Italy has always been high on my list of places to visit while I live in Europe. As with many of my 2009 trips, I checked to see if Metallica was going to be there a time which would also be convenient for me - and they had shows in Milan and Rome a few days apart at a convenient time. I knew I couldn't pass up Florence while I was there, so I had a week in Italy hitting 3 cities!
"I want to go to Italy too!" was Janine's response, and as anyone who knows me would guess, I said "OK, so come."
"Rome's too far, I don't have much vacation time."
"Well I'm in Milan for the first 3 days."
"Hmmm, you sure it's OK?"
"Yup!"
And thus I had company! I often travel alone, so I was stoked to have some company even if just for a few days.
One final note. These trip reviews grew out of journals from my US tours with Metallica. They were originally just journals for me, so I did very little editing and just listed every detail I could remember. However, as time as gone on, more and more people started reading them. So this time around I've put some effort into editing out the useless details and making it flow a bit better. I haven't gone to so far as to actually write a story out of it - it's still based on my trip log, and still weighs in at a bit under 19,000 words - but I've tried to be a bit more agressive on the editing without actually removing important things.
I wanted to borrow the Rick Steves' book on Italy from my friend Kyle, but he was only returning from his Italy/France trip the night before I left. So, at 11pm last night I headed to his place to pick up the book. I finished packing and crashed around 1am.
At a bloody horrible 5am my alarm jolted me back awake so that I might arrive at the train station at a painful 6:45am for my 7am train. Janine couldn't acquire tickets for the same train I was on, she she'd be joining me about 3 hours later. I promptly fell asleep on the train... for about 20 minutes until a baby across the isle decided to go ape-shit. I was listening to music and told myself if I could just stay relaxed for a few minutes until the parents calm him down. But after 10 minutes I finally got fed up and got out my laptop so I could practice German (the lessons were in PDF on my laptop). Two minutes later the parents finally decided they should do something about their wailing child. But it was too late; I was awake.
The trip proved to be even more about children though; as I was practicing my German, the woman sitting across the little table from me (the train had groups of 4 chairs, 2 on each side of a small table) decided to change her child's diaper there in the seat. Now this was already in bad taste, but what made things even weirder was that this kid was like 4 years old! I decided that rather than watch this scene unfold any further, I'd wonder over to the food car and get a snack.
When I returned I read through the Milan section of the Rick Steves book to get an idea of what sites were around and start planning what I'd do.
I arrived and walked around the train station a few times trying to determine exactly where to buy tickets. Finally I followed a very long escalator down several stories and asked a gentlemen who was selling some kind of ticket which wasn't, apparently, what I wanted. He pointed me towards some doors and said to go further down. Walking out the doors I realized I had exited the building at ground level and there were several staircases leading further down. So down I went. Eventually I got tickets and transportation maps and all that and went on my way.
When I emerged at my stop, I looked around, and was clearly nowhere near my hotel. The printout of their website had mentioned a shuttle from the metro stop, so I called them. They explained this was only available first thing in the morning and for a few hours in the evening, and not in the middle of the day. As it turns out, there's no public transport connecting this station and either the hotel, or the venue I'd be seeing Metallica at (which was about half way to the hotel). Further the only way to get there was a highway, so walking was out of the question. A taxi was the only possibility. So I jumped in a cab and paid an absurd 15 euros to go 5 minutes up the highway.
The hotel, despite its inaccessible location, was very nice. I checked in, went to my room, and relaxed for a few minutes before heading back into town to meet Janine for lunch.
I met Janine at the station and we were both starving, so we grabbed lunch at a pizzeria across the street from the station. Her margherita pizza wasn't very good and my spicy sausage pizza was only OK. Even though this wasn't a place one would expect stellar food, it was still a disappointing start to a trip in a country known for amazing food.
We both needed euros badly, so we found a cash machine near the train station and then argued a bit about which direction to head off exploring in. Meanwhile I took some pictures of the impressive train station.
Janine explained to me that her sense of direction was horrible and she always picked the wrong way, but for some unidentifiable reason, I acquiesced to Janine's insisting she knew which way to go. However, I made the note that we were stopping at the first gelato place we passed. We had decided that the "tower" would be a good place to visit and decided we'd try to make our way there. We quickly passed a gelato place where I scarfed down my beloved stracciatella. God bless gelato.
