The Inaccurate Tourist

31. Italy: Rome, Naples and the Vatican

Our flight to Rome left on a Monday afternoon -- this isn't optimal, but since we booked our flight at the last minute, we had little choice. On the positive side, I got to do the Sunday afternoon rollerblade through the city of Paris. Once again, I have to recommend rollerblading as THE way to see the most beautiful city in the world in a surprising and entertaining way.

We caught the Orly bus from Paris to the Orly airport. We tried to lose dad on the monorail between the two terminals, but he was too sharp for us. The flight was about 235€ per person and took about 100 minutes. We experienced the metro in Rome right away -- pretty much the same thing as in Paris, except that the trains were entirely obscured in graffiti. You couldn't see out the windows at all.

Our hotel was right by Termini station, which is a lively, supposedly inexpensive and central location. Rome is a notoriously expensive city -- I'm used to high prices in Paris, but I haven't really had to book hotels yet. Our hotel took up two floors in a seven story building, and the elevator was obviously an afterthought grafted into the stairwell. It could only hold two people, so I typically took the stairs anyway. The hotel proprietor recommended a restaurant for the evening, where we ate our first pasta in Italy that evening (so-so) and went to bed.

We took our breakfast at the hotel and left to see the closest attraction -- the Santa Maria Maggiore church. Its difficult to put the beauty, age (more than 1500 years) and size of the church when the only photo I took was my big fat head obscuring the exterior. I remember that there were certain sections of the church that were only lit when you put coins in the meter, but you see that in France as well. Somebody has to pay for the electricity, I suppose, since the Church doesn't charge admission. And just like in Bayeux (France), there were clean-cut english-speaking natives (unaffiliated with the church) collecting signatures for a petition to help drug addicts, people with AIDS and cancer. At the risk of sounding cynical, I'm going to let you in on the secret -- putting your name on a petition is not actually very useful (because who isn't against drug addiction or AIDS?) but gives you a false feeling of commitment that naturally leads to a donation.

I'm not all about ignoring social problems -- I just have my doubts about the effectiveness about donating to an unknown society using dubious methods on tourists for vaguely worded purposes. Our journey to the next historical site took us straight through another social problem: the homeless. It was still pretty early and we cut through a park that looked like a campground of cardboard and tarps. It can't be easy being poor in a primarily expensive tourist city.

The colosseum (or colosseo) was crowded outside, and fully costumed gladiator/centurions were having their picture taken with the tourists. It costs 8€ to enter and 4€ for the audio tour -- and here's another special travel tip that those fat-cat travel books DON'T WANT YOU TO KNOW!!! On receiving your audio player, give it a good sniff and if it smells like rancid moldy body odour, immediately ask to trade it for one with less bacteria. You'll enjoy your tour more and they'll thank you for not wearing away valuable historical artifacts with your vomit.

I'd already seen the arena at Nîmes, so I already had knew much of the drill -- the arenas were used for man vs. man, man vs. animal and animal vs. animal fights, and were seldom fatal. The whole purpose was for the wealthy and powerful to entertain the masses, and it would have been much more expensive and less entertaining to have unknown, new gladiators at every tournament. Imagine if the Canucks changed half their team members every other hockey game! (Farewell, Harold, we hardly knew ye...) On the other hand, a gladiator that failed to engage enthusiastically in battle, or was defeated AND boring could be executed. (Farewell, Daniel, we hardly knew ye...)

I was surprised to see that the Colosseum was mostly made of reddish brick -- for some reason, I had expected it to be golden limestone. The floor would have been wood, but it was gone, showing the cellars and supporting corridors. Everybody would have been seated according to class and rank, with the senators and imperial officers closest to the action, and the emperor along the flattest part of the ellipse. All of the seats were eroded, broken or stolen (the colosseum was used as a quarry for the following centuries), except for one of the senator's sections, which was restored with the marble slabs carved with the name of the person permitted to sit there -- kind of a Flintstones season's pass.

Outside the colosseum, we saw the Arch of Constantine, built in the fourth century, and we continued to the Palatine hill, which is where the aristocrats lived and through the different forums. A lot of the buildings were pretty run down (after a couple of thousand years), but it was still pretty impressive. There were columns still standing with the inscription 'Senatus Populus Que Romanus' -- the People's Senate of Rome. The letters SPQR can be seen engraved all over the city, both in ancient monuments and modern fixtures. We passed the huge monument built for the first king of the unified Italy - Victor Emmanuel II. It's huge and neo-classic, and apparently much unloved by the current Romans.

We were feeling pretty lonely at this time, so we went to join the jillions of tourists hanging around Trevi Fountain. We each threw three tourists in the fountain in order to bring good luck and a speedy return to Rome. But the fountain wasn't sufficiently crowded, so we went to the Spanish steps, which were enthronged. Absolutely enthronged, which was kind of amusing because there really wasn't that much to see -- compared to the rest of Rome which is choc-a-bloc full of great things to see.

