are bits and pieces of people everywhere)
Is there anything not to bother doing in Rome? I'm not sure I can comment. Rome is a city that you could spend weeks in, and you can feel a little like you're rushing through an attraction so you get to the next one, and also, you can be a little overpowered by it all. By which I mean, and the Raphael Rooms in the Vatican Museum are the prime example of this, there is so much to see that the beauty and impressiveness of everything tends to be diluted by the sheer volume of it all.
It's not an overly expensive city. Being careful where you eat and drink is the main problem, but you can do this fairly easily by going off the beaten track. If you're going for a weekend, be decisive before you go about what you want to see and do, and I recommend you stick to that, trying not to be distracted.
We threw some money into the Trevi and legend has it that if you toss a coin into the fountain, you guarantee your return to Rome. I'm not so sure I'll return because of that, but I think I would like to go again sometime. I hope the links help...wikipedia can be a fantastic gateway to learning more.
We flew in on the 17th March, from Shannon, with Ryanair. Shannon has its advantages, being small and compact, but also it's far away. But if there's serious money to be saved, then it makes sense. Parking costs the same as at Dublin, though! So, arriving at 12 midnight, we agreed with taxi driver that €50 was a fair price to the hotel from Ciampino. (There are fixed fares [check, but I think it's 30 to Ciampino and 40 for da Vinci/Fiumicino] to the airports from within the city walls, which we only realised on the way back!)
The hotel was fine, as most hotels are, clean and reasonably comfortable. Lacking in tea and coffee making facilities though. Also, being close to the Termini made it quite convenient for buses and metro - though we only realised this on the last couple of days as our feet chafed and even the blisters complained!
I've kinda lost track of when exactly we saw what we saw and did, but I'll try and list and describe as much as I can. Rome is full of things to see and do, and certainly you can't see everything in one visit - perhaps you can't even see enough in one visit to prevent a return! In brief, at almost every street junction there is a church or fountain of some repute, and the big attractions like the Vatican and Forum could possibly keep you busy for a day if not longer. Thankfully, we'd visited just before Easter (when Rome's hordes of tourists really start coming) so queuing wasn't so bad and we could see plenty. The Dorling Kindersley and Rough Guide were our weapons of choice for guide books.
In no particular order, (stream of consciousness!) we visited:
The Colosseum. Big, impressive, perhaps under-explained.M and I had seen a big, impressive amphitheatre at El Jem in Tunisia a few years back (boast, boast, boast) which was better preserved than the Colosseum. We also had a guide there which really helped to prompt the imagination. Guides, naturally, were available at the Colosseum, and perhaps it might be worth your while arranging a tour to help with imagining the spectacles that must have taken place here. Visit, and visit early to avoid the crowds (though you could say that about everything). While we were there, there was an eye-opening exhibition (literally) of ancient art relating to Eros (the god of love...). Shall we say, the Romans didn't leave much to the imagination...!
The Forum. Big, rambling collection of ruins at this stage. What really impresses about this place is that it was the centre of the world for so long, so long ago. Decisions and speeches made here might have resonated in countries far away, in Britain or France or Spain. Could you call it the first UN HQ? Again, a good amount of interpretation either from a good guide or a good guidebook is required to make sense of these ruins. We also saw the Palatine Hill, which is above the Forum (costs a couple quid or else a combined Collosseum ticket will get you in!) and is better preserved. From here there are some spectacular views of the city, and there's a lovely garden for to have a picnic in. And orange trees.
The Pantheon. Despite grumblings of disagreement from my travelling companions, I maintain this is the highlight of my trip to Rome. Perhaps its the Engineer in me, I'm not sure, but it's the first time in a long time that I've really been impressed by something. The Dome has a span of 43m, and the same height. But, there's a 9m diameter oculus (a circular opening) in the centre of the dome - i.e. it's missing it's "keystone", and all of the structure holding up this immense dome is hidden in the dome itself. Not to mention it's about 2000 years old, and made from cast in-situ concrete.... It's fantastic, impressive, huge,and at €0, is a real must-see. More information here, or here, or here.
The Spanish Steps. Some steps. In a nice piazza. With a tea-room that charged €10 for a cup of tea. Which we didn't patronise. Did I mention that these steps are really famous?
The Trevi fountain. One of all of the fountains throughout Rome. It's very nice. But how long can you look at a fountain for? Especially with the street-hawkers trying to sell you buzzing magnetite (or something), bubbles, and dodgy sunglasses. Some of these fountains marked the end of the great aqueducts that brought water to the city, but no doubt the water's pumped through them these days, in the modern fashion. This was always very busy, but then it's on one of the main tourist thoroughfares, so that's understandable. It's just up from the Pantheon. Did I mention how impressive the Pantheon is?
The Pasta Museum. We didn't visit it, it costs €9. What!? It's Pasta!
The Circus Maximus. What a field. This is one of the least well-preserved monuments I've ever seen. In Ireland we'd have already built on it (some local authority offices or somesuch), but this is/was the Circus Maximus. There's nothing left except for some earthworks. Oh well, it's good for a 100 yard dash anyway. And because it's now a field, it doesn't cost anything to see. But unless it's on your way somewhere, don't bother.
Coffee. Coffee prices vary in Rome. Wildly. From €7 sitting outside near the Forum to €0.60 further out. Madness.
The Aurelian walls are very nice, if you like walls. I wouldn't go to see the pyramid of Caius though, because if you do, it will rain - and it will rain all day....