The map the info center in the train station had given me did not have any small streets on it, so it took a while to figure out in which direction we were heading in. We passed two shops with fantastic names!
On our way to no where we passed through a local poor village market. I wanted to take pictures, but felt a bit uncomfortable as we were already ever so out of place. I couldn't quite bring myself to take a picture of the extremely poor villagers as if they were a sight on the map. At long last we passed a metro stop and I was able to find us on the map and realize we were no where near the tower we wanted to see. But it was back near the main station, so we took the metro back, and then walked off again. But again, we failed miserably. After much walking, we seemed to be close to the cemetery, so we headed off to find that, but failed one last time. Finally, we pass a cute cafe and decided to stop and have a soda.
That first picture of Janine is quite entertaining to me; she's attempting (but failing) to look unhappy with me.
Finally, we decided to head towards the Duomo. Getting back to the center of town was a bit tricky. Its worth noting they had some very old trams...
Duomo was already closed, but was very impressive even from the outside.
We wondered through the shopping areas around Duomo for a while and eventually ran into the Disney store. Of course, as an American, I've seen a Disney store in every mall I ever stepped foot inside in the US. However, such amazing things do not exist in Switzerland, so Janine justifiably was very excited to see one since she has to travel to find them. So of course we headed in. She was, of course, helpless against the regress-to-an-8-year-old power that the Disney store inevitably has on all girls. This is always fun to watch!
Bored of shopping and hungry we headed over to Sforza Castle where Kyle had said various good restaurants could be found with a view of the beautiful castle. On our way, I saw the funkiest door ever and a funky fountain. Oh, and a few candid shots of Janine, much to her chagrin (it takes a while for people to realize that I like torturing them).
We walked around and decided on a restaurant. My lasagna was so wonderful I ordered a second. Sadly, the potato-ball-thing dish Janine ordered was pretty bad. Unexpectedly my rum-and-coke was about 3/4 rum.
To make up for the crappy dinner, I got us some gelato, which was amazing. The other gelato was good, but this was the Italian gelato I had been expecting!
We decided a bar would be good next, partly because the restaurant didn't have beer, which Janine had hoped to order with dinner and partly just for fun. But after 30 minutes of trying to find one we gave up and headed home. Fail.
We woke up at god-fucking-awful 7:20am to which Janine said "are we really going to get up now?" We didn't have reservations to see The Last Supper, but the book had said that if you get there when they open sometimes they'll have a few cancellations available. So we skipped breakfast and headed straight to Sforza Castle. The people who spoke English weren't the people with tickets and the people with the tickets didn't speak English. After much running around, we didn't get them.
We got tickets for the normal exhibition and wandered around. They had four exhibits. The first one wasn't bad, but wasn't particularly awe-inspiring either. The pieces didn't have English descriptions, and to make up for this, massive laminated cards were available in a variety of languages in each room to describe the pieces. Unfortunately each piece had a freaking novel to describe it - way, way, way too much text. Pretty much everyone had given up on these after a room or two. One piece that was noteworthy was entitled, "A woman making an obscene gesture." It was a marble relief of a girl flashing her remarkably hairy vagina and was apparently used to ward off evil.
Read into that what you will.
The second exhibit was mostly plates and was fairly boring. Janine, however, livened things up when she went for a closer look at something but found her face suddenly stopped by some inconveniently located glass. The glass was sorely disappointed when Janine assaulted it with her nose. Apparently this was the second time today, but I had not witnessed the first.
Janine's battle with the protective glass was fortunately timed, as I was otherwise going to fall asleep standing up. It was clearly time to move onto the third exhibit.
In attempting to find the third exhibit we walked up a very long staircase only to find out it was the exit of the exhibit and you could not get in that way. Fuck.
Returning to the bottom of this long staircase, I looked for the sign we must have clearly missed that said, "Hey, Jackass, you're wasting your time and a lot of energy." No sign. Fuck. Those fuckers.
We walked across a grotto towards the real third exhibition. This grotto would have been really cute if there was, oh, I dunno... water in the fountain or if the flowers weren't all dead. Isn't this a fucking castle?
