Staffination Strikes Again

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Basilica of St. Peter

Day two - We were up and att’em early to get to the Basilica and beat the lines. We took another taxi to the Basilica to get there early and not bother with the buses. It proved to be in our favor as we got there and had to wait only about 10 minutes. Evidently the big hold up is the security lines, not so much a line to ‘get in’ perse. We sailed through the line and got in with no problems. As it was early, I suggested that we do the “dome” thing now while there wasn’t a line. Much to the dismay of my father, we got through there pretty quickly as well and went up in the elevator to be dropped off on the inside of the dome, overlooking the altar of the church. About 2.5 seconds on this ledge, secured with wire caging that resembled chicken wire, my dad decided that he wasn’t having any of this and he was heading back down. I give him credit for getting that far since he didn’t want to go in the first place. We continued up, and up, and up. We wound around the dome on stairs that inconveniently kept with the angles of the dome. We were out on two different ledges of the outside one at this ‘lower level’ and one that was actually near the pinnacle of the cupola. We were able to get a birds eye view of St. Peter’s “square” and the sheer size of the smallest country in the world, the Vatican. After mandatory picture taking and such, we returned to the ground level to find my dad dutifully waiting for us at the “finish.” He had a much better time looking at the people walking around and at the structure that is the church. We walked through the church, I can’t even describe how big and ornate it is. Even though I consider myself a recovering Catholic, it’s something everyone, Catholic or not, should see.

St. Peter's Basilica

Swiss Guard

Inside St. Peter's

Looking down from the catwalk. This is where dad bailed.

stairs up to the dome

I love this picture - pausing to catch our breath

tight stairs up to the top!

You couldn't get up these stairs without the rope - it was a tight squeeze

A view from the top

St. Peter's Square

Mike waiting for us to get out of the bathroom :)

Inside St. Peter's

the Altar

Beautiful window

once again - the four of us

the ring we climbed up to!

After the Basilica, we headed off to see the Trevi Fountain Zara, my favorite Euro clothing store. The fountain was crowded and not really what I expected, but as I told my brother - you can’t really have expectations when you travel because they will never be in line with your experiences. The Spanish Steps were also less than thrilling, though surrounded by some of the most swanky stores in the fashion industry. Probably the thing that sticks out most for me from the Spanish steps were the Japanese tour groups with three or four Gucci bags each. Yowzers!

he he

my favorite store ever

Trevi Fountain

my mom throwing in good luck money

The Spanish Steps

the actual steps

the Spanish Square

end of the day drink to celebrate a wonderful family

We headed back to the hotel with plans to regroup and take some night photos somewhere in the city. We ended up at the Coliseum - though we were frustrated when we learned that it had been closed that day, and perhaps the next due to flooding. Evidently the rains of Thursday hit the city harder than usual and they had not prepared for this at the 2000 year old monument. We got some cool pictures so the trek was worth it, but the most fun happened later that night!

Coliseum at night

the restaurant we ate at - lots of food!!

Our not so impressive rooftop drink

We happened upon a nice little restaurant, probably the most authentic I’ve seen - or maybe they make it look authentic to appease tourists, I’m not sure, but we had an excellent meal, and even better wine with it. Mike and I stopped for an additional drink on our way home, totally unnecessary, but we wanted to check out the rooftop bar near our hotel - turns out the only thing you can see is other rooftops. Fail.

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum

Day Three - the next morning we started out a little later as a result of the late night imbibing. We headed directly for the Coliseum to try and nip the lines in the bud - but again, it was closed due to the flooding that had occurred. We did the Rick Steves audio tour of the outside as best we could, but we headed over to the Roman forum instead. As a result of the Coliseum being closed, everybody and their mother was in line for the Forum. What a buzzkill. We waited in line for over an hour, which stunk except for the brilliant Brits we met in line. There were four ladies who had traveled together from Ireland and England to Rome for the weekend. They were snarky, had awful teeth, told raunchy jokes - it was as if they were right out of Absolutely Fabulous. Of course my mom and dad entertained them with stories of their travels, and their kids. And they countered with similarly engaging stories of their mainland Europe travel.

Once we finally got in, my Rick Steves Forum audio guide was of no use because the door we entered through was to Palatine Hill. This is the less thrilling part of the forum, yet part of the forum none the less. I had the audio guide, but it was only correct if you entered through a different door which wasn’t possible for us. We walked aimlessly around, looking at ruins, not knowing what the ruins were of, and just hoping that we would come across some sort of indicators as to what we were looking at. After about 45 minutes of this bust, I had to use the bathroom, and it was a 30 minute wait in the bathroom. I was miffed. I had no idea what we were looking at, I had had to pee, and wait for an eternity, and I was being dumped out into more of who knows what. Thankfully, we turned a corner and headed into the part of the Forum that people would recognize - the pillars and the senate building - it was feeling a bit better after that. Though by this point, I was tired and hungry, but we forged on through the freaking forum. By the way, did I mention that there was boxwood in the Forum? On top of all the other things I chose to be cranky about, there was boxwood planted in there. I HATE the smell of boxwood.

We cranked through the last parts, and finally were in sync with the Rick Steves audio tour (though by not renting the Forum’s own audio guides, we missed getting a map - though the guides were 5 Euro each. Give me a break.

On our way back home, we came across some more churches, go figure, and at one point, mom and dad decided to stop in one and go to Mass. Mom was disappointed that it was in Italian and not in Latin, because she couldn’t understand what was happening other than the signals from the peanut gallery.

We retired early on account of an early rising the next day.