For Thanksgiving, I traveled to Rome with Josh, Cam, Cam's girlfriend Hillary, and Max. We left Thursday the 27 at 630 am from Munich's airport and arrived in Rome at about 8am. We were all really tired because we had to leave our apartments at 4am to get to the airport in time, and the night before we had an event for one of our classes that ran until about 10pm. I personally was operating on about 1.5 hours of sleep, and it was pretty much the same for everyone else I was with.
P.S. we flew with Lufthansa, which as you will remember, I am not too fond of after they screwed me in Poland. Time to see if they can redeem themselves.
This chocolate filled deliciousness was a good start. +1 Lufthansa (unfortunately, this means that Lufthansa, by my tally, is still -3275, so they have some catching up to do)
We also flew over the alps, which was incredibly cool. (This does not serve as plus point for Lufthansa, seeing as though over the alps is the only way to fly from Munich to Rome. However, we did not crash in the alps, so I guess that's +1 Lufthansa? The jury votes yes. -3274 it is)
Upon arrival we arrived at our very upscale hotel. This is their sign.
Heavily advertised
But seriously the hotel was nice and it was comfortable.
We checked in and then we went out to explore Rome. So to the west of the River Tiber is Vatican City, and to the east of the river is the downtown, where things like the Colosseum and all that stuff is. Our hotel was between the west bank of the river and Vatican city, so pretty ideally located. It did not take long at all to walk to the Vatican and to the sites downtown.
We first walked over to Vatican City, but it was packed at this time because it was about noon. So we decided to walk downtown and see the Vatican another time. So we went downtown and saw the Pantheon and the biggest nicest building I have ever seen, which is also the sight of the tomb of Italian unknown soldiers.
The famous ceiling of the Pantheon
Inside the Pantheon
The huge beautiful building I was talking about
You could see the Colosseum from the top of this building
The ruins of the Roman Forum, which was like the downtown shopping district during Antiquity
That night for dinner we went walked around and eventually settled on this place on the street somewhere. We ordered a bottle of wine to split and I ordered some pasta with clams in garlic butter sauce. It was really good.
My dinner
The table on the right is where we ate
Me at dinner
That night Cam had made dinner reservations for us at a speak easy. I was surprised because I thought those were only in America, but I have always wanted to go to one. So we go to this place, called the Jerry Thomas project, and it is in this dark alley and there is a door and all it says on it is Jerry Thomas on this gold name plate.
Here is the door. I had to really brighten this photo so you could see it, it was not actually this light out.
So we knock on the door and suddenly the name plate slides out of the way and there are a pair of eyes, and its like "aw hell yea, this is the real deal." You need a password to enter, but turns out a reservation works just as well. We are seated at a table real low to the ground and sit on bean bag cubes, and fill out our info which allows us to be members until September of next year for 5 Euros.
The membership card
The place is dimly lit and plays older Jazz music and just had a really cool feel to it. Apparently this was ranked one of the Top 50 bars in the world (not sure by who though.Since I haven't been to 50 bars in the world, it certainly ranks in my top 50, so I guess its true). The bartender also recently won Italy's Best Bartender 2014. I ordered a couple drinks. One was really good, the other tasted like black licorice. You can't win em all.
We retired to the Hotel, and the next morning we woke up early to hit the Vatican Museums. The Vatican Museums consist mostly of art. Here are examples of the works below.
You get the idea. The Vatican has a ton of really nice art. We must have walked through about 50 rooms packed with art and painted like the examples above. The walk through eventually led to the Sistine Chapel, where unfortunately photos are not allowed. But it was still so cool to be somewhere so famous and where the conclave meets. A prayer started a couple minutes after we arrived in the Chapel so I got to say a prayer for Dad and Pepere and others, so that was really cool. I also had my Dad's rosary that my Mom gave me when I left for Germany.
We then saw an exhibit that I was particularly excited for: The papal carriage exhibit. This exhibit featured the carriages and cars that have been used to transport the pope over the years. Here are some examples.
A pope-mobile
The car Pope John Paul II was riding in during the famous attempt on his life
After this we went to St Peter's Square to try to go into the Basilica but once again it was too crowded. So once again we decided to go downtown. This time we went to the Colosseum. There really wasn't a whole lot to see at the Colosseum, but it was still cool to see it and get a grasp for the scale of it.
Outside
Inside
you can see the whiter part, which is a slight remake of the stage. So everything below that level in the photo actually would have been "underground" and hidden from the crowd
It was pretty big
After this we were exhausted since we hadn't gotten much rest and had done a ton of walking, so we walked back to the room and took a nap before dinner. We had reservations for 10pm (which was the earliest we could get one), so we went across the street to a bar and just hung out. Josh's cousin happened to be in Rome as well so he joined us. We went to this place for dinner that Anthony Bourdain went on his show "No Reservations". We had the dish he recommended there, which was basically an incredible mac n cheese, with a couple of bottles of wine. It was a great meal.
The next day we woke up even earlier because we really wanted to make sure we got into St Peters Basilica. We got there around 8 am which was perfect because there was no line. The basilica was huge and absolutely beautiful.
The outside of the Basilica
The inside
The ceiling
I believe John Paull II's tomb, but don't quote me on that
Cool ceiling
The dome, which you can actually climb up into, which Josh and I did. It was a long ways up
A list of names of all the Popes
A view of St Peters Square from the dome of the Basilica
The center of the Basilica
The Swiss guard
What I don't have photos of is the Vatican Treasury, which was basically a ton of papal gowns and possessions and was really cool. I also have no photo of the Grottoes, which is where a lot of the Popes are buried. There were no photos allowed in either spot, but both were really cool.
I bought a postcard from the Vatican City Post office and a stamp and mailed Memere a postcard. I thought it would be really cool to get a Vatican City postmark on a postcard. It cost 2 Euros, where in Germany it costs .75, but it was totally worth it.
After the Vatican we went to St Angelo's fortress.
St Angelo's at Night
In the Day
Holes to shoot through as defense
A Catapult
The bridge leading towards St Angelo's. It was a really cool building
After this we went back to the hotel to relax. We had seen everything that we wanted to. I went out on my own for a couple hours to do some shopping, but didn't buy anything because it was all tourist trap stuff and nothing caught my eye for myself or anyone back home. So I went back to the hotel and we left for the airport for out 7pm flight back to Munich.
The trip got me in the mood, so on Sunday I watched Angels and Demons the movie.
Some more random thoughts, Rome was really dirty. There was vomit and poop and trash everywhere. Also, anytime that you are near the big tourist areas, there is someone every 10 seconds trying to sell you a "selfie stick" or umbrella or postcard or a pass to skip the line (which I am pretty sure is a scam). It sort of takes away from being at one of the holiest places on earth. But overall, it was a great trip.
PS I am a huge fan of gelato. On Friday I actually bought gelato from one place, but the other people I was with wanted to go to the place we went the day before. So in the 5 minutes it took us to get there, I had already finished my 2 scoops of gelato, so I bought 2 more scoops that this place too. Oh well.
Yummmmm
Drinks at the speak easy
One bar we went to served drinks on floppy disks. WHAT WAS ONCE THE CUTTING EDGE OF TECHNOLOGY IS NOW BEING USED AS COASTERS
This store I stopped had this insane collection of WWII helmets, hats, and old magazines. Unfortunately only the magazines were for sale, and were in Italian
On Saturday I got Gelato at this Lindt chocolate place and it was amazing