The third exhibit was more boring than the second, and the fourth was the most boring of all. I won't bore you with them.
No photos were allowed inside, but the castle grounds themselves were pretty cool and I got some photos of that.
We left and went off in search of food because I was starving because we didn't eat breakfast because I'm retarded.
We headed down Dante street - the main street in front of the castle were we'd found dinner the previous night. However, we decided not to repeat last night's dinner situation and instead found food at a little cafe near Duomo. Once again we were disappointed: I had some very mediocre spaghetti carbonara and Janine had some hard risotto. More sub-par Italian food in Italy.
Our next stop was Duomo, which we could see from where we were eating. As you saw from yesterday's pictures, Duomo is very impressive from the outside. From the inside, it's also quite amazing.
The church has many little areas in it with art and sculpture, several places to pray, obviously the main ... area, and of course, lots of stained glass. We spent quite a while walking around independently, and both ended up going into the main part (which was strictly for praying). They looked at me suspiciously when I said I wanted to pray but let me in anyway. I noticed Janine was there already and found a seat near her.
The church has a small red light up at the top of the dome which shows you where there's a nail hanging from the roof. That nail is supposedly one of the ones from Jesus' crucifixion. I don't know if I believe that. On the one hand, it's hard to trust the Catholic church about anything. On the other hand, they have a wealth of the worlds most valuable relics. So who knows. While we were there we got to hear their choir and their organ player, both of which were magnificent.
After we were done, I "purchased" a candle to light, and we headed out to find the entrance to the roof.
The entrance to the roof is from the outside. As with most such places, it's a very narrow, very long, very windy staircase.
When you emerge you're on an amazing roof. It's hard to describe how cool this really is. You walk through the spires and stairs and statues and various other Gothic structures on the root and there's plenty of room for taking your time and hanging out. Check out all of the intricate Gothic artwork... it's truly impressive.
Once you get to the other side of the building, there's another narrow stair case to get to the actual top. When I got to the top (Janine, you'll notice, was relaxing elsewhere on the roof), I was utterly shocked to see it setup for a concert! How cool would it be to see a concert up there?
It was a beautiful day, and I took some pictures of the clouds passing by the tips of the roof.
Eventually Janine joined me, and we sat and chatted for a while. It was a peaceful and comfortable place to hang out... surprisingly so, for a roof! I have no idea why, but made some joke about her in pigtails, and managed to snap some pictures of the randomness that ensued. She looks good in pigtails, no?
I can't get over how much the last two look like the background is computer-generated (it's not). But those things behind Janine are the "seats".
After returning back to ground we did the same thing you would in the US when you want to find a bathroom: found a fast food joint. Thanks Burger King. After all the walking and sweating we decided we deserved some gelato, but the place we found had an obscenely long and chaotic line, so after 5 minutes we gave up. Our next stop was the Opera House and Museum and the statue of Leonardo outside.
The museum was filled with all sorts of things from the history of the Opera House: costumes, custom jewelry, old props, photos and more. I really enjoyed it, but that's most likely because I'm a theater geek; I could see it being boring for others. There was a room full of portraits of various people from the theater from throughout the years which was really cool and Janine particularly enjoyed.
At this point, we headed off to the Milan Monumental Cemetery. This time, however, we had already asked how to get there. Our directions weren't for where we were coming from, but at least we had a better idea of what lines went there and knew where it was on the real map (instead of hand-sketched map-of-sights in the Steves book... his real map didn't list the cemetery for some reason, but the info booth gave us a map and circled where the cemetery was).
We took the metro to some God-forsaken corner of the city where apparently lots of trams cross. We were, it seems, particularly retarded as it took us 10 minutes to figure out which direction we wanted to go in and in the process missed 2 trams that would have worked for us and waited 25 minutes for another one.
To further complicate matters we didn't know what stop to get off at. Fortunately the stop called "Cemetery" was a seemingly good choice. As we walked across the street I was looking around trying to figure out in which direction the cemetery was and had somehow missed the very large church looking building. It was Janine's turn to be amused by stupidity this time.
The cemetery was fucking massive! It just want on and on. I've seen bigger cemeteries that are just flat stones, but I've never seen such a big cemetery filled with crypts and massive sculptures and headstones. For such a behemoth place, it was very well kept. It didn't have the old overgrown cemetery feel, but it was really, really beautiful. All of the stones had amazing art. Towards the back was a huge field of incredible mausoleums, some of which were open.
