On to Rome

Sunday, September 21, 2014
Rome, Lazio, Italy
The alarm went off at 4:30 to grab our taxi to the airport and on to Rome. When we arrived, we had the option of trying to navigate buses or trains an subway for about 25 Euro or for 40E we could grab a shuttle that brought us straight to the hotel.  Easy choice after such a short night with suitcases in hand.  

It was a little confusing when we first arrived at the hotel .  There is an ancient elevator right inside the door: the kind with the big gate that you open once the elevator arrives. We guessed we should go to floor 1 for check in.  Wrong.  Floor 1 is the front desk for another hotel entirely.  Our hotel has its lobby on the 3rd floor.  Why no one has made a sign to indicate this and put it into or near the elevator is beyond me.

The hotel is charming. The lobby is just across from the restaurant and the whole first floor (3rd floor) smells like a bakery.  It's hard not to love that.  The front desk staff is cheerful, efficient and fluent in English.  When asked how many wifi devices we wanted to use, we were a little embarrassed to answer, "four."  Our room wasn't ready so early in the day, so we dropped off our bags and headed out into the city.

I wish I could describe Rome, but there is no way to do it justice. The entire city is awash in beautiful buildings, Renaissance churches, Greek and Roman ruins, and gelateria .  You can't walk more than a few blocks without finding something interesting, breathtaking, bizarre or beautiful to stop and see.  The sights are so prolific and have so much history that the guidebook doesn't cover them all.  Eventually, even those authors, with an entire book to dedicate to one city, have to make decisions about leaving out this church or that obelisk.  As we walked through the Church Sant' Agnes in Agone I couldn't help but think that I could probably spend the better part of one day just touring that one church with a guide.  If you can come to Rome, you need to come to Rome.  One day won't cover it.  I'm pretty sure our five days won't, but we'll give it our best shot.  Hopefully the photos will help give a little sense of the city, but they will never do it justice.

Cat of the Day: We couldn't find one.  Very disappointing.  We saw lots of dogs, including one of those yippy things coming out of Gucci or Prada or one of those other insanely expensive stores, but not a single cat.  We looked for a statue of a cat at Via della Gata (supposedly there is one), but no dice.

We had the best gelato of the trip so far: a scoop of lavender and white peach and a scoop of Rosemary Honey Lemon.  We almost didn't bother to get dinner.  We were just going to return to try something else.

We enjoyed lots of interesting moments including watching a bride and group emerge from one of the ancient churches only to be pelted quite aggressively with rice.  The two of them looked like teenagers. We saw a gaggle of those guys who paint themselves with silver, wear masks and stand really still in a public square hoping for spare change taking a smoke break, maskless in an alley.  We saw a fake gladiator exchanging words with a real nun then he stepped aside to make a call on his cell phone.  We seriously considered buying a hot young priests of Rome calendar.

We saw our first Michaelangelo today in a church that is currently dedicated to Mary, but used to be a temple of Minerva. It was simply jam-packed with paintings, sculptures, marblework, mosaics and other art. Parts of it were kind of dark, but we discovered that for half a Euro, you could turn the lights on in certain areas.  We spent about a half hour there before a priest kicked everyone out. Must have been his lunch hour.

Tomorrow: Roman baths, a walking food tour and whatever else we stumble into.  On a personal note: For the first time in recent memory, I had no tea today.

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