An Amazing Roman Holiday…

I do not know the technical definition of holiday or how it is used in the UK when someone goes on holiday but I would think it would be relaxing. Rome is not! Now I am not complaining but I wanted to remember the fact that this trip, all 3 weeks that we’ve completed, has been exhausting. Exhausting can be good, like finishing a race or a project or building a fence; or being in Rome. I mean let’s be honest I shouldn’t be complaining about being tired when I haven’t worked, cleaned a dish, vacuumed, dusted or pruned a tree in over 3 weeks. And I’m not, I’m really not complaining. I’m just saying, it’s exhausting work to be a tourist.

What made today so exhausting? Well loyal readers I will tell you.

Exhausting step 1: 3 hours in the Vatican, Sistine Chapel and St. Peter’s Basilica. These buildings were really cool to see but 3 hours was way too long. We have found, in our opinion, that the guides spend too long on any 1 given piece. It’s nice to learn about the art but i’d like to see a bit more and learn a bit less. Maybe that sounds naive but I can only retain so much information in 3 hours. It’s like wrapping your brain around a fire hose of knowledge and we would just like the hose turned down a little bit. That being said, we saw a lot of cool stuff. Raphael’s rooms were very cool. I was finally able to see the School painting where he made homage to Michelangelo, the Sistine Chapel is just amazing, St. Peter’s is breath taking. We also saw Michelangelo’s The Pieta – a very cool marble sculpture of the Virgin Mary holding Jesus after he’d been crucified. It is the only piece of work that Michelangelo ever signed and he did so late at night, illegally, because someone else was getting credit.

I can’t really describe the Sistine Chapel any better than the pictures all over the internet do. You have to see it and I recommend you do. It is an awesome site. Incredible to think he painted it in just 4 years and I suspect we still don’t know all the little hints and jabs he made towards people in the community. Maybe I am wrong but it just seems that these artists had a lot of tricks up their sleeves.

Outside the Vatican we made our way to lunch. What was lunch today? Pizza by the slice Roman style and oh boy was it good. You picked your pizza and they cut it and weighed it. Nic and had 4 or 5 different types and they were all delicious. The restaurant didn’t have seats, you just sat on the steps outside wherever you could find space. In order to remember this amazing pizza, Nic took a picture that I uploaded to Flickr.

Exhausting step 2: walking to the Piazza (yep, finally figured out how to spell it. Just pizza with an extra a) del Popolo, Mausoleo Augusto and the Spanish Steps. Piazza del Popolo was leg one of our 3.5 mile walk once we left the Vatican.  The Piazza was really cool. A large square with another Egyptian obelisk in the center. On the way Nic found purse 1 and 2 of the 4 she ended up buying today. Now, we all know Nicole and we know she can be a bit stubborn. Well, now the purse vendor knows it as well. We started out with 1 purse for 30 Euro. We walked away with 2 purses for 20 Euro. That’s not too bad of a deal on our end. Now I am sure these purses cost him 5 Euro total but who cares every business has to make money and every consumer wants to reduce that business’ profits. Nicole did just that! If she were writing she’d tell you all about them but I am just going to say that she is very happy with them and thinks they are exceptionally cute.

From the Piazza we made our way down a shopping street to the Mausoleo Augusto. This turned out to be kinda lame. It was an old fortress that Augustus used back in 9 AD. That sounds  pretty sweet to me. The problem is that it is surrounded with a fence and trees so you can barely see it and can’t go inside. The map and book we were using did not mention this so we were a bit bummed out when we got to it. Either way, we kept on trucking and made our way to the Spanish Steps.

The Spanish Steps are pretty cool but nothing like I’d imagined. I thought they’d be a bit more than just steps leading up to a church covered with people. I was wrong. But, it was still fun to go see them. The thing I am loving about Rome is what our guide talked about, mixing old or ancient Rome with new Rome. For instance we were sitting on the Spanish Steps, looking at a Dior store front, getting water out of an ancient fountain while taxis drove by all surrounded by newly renovated buildings. It’s like nothing I have ever seen.  Monuments that are thousands of years old are just stuck between new construction and modern life.

Exhausting step 3: bargaining with street vendors. Buying purses was even fun for me. I already told you that we bought 2 purses of 4 and that we spent 20 Euro on those 2 purses. Well, the second round of street bargaining came with knock offs.  These guys are hard core sales man. They make car  sales man look like amateurs. They simply start bagging things up and handing them to you before you are done making a decision. We didn’t fall for that. We bargained with 2 separate vendors for about 15 minutes before Nic bought purses. The cops were coming down the street and they started to pack up so we offered him 28 Euro plus all the change I had in my pocket, about 50 cents, and he said no. We said, fine, no big deal and started to walk away. He didn’t like that and changed his tune quickly as every other vendor around us was packing up to leave. He mumbled something, obviously irritated that Nic and I drive such a hard bargain, packed up 2 purses and we went on our way. So once again we started the conversation with 1 purse for 35 Euro and walked away with 2 for less than that. To say the least, Nic was thrilled.

Exhausting step 4: walking home. Oh the walk home. Remember, our entire walk was about 3.5 miles without the Vatican and St. Peter’s time. I found a fountain on our map we were using. And the fountain looked pretty cool and was large on the map. I thought, “hey, if it’s on this map and it’s pretty big it must be cool”. I was wrong. Once again today we walked to something that wasn’t as spectacular as we had hoped. Now, the area was neat and we found some cool shops but the fountain itself wasn’t too much to write home about.

But, on the way back to the hotel, we did find another vendor to buy a suitecase from. Someone in my group is buying enough stuff that we have to buy a new bag to take it home with. We drilled this guy down from 25 Euro to 17 and change because “that’s all I have on me right now, take it or leave it” seems to work well for nic and I. Yes, I did have more than 17 Euro but i’m not going to let him know that

So, we had a great day up until now. Nic is napping I am blogging and uploading pictures.

Till our next post, Ciao.