I couldn't take pictures of everything, but below are some of my favorites.
Janine wasn't terribly enthralled with the cemetery (although she does generally like cemeteries), but she waited patiently while I bummed around the dead folks.
At this point we were quite hot and tired, and decided to head back and find some of the amazing awesomeness called gelato. We took a different path back, it was a longer walk, but then we could take the metro directly back and it was a much shorter trip. We found a cafe and sat down but saw the prices for gelato and sodas and got right back up. I don't remember the prices, but I remember they were completely obscene.
Instead we made our purchase at a small gelato stand then I took some pictures before we headed to some clothing stores Janine wanted to check out.
There's a large beautiful building near the Duomo called the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II. It's not really a mall in the traditional sense, but it's a ... hallway filled with very upscale stores and restaurants. We decided to treat ourselves to a nice dinner and picked a cafe in there. It was a bit early so we ordered drinks and sat and chatted for a while before ordering, which was nice. The service was amazing, and they were happy to let us sit as long as we wanted. Eventually I got a calzone and Janine ordered a margherita pizza both of which were stellar. Finally we'd found amazing Italian food. Our water was seriously awesome (which is something I miss in Switzerland), the food was fantastic, it was great.
After dinner we headed home and chilled in the hotel bar to satisfy Janine's craving for Coke.
Having seen all the major things, we decided today was a good day to sleep in a bit. We got up around 11:30 and headed out for lunch. Having enjoyed the previous night's dinner so much we decided to hit the same place up again for lunch. This time we both had pizza, and I agree with Janine: phenomenal. The waiter remembered us, and as always, the service was impeccable. A really fantastic way to start your day.
Also in the Galleria was a special tile depicting a bull, which if you spin on your hell on it, you'll get good luck. Janine and I both took a spin on.
Today I would be heading to the Metallica show and Janine would be heading home, so we mostly were just lazily passing the time. We found another cafe to sit and have a drink and chat and watch the people. Eventually we got some gelato and sat against the Duomo... which I took even more pictures of.
Eventually, around 2:45, it was time for us to part ways. We said goodbye and then I headed to the venue.
You can read my review of the show at IPOM.
After the show I found a bridge that crossed the highway which Dennis and Filip had told me about. Given that it shouldn't be that long of a walk home, I headed off. However, once I got a map up on my phone I realized it was the North-South highway that ran along the East side of the venue... not the East-West highway that ran along the South side of the venue. I was not going in the desired direction. I headed back to the venue and tried to call a cab but the cab companies didn't speak English. I called my hotel but they wouldn't call a cab for me on account of being unable to describe precisely where at the venue I was.
I wondered around a bit and found an area where the road came by the venue and people were being picked up (at this point there was only maybe 50 people around, total). I didn't see any cabs, and was starting to wonder how I was going to get home. I had some Metallica picks which I was considering offering one of the folks walking towards the parking lot in exchange for a ride home. However, after another 15 minutes or so I was very relieved to see a few cabs pull up. I jumped in one, and was home shortly. The next morning I had a very early train out, and so I crashed.
I was up at a god-awful 6:45am to pack and checkout. But first I had to take a picture of the strange thing in our bathroom we'd been debating. It's where you'd expect a bidet to be. At first glance, it appears to be a bidet. But... it... isn't a (normal?) bidet.
There are two things to notice about this: (1) The facet points down and (2) it's much, much, much lower than a toilet. In fact, it's basically sitting on the ground. It's most logical function would be to wash your feet. Further, it was not next to the toilet (where a bidet would most logically be), but instead on the other side of the shower, in the opposite corner from the toilet. A truly odd device.
The shuttle was late, and I'm pretty paranoid about traveling, but it got me to the Famagosta metro stop only a few minutes late. I got a one-trip ticket (my 3-day had expired), and jumped on the blue-line to the train station.
Here's where the day starts to get interesting. A few stops later, just as the train is about to leave some stop, the doors started to close, but couldn't and opened again. They repeated this over and over and started beeping. We all stand around for about 10 minutes until they make an announcement, which of course I don't understand because it's in Italian. But from the general response I gather it was akin to "there's a problem, we're working on it." This is, as I understand it, pretty typical of public transport in Italy.
About 5 minutes later another announcement came on which was apparently telling us all to get off of the train. So we all pile out into the subway station, the doors close, and off our train goes without us.
A few minutes later the next train comes which is already quite packed since it's rush hour. A second train full of people (us) proceed to cram into this train. Ordinarily I would have opted for waiting for the next train but at this point I was very late and not sure I was going to make my train to Rome. So I crammed me and my bags in and off we went.
Two stops later the doors had a hard time closing again, but after a minute or two finally closed. At the next stop they again stayed open and beeped the way the did on the first train. At this point I was really pissed. We waited about 5 minutes, and eventually the doors closed and the train moved on. I got to Centrale with a few minutes to spare, so I quickly purchased a panini sandwich from a stand. I was also impressed with the train station so I snapped a quick picture before I jumped on my train.
I sit in another group of 4 chairs facing each other - 3 of them taken by a family. Fortunately I had a window seat and I watched the people walk by as I waited for the train to leave - which was unsurprisingly late.
I was able to sleep for about an hour and then I read thinking I had about 3 hours left. But about 2.5 hours into the 4 hour journey the train stopped outside of some small station and they announced that there would be a 2 hour delay. FUCK! Again? Seriously? Fuck. This was a day full of transportation fails. Well at least the announcements were also in English on this train.
My plan was to have lunch in Rome, but it was already a little after noon and we weren't going to be getting into Rome for another 3.5 hours, so I head to the food car. Unfortunately I wasn't the only person to think of this: there's a double-wide line through the food car, and a single line out the door and through the next car. But I had nothing better to do, and I had my book with me, so in line I waited. After about 30 minutes in line I was almost to the front and a woman in front of me starts hassling the guy taking orders. At first I'm thinking "what a bitch", but after a few minutes I realized she was attempting to make a joke out of whatever she was complaining about. I also quickly realized she knew something I didn't.
Finally it's my turn and I ask for a panini. "No" he says, and turns around to do something else. I stand there a bit befuddled for a minute and then the woman who was giving the guy a hard time explains to me that they're out of everything except what's on the shelf behind him. The shelf behind him contained exactly 2 items: a box of nasty looking crackers and something I didn't recognize.
Well fuck. I got a coke and walked away extremely pissed off. They couldn't have said 30 minutes ago "hey fuckers, we're outta food, go sit down!"?
I spent the rest of the ride reading. The second time I got up to use the restroom however, I noticed that there was men's and women's lavatories. This isn't very common on a train, just as it isn't on a plane. More interestingly, I noticed that the first time I'd used a bathroom I'd used the women's without really noticing. The third time there was a quite a line, and the women's line was shorter, so when that line was empty I used the women's again. Fuck it - gender-specific toilets are stupid on a train.
After we left the Florence station they handed out crackers and a tiny bottle of water - perhaps to say sorry for their extreme suckage as a mode of transportation? When we arrived in Rome around 4pm I was fucking starving and immediately b-lined for McDonald's. I'd had lots of local food on this trip and would have plenty more, but I need something easy and fast, and something whose size I could predict so I could still eat dinner in a few hours. God it was good to eat!
I walked around for quite a while trying to find the information booth described in the book. It's quite well hidden: down the side of the last track inside an unmarked door, and past a book store and a bank. I acquired maps and directions, and then picked up a 24h transport ticket at the book store. Glad to finally be at my destination city, I was looking forward to getting to my hotel, but little did I know that the fun was not yet over.
I headed down to the metro and found line B. The platform was *packed*, bit I found a small spot, dropped my luggage and waited. And waited. A group of 3 girls and a guy next to me were speaking English, so I asked them where they were from and then how long they'd been waiting: England (then moved to Scotland), and 15 minutes. Five minutes later, they gave up and left. Another five minutes after that I headed back up the stairs to find out what the hell was going on. At the top of the stairs was a small metro personnel booth. Their English wasn't great, but thanks to a random woman who translated for us, I found out that line B had been broken for an hour and they had no idea when it would be fixed. She told me that bus 170 could get me where I needed to go.
