I, of course, couldn’t sleep in. The one day where we could actually sleep past 6 AM, and I’m making my first pot of coffee catching the early Sportscenter. The nervous antics set in and there’s really nothing I could do about it.
Today marked the beginning of our epic voyage across the mighty Atlantic to the continent of Europe. We were to spend ten days experiencing the land that our ancestors knew, traveling between Italy, Austria, and Germany. Rome was our first destination, and from there we would travel by train to Florence, Cinque Terre, Venice, Salzburg, and Munich.
The day went by rather quickly. Christine and I spent most of our time finishing up the last-minute packing and errand running. Everything was going smoothly. We ate, we laughed - we even danced in our excitement as we counted down the minutes till we could leave to go to the airport. We decided to save some cash (to be spent on souvenirs, of course) and take the train to JFK airport as opposed to the cab. I had the route planned out to the millisecond, so we left right on the exact second I calculated with my calculator in my front shirt pocket as I pushed my glasses up.
I should have known when I said “smoothly” that at least one thing would go wrong. As we were about to head out the door, I picked up Christine’s bag to help her carry it down the stairs. Riiiiiiiiiiiippppp! The bag split! I frantically yelled to Christine to grab our other suitcase, and began throwing articles of clothing and shoes all over the place trying to fit them all in as neat and orderly as the ripped bag. Lucky for us we had that other bag, or else I don’t know what we’d do. We were delayed approximately 10 minutes and 37 seconds (give or take), so I worried in the back of head we’d be late, miss our plane, and be stuck in New York forever (thanks for the travel anxiety, Dad). Once we could get on the train, I thought, then my mind could be eased.
Enter part 2. The train just so happened to be closed this day from 12PM – 4PM. Fantastic. Simply fantastic. “I guess we’ll just grab a cab,” I heard myself scoff. But we weren’t the only ones who missed the memo of the closed train station, because as soon as I said it, I noticed 30 people with their hands out trying to hail a cab. We hustled up the street a few blocks, in hope that we could catch a cab before the throngs of people were waiting. We guessed right, and after 3 agonizing minutes of waiting, we successfully hailed a cab. Onwards to JFK, and onwards to the ancient city of Rome. I couldn’t wait to holler at Julius Caesar and Maximus from the movie Gladiator.
The airport was busy, but was to be expected. The plane left on time, which surprised me. I’m so used to extreme delays into or out of New York, that I was caught off guard when they boarded the plane. In 9 relatively short hours, we’d be in Rome.
We were meeting Christine’s loveable brother Charlie in Rome. The lucky son of a gun was studying in Rosenheim, Germany for the semester, and decided he would just take a week off of schoolwork to travel throughout Italy with us. Must be tough. Rome’s center is about a half hour train ride from the airport terminal, so we had planned to meet Charlie right at our hotel. We got off the train and made our way through the short few blocks to where we would be calling home for the next three days. As we turned our last corner to the hotel, we were greeted by who at first seemed like a caveman, but who was later determined to in fact be Charlie. Hugs and back slaps aside, we checked into our hotel, which turned out to be more like an apartment in the city. The dude checking us in was really nice, and although his English wasn’t superb, showed us how to get to most of the main attractions of the City. Where to begin?
I forgot to mention – we landed in Rome at 7:30 AM, having left New York about 5:30. We were fairly tired from the jet lag, but seeing as it was about 9 when we left for the day, we had to fill up the time with cool and awesome things that wouldn’t force us to pass out. Seeing that it was relatively close to where we were staying, we decided to make our first stop be Ancient Rome and its infamous Colosseum.
The Colosseum. Lemme just say, right now, that the Colosseum is seriously one of the coolest things on earth. Yes, I’m a fan of Russel Crowe’s Oscar winning Gladiator, and yes, I thought Roman mythology and history was insanely awesome when we learned about it in school. But seriously, just looking at this 2,000 year-old structure is pretty incredible. We can hardly make buildings to last for 50 years now, and the Romans made this thing to last for 2,000 years, still going strong? Just look at it, in all its glory!!
We took our time there, and even stopped to eat at one of many Roman pizzerias on our trip before we headed into the belly of the beast. I don’t know why I didn’t think you could, but you can actually go inside the Colosseum and walk around. The line was a bit ridiculous, but lucky for us we randomly ran into some girl from New Jersey selling tour tickets. Touristy, I know, but we skipped the hour+ line and only paid 3 Euros more. Do the math. The ticket also included a free tour of the ancient Roman Forum, which I was equally as excited about as the Colosseum.