The Vatican (also here). We went to see the Basilica of St Peter, which is awesome. (Like the Pantheon - did I mention it's really impressive?) We first joined the queue for the dome - 550 steps of upness. But it's very cool, because you actually go up the stairs which are within the cupola of St Peter's. And the view, if it wasn't for the rain and clouds (see, we'd been to see that pyramid) is fantastic. Because the stairs are within the double-skinned dome, as you get higher and higher, you have to lean to the right as you go up! About halfway up, you find yourself on a balcony within the basilica, just at the base of the cupola. You get a feeling of being very high up, but we hadn't seen the basilica yet - and that view didn't give us any idea of the scale of this place.
You climb down 550 more steps, and arrive shaky-leggedly glad to be back on the ground, within the basilica. The Basilica of St Peter is huge. It's gigantic. It's all the big words for bigness combined, it's that big. And as big as it is, the opulence of the decoration would ruin any other church in the world. Gold and marble and bronze everywhere, statues, mosaics and paintings at every turn of the eye. And the dome's nearly as big as the Pantheon's, without an oculus. Michelangelo's Pieta is here, and it's easy to understand why it's so well appreciated, it's very well sculpted.
The Audience with the Pope happens every Wednesday morning and we'd arranged tickets to be there. If you're lucky enough to get to it, I recommend that you don't bother going up to the front or to the middle. Stick near one of the aisles marked out by the timber crowd fencing, and you'll be close enough to Il Papa as he flies past in the Popemobile. Bring a good sized chunk of patience too, as the Pope greets all the visitors in a myriad of languages and groups (schools, choirs, visiting priests etc.) get a mention from the Cardinal in charge, and feel the need to give a whoop back to the Pope!
The Vatican Museum / Sistine Chapel. Like the Pantheon (it's really impressive), this is another "must see." Queuing around 2 corners for upwards of half an hour was definitely worth it, and it costs €13 in. The Vatican has an expansive and eclectic collection of paintings and artifacts from all around the world, but the highlights of the museum for me were the map room (where all the various regions of Italy are depicted), the Raphael Rooms (boy, that lad could paint) and the, Sistine Chapel (Michelangelo could paint even better than Raphael). You go through the Raphael Rooms on the way to the Sistine Chapel, and you just know you're being built up gently to see the fantastic painting in the Chapel. Of course, you'd go to see the Raphaels on their own, but here they merely play a supporting role to the main attraction, and it really is an attraction.
The colours of the Sistine Chapel have been recently restored (enhanced?) and have such vibrancy and strength that you find it hard to believe they weren't painted last week. The clever use of light and shadow gives the ceiling a 3-dimensional appearance despite its flatness, and the figures are painted with such life and vigour, it really impresses. Apart from the hordes of visitors pressing through, you could stand and look at the ceiling all day, with your eyes pointed upwards and your jaw on the floor. All four of us left the chapel with cramped necks!
What else was there? Pizza, and pasta of course, 2 of the 3 fundamental food groups. Oh, and gelati too, the third.(The food pyramid you see, it's a triangle with 3 sides - pizza, pasta and gelati. Given that Pizza and Pasta both start with P, it's actually an iscosceles (or ilikessausages) triangle).
Castell Sant'Angelo - very brooding castle, especially when it's hailing on you (Hail, Caesar!) and the thunder echoes around the castle. The Pope has a secret passage here. Don't tell anybody. The guidebooks mentioned impressive collections of arms, but I was disappointed. There were a few swords alright, but no arms. Besides, the armoury in the Doge's palace in Venice is much betterer.
Other churches (only 2 included for brevity) visited included San Pietro in Vincoli (St. Peter in Chains) which has what are allegedly the chains that held St Peter when he was in prison. It also has a sculpture which was started by Michelangelo, but not finished, because he was busy - but this gives you a good comparison of the ability of Michelangelo compared to other sculptors as someone else did the top statues, whilst he had already finished the others. The original Vatican if you like, or San Giovanni in Laterano, was the centre of the Catholic Church until the Lateran Treaty in 1929 when the Vatican City was ceded. It is huge, and opulent too, and fantastically decorated throughout. Those heads we saw above the altar used to be attached to Ss Peter and Paul. (Rome is such a charming city, there are bits and pieces of people everywhere)
Is there anything not to bother doing in Rome? I'm not sure I can comment. Rome is a city that you could spend weeks in, and you can feel a little like you're rushing through an attraction so you get to the next one, and also, you can be a little overpowered by it all. By which I mean, and the Raphael Rooms in the Vatican Museum are the prime example of this, there is so much to see that the beauty and impressiveness of everything tends to be diluted by the sheer volume of it all.
It's not an overly expensive city. Being careful where you eat and drink is the main problem, but you can do this fairly easily by going off the beaten track. If you're going for a weekend, be decisive before you go about what you want to see and do, and I recommend you stick to that, trying not to be distracted.
We threw some money into the Trevi and legend has it that if you toss a coin into the fountain, you guarantee your return to Rome. I'm not so sure I'll return because of that, but I think I would like to go again sometime. I hope the links help...wikipedia can be a fantastic gateway to learning more.
Bought the t-shirt and all, so I don't feel I need to go back to Rome. Far from being the most interesting or most attractive city I've visited (it is clear that Brian has yet to visit Ljubljana, the jewel in the crown of Europe).
ReplyDeletestill no photos.........
ReplyDeleteCan't wait to see the photos Brian.
ReplyDeleteAnother interesting fact about the dome at the Pantheon is that they changed the concrete mix the higher up they went. By adding increasing amounts of pumice stone to the mix as they went they lightened the dome as they went thus reducing the stresses / enabled a bigger span. Pretty smart these Romans. The coffers in the structure (recesses) thinned area's of the dome (further reducing weight) while leaving a strong 'mesh' of structure between. More cleverness and it even looks good! Excellent post, well done.
ReplyDeletePhotos shortly, thanks for the extra info on the Pantheon, Jonathan!
ReplyDelete