Oh, and apparently there was a huge soccer final going on. I had no idea, but that would explain why the one night of my hostel was so much more expensive than the others. There was a multitude of people in the streets! Everywhere was jammed pack. And, in a measure to keep people under some control I guess, supermarkets weren’t allowed to sell anything with alcohol in it on the day of the final. I was hoping to celebrate the start of my trip with some Italian wine, but I guess I’ll just have to push that off until tonight or some other time.
Today I got myself up early (7:30am! I know, don’t everyone have a heart attack now) and decided that today would be the day I go to the Vatican and to Basilica S. Pietro. All I can say is WOW! The Basilica was incredible, and it was the first stop for my day. Luckily I got there early enough and I only had to wait online for maybe 2 minutes while going through security. I took some photos, but I’m not positive how they came out. (Oh yeah, speaking of photos, I’ve been here since 2:30 yesterday, it is 5:15 as I’m writing this, and I’ve taken 245ish photos. Yeah, I guess I got a little shutter happy). I don’t like the flash on the marble and I couldn’t be bothered to try and manually focus. I’ll take a look in a moment when I add some photos to this post. But yeah, I was impressed. I did get a talking to by one of the “guard” people inside though...I forgot to take off my bandana. Oops. Oh well, actual security didn’t care at all.
After that I walked to the Vatican Museums. I was surprised – I didn’t have to wait on line for more than 5 minutes, and that was when I was at the student line to pay for my ticket (8⁄€ for students, yay!). There was so much inside! I took some photos inside when I could, but a lot of the time I was herded through quickly, or pushed through quickly, because there were SO MANY PEOPLE inside; lots of tour groups and lots of individuals. But I went into every room that was open (some were closed, and some exhibits in rooms were closed for restoration.) I was surprised to see some pieces by Dalí in the Modern Religious Art section, but I liked them a lot. The Sistine Chapel was of course great, but at the same time I didn’t like my experience there. You get so packed in with all the people there it’s tough to move around, let alone sit and appreciate the work. The official rules are no photos and be silent, but everyone was ignoring both those rules (so it got really loud as well). I managed to take a couple of photos; we’ll see how those turned out, but they’re probably dark. There were too many people bumping into everyone to even attempt to manually focus and set up a shot.
After the Vatican area I walked to the Spanish Steps (Trinità dei Monti), then to the Fontana di Trevi. Both were incredible, but packed. There were so many people at the Trevi Fountain that I didn’t bother to go down and throw a coin in. I guess my return to Rome isn’t ensured. OH NOES! I’m sure it’ll be fine. :P After that I walked back past the Spanish Steps and up to the Villa Borghese with the intention of sitting on the grass and lounging about for a little while (since at this point I had been walking around virtually nonstop for about 6.5 hours), but the grass was dead and there was some sort of equestrian event going on, so I took a quick jaunt through and made my way back to the hostel to sign up for free dinner and rest a bit.
And that’s the end of this (longer than I intended) entry. Who knows what tonight has in store. I’ll update again when I can (woo free wifi in the hostel!), be it in Rome tomorrow or in Florence the day after. And don’t worry, it’ll most likely be a shorter update.
Con amore, da Roma (With love, from Rome. I hope that’s how you say it, I used Google Translator)
So I thought I wouldn't read all of these, but I ended up skimming the whole thing, which is more than I thought I would do :P
ReplyDelete*gasp* Thom got up early?!?! Wow! And yeah, I've heard the Sistine Chapel is insanely crowded, but worth the crowds. And I love that you used the word jaunt in the second to last paragraph, major kudos! <3
Yeah con amore da Roma is correct. We need to go together next summer. Rome is one of those cities you need at least a week to explore =P
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