But we were on a schedule, so the next day we left at 9am to take a train to Naples (about 10€ for a three hour trip -- we could have taken a faster train but we wanted to see the countryside). We took a hotel near the train station -- and here's another travel tip: don't. Stay farther south near the tourist area by the water. But the hotel staff was very friendly, and directed us to the top Pizzeria in Naples. As the birthplace of pizza, Naples has a strong responsibility to set the tourists straight on the issue -- real pizza doesn't have clams, anchovies, vegetables, chicken or eggs. The Pizzeria da Michele (numero uno) makes two pizzas - Margherita or Marinara. The Margherita pizza has three ingredients on the crust: tomatoes (real tomatoes, not out of a can), mozzarella (real mozzarella that leaks real buffalo milk, not a chemical block of whitish cheddar) and basil (fresh). It's cooked in an wood fired oven until the thin crust is dark and crispy. It was delicious, and very inexpensive (4€ for a very large pizza), and very crowded. They sat the three of us with an italian man, and we smiled at each and failed to communicate, except for my delight at the pizza.

We went to the Duomo Cathedral, which is a very large and beautiful church that houses a vial of the blood of Saint Gennaro. The blood liquefies miraculously three times a year and brings good fortune to the city, and it was going to liquefy on September 19th, the next day. Unfortunately, this meant that the church was closed on the day we went to see it. We went to see a couple of other churches in the old area of Naples, and then went to the Museo Archeologico Nazionale. Naples is really awakening as a tourist town, and as a happy result, they have a city-wide card that permits you to visit three museums free and the rest for half price. At the archaeological museum, we saw a sculptural group from the Baths of Caracalla in Rome that depicts Dirce being tied to the horns of a bull for mistreating Antiope. The other attraction was the Farnese Hercules, an exaggeratedly muscular statue of the hero. The statues were very well presented, and I had a revelation in this museum -- these ancient Roman statues are still living. Throughout the millennia, they've been copied imperfectly by other artists and sketched with slight differences, and even the originals have been restored with minor and/or major changes. A sculpture may have originally held a sword or a snake, but the tastes of the next generation require it to hold a wreath. Apparently, the Hercules stood for years on one modern artists vision of his calves until the originals were found and restored -- the modern version are on display next to the work.

Next we went to the Museo Capodimonte in the heights of Naples, showing all the religious artwork that I wanted to see. There were also restored apartments and ballrooms. I got in trouble for filming mom and dad dancing in the ballroom -- apparently video and pictures aren't permitted in the museum. I told the guide that I had been filming all day and that I would erase the footage if she wanted me to, but she said it wasn't necessary because she trusted me. I don't really know what that was supposed to mean.

It was already 30 degrees at 10am the next day, but nobody wears shorts. We took the bus (included with our museum passes) to see the Piazza del Plebiscito, which had a huge domed church and a palace to go through. The Italians have an inconsiderate habit of making their churches so large that the ceiling doesn't seem to move with you as you walk on the ground.

We never made it to Vesuvius and Pompeii, but we could see it prominently in the background as we walked around the Bay of Naples. We stopped for another pizza in the tourist area. We didn't understand many of the ingredients so we took an adventurous guess -- mom ended up with hotdogs and french fries on her pizza, which was pretty funny for me and dad. Obviously the idea of tourist pizza means they can be much more expensive and much less delicious.

We took the funiculaire to the top of Naples to visit the Castel San Elmo and a charterhouse -- incredibly beautiful views of the colourful, domed city. We also saw quite a few of the Christmas cribs (nativity scenes) that Naples is famous for. They don't stop at the manger and shepherds -- they're full of incredibly detailed, everyday scenes of life from the time.

We left Naples the next morning and took the fast train to Rome (about 16.5€). It was pretty nasty weather so we checked into our hotel, this time right outside the forum ruins. We went to see the Pantheon, which was built in 118AD, and has a huge dome with a giant hole in it to let the sun and rain in. We visited some other churches and saw some Michelangelo sculptures here and there. My mother lit a candle for one of her friends (a family friend from my childhood) that had recently passed away, because we thought she would have been particularly touched by the beautiful works in the churches of Rome.

We spent the rest of the day seeing a lot of other churches and some museums -- unfortunately talking about them isn't quite the same as seeing them and I am afraid to wear out my welcome with you, dear reader. Honestly, it doesn't really matter what you go to see in Rome; even the one star attractions are phenomenal -- and there aren't any one star attractions in Rome

We had our breakfast on the roof out the Hotel Forum again, and set out to the Vatican. We took the metro to the closest stop to the the entrance to the Vatican museum, which was a mistake -- the line stretched all the way down several blocks nearly to the entrance to square in front of St. Peter's Basilica. We spent over an hour in line to get in, and it was extremely crowded on the inside. The Vatican collections were pretty amazing with frescoes by Raphael and the Sistine Chapel by Michelangelo. The tourists in the Sistine Chapel were shushed thoroughly and constantly by security guards.

We went to visit the cupola of the St. Peter's Basilica before visiting the church -- this church, of course, is THE church. Any further description would just be going to the thesaurus to find synonyms for huge and amazing. It was built on the site where St. Peter was martyred, and there are statues, mosaics and paintings of the saint everywhere (you can recognize him by the keys to heaven that he carries. The cupola was designed by Michelangelo, and it's dizzyingly high -- I took the stairs, but mom and dad took the lift. But the surprise was on them, the lift only avoids about a hundred of the five hundred stairs... I bought mom a little model of the Basilica to remember the effort by.

Afterwards, we went into the Basilica -- indescribable. It's entirely marble, art and beauty. We saw the box that houses the relics (i.e. ex-body-parts) of Saint Peter and rubbed the foot of his bronze statue. Of all the things I saw in Rome - this was the only good thing - everything else reeked of cat poo.

Rome and Italy by John, Elaine, and Ryan Skraba. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. Peace out.

Posted by The Inaccurate Tourist at September 20, 2002 12:00 PM