They couldn't have made a fucking announcement!?! There were clearly people down there who had been waiting much longer than the 20 minutes the British folks had been waiting, and in the 10 minutes I was down there I heard no announcements. God damn Italian transportation. (As a side note, signs pointing to the WC in Termini station are just plain wrong.)
So I made my way outside and finally found my bus, which was already fully packed. I thought about getting a cab instead, but then decided I could squeeze into this bus. So I did. This was just stupid. I barely managed to squeeze me and my luggage in. And then 8 more people proceeded to push on after me! At this point I was fairly certain I would have a near-impossible time getting my luggage out. It was like being front row at a Metallica concert, with a large suitcase and a backpack.
After some shoving and finagling they managed to get the doors closed. After two stops I realized with some amount of dread that they were not announcing stop names, that there was no display of stop names in the bus, and that I could not see the names of the stops outside due to how crowded the bus was and the fact that I was standing. In other words I would have no idea of when to get off. At this point I just got off at the next stop and decided I'd find a cab. I didn't know it, but I was at Piazza Venezia, which is a pretty likely place to find a cab. I did notice the building, but figured it if it was remotely important I'd see it later.
The cabbie didn't know the address, and this is the first country I've been in where a cabbie not only didn't know the address but didn't have a map or GPS to help him find it. He didn't speak English, but managed to communicate he'd like me to call the hotel and get directions. Fortunately hotels always speak English, and I handed the phone to him so they could explain to him where to go.
After that bus experience I was thrilled to be in a cab. Sitting. With space. Not having to worry about my luggage being stuck or stolen. On the way one of the things I noticed was gas pumps on the side of the road. Not in a gas station, just... a working pump on the side of the street. Really weird, and kinda cool!
We pulled up to a hotel that looked like it was going to be a total dump and I was somewhat disheartened. However, walking in it was very nice. Of course, they couldn't find my reservation. He assured me they had rooms and it was no problem, it was just a small technical difficulty. Fortunately he did eventually find it and I headed up to my room. After so many delays it was already 6pm, and typically I'd be rushing to get out and start exploring. However, it had been an extremely long day and I need a few minutes to relax. I flipped through channels and rested for about 10 minutes and then got some paper and the Steves book to make some rough plans for the next few days.
Once I knew I wanted to do Steves' "night tour" of Rome tonight, it was obvious that eating in the Campo Dei Fiori area was a good idea (where the tour starts). Unfortunately no metros go there. The front desk gave me some bus based directions. With an idea of where I was heading, I got changed and headed out.
I walked up to the stop, and the 170 bus I was supposed to take was going to be coming the wrong way in 3 and 8 minutes, but crossing to the other side, it had no mention of the 170 going in my direction at all. With other buses listed at 3 and 11 minutes, I assumed a best-case of a 15 minute wait. It seemed a safe assumption a much more direct route (rather than the 2 buses) was available from the main station, and it would take less than 15 minutes to get to the main (Termini) station by metro. So I jumped on the metro in the direction of Termini.
After we passed the coliseum stop I remember that it seemed like it shouldn't be more than a 15 minute walk from the Coliseum to Campo Dei Fiori, so I jumped off at the next stop and then grabbed the metro back one stop. Some sightseeing on the way to dinner!
I emerged from the metro stop to have the Coliseum staring me in the face. The sun was setting and it was just amazing! To see in person what you've read about, seen in pictures, and watched in movies is always so surreal! I couldn't wait to see the inside, but of course it was closed and that would have to wait for another day.
I headed down the street towards Campo Dei Fiori and passed tons of old ruins and then, again, the Piazza Venezia (where I had found the cab earlier that day). I love this city!
And before I hit Campo Dei Fiori, I passed even more ruins!
One thing I immediately noticed about Rome is that if you're not looking at the ruins, the rest of the city feels very modern. On the side of a very busy 8-lane road just happens to be some really cool ruins. In fact, if you were to take the ruins and stick them in other busy western European cities it wouldn't be much different (short of other cities would have less scooters and a different language). Having the new and the old around you simultaneously is a really unique experience.
Campo Dei Fiori is a square with a variety of restaurants. It's a bit hidden but I finally found it. I took a stroll around the square to see my choices for dinner. Unfortunately the restaurant which was