I’m sure you all probably know at least some of the stories about the famed arena, once the center of the world, and the site of some of the bloodiest and most terrible form of human entertainment of all time. Gladiators would fight here. Gladiators weren’t all like Russell Crowe though, most of whom were slaves forced to fight to their death against themselves, animals, and even small armies. All for the applause and pleasure of the Roman people. The air was a little eerie in the building, but it was easily the top historical site I’d seen in my life up to that point. I’ll let the pictures do the talking for me:
After the Colosseum, we redeemed our free tour of Ancient Rome. We were met by a very loveable Brit named Tom as our tour guide whom Christine instantly had a crush on. He swept us off our feet with his British wit, charm, and immense historical knowledge of Ancient Rome. We walked through the Roman Forum, the ruins of the castle and even that sweet racing track that Ben Hur used to dominate.
That night we stumbled across the river to an older part of town known for its pizzerias. We were pretty excited for this part of the trip, as I think all of us wanted to see how much better the food and wine in Italy actually was. It was actually better than what we expected. The wine tasted fresh and especially flavorful – and was cheap, too. We savored our meal and wine and sat under a canopy as rains fell above us. After dinner the only thing we could manage ourselves to do was make it back to the hotel and pass out.
The next morning we got up early to jump on an opportunity to have a personalized tour of the Vatican museum. Christine’s new eye candy Tom had told us the night prior that we could save waiting in line at the museum and enjoy the commentary of a charming Englishman by taking his tour through the museum. We obliged and showed up outside the museum at 9 AM for the start of the tour. We saw the line – a few hundred people long and over an hour in wait time – and immediately were happy with our decision.
The Vatican museum is a littler overwhelming to begin with, and would have been a struggle to go at it alone anyways. We soon realized the benefit of paying a little extra to have a personalized tour of one of the most famous museums in the world.
It was incredible. I can’t even begin to explain some of the powerful masterpieces of art that are housed here – I’ll let the pictures do the talking, once again. The highlight of this part of the trip was the Sistine Chapel. You always hear how “wonderful and amazing” this is, and how it was Michelangelo’s masterpiece and all that jazz, but to be honest I was ready to be let down. I mean, how could it live up to the hype? Welp, it did. It was amazing and breathtaking and all the other cliché words that people normally use to describe it. It was simply the greatest piece of art I’ve ever seen. Also what’s cool about it is that you’re not supposed to take pictures while in there, making it that much more powerful of an experience to see in person, at least for me.
We walked around the Raphael rooms, and I thought about Leonardo and Donatello (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle reference) the whole time. The tour ended at the largest church in the world: St. Peter’s Basilica. Just take a gander at some of the inner beauty of what holla atcha boy Pope Bene gets to see on a daily basis. (NOTE: for a more detailed viewing of our trip, check out all the pics! CLICK HERE)
After the Vatican museum, we walked back across Rome to our hotel. After meandering through some awesome old streets that looked as though we stepped back a few hundred years, we went back even further and visited the Pantheon, which dates back to Emperor Augustus in 27 B.C. That’s B.C., people. Even 27 A.D. would be ridiculous. So old, yet still standing. Now the Pantheon is used as a Catholic chapel and on Pentecost, thousands of rose petals are dumped through the ceiling at the service.
Our last day in Rome was spent walking around to various parts we missed along the way. We allowed ourselves to sleep a bit later and got started attacking the city at lunch time. We took the metro a few stops to a pretty spectacular castle, and made our way through the windy streets to the Spanish Steps and a ridiculous fountain. The day was nice and hot – sandals and shorts weather. The area around the Spanish steps is known for its shopping, and that’s exactly what we did. Lunch was pretty cheap, though, so it came out ok.
The small cobblestone streets throughout the city with the ancient structures and thriving culture in the arts and life make Rome an amazing city. I, for one, enjoyed the city very much so and list it as one of my favorite stops/cities I’ve ever been to. The mix of the ancient world that even pre-dates Christ mixed with the trendy culture had me itching for more. Just sitting on the Spanish steps, basking in the sun with locals and tourists gave me the appreciation of Rome. The pizza as fantastic, as were the many stops of gelato (see Florence). I wish I spoke Italian so I could fully appreciate this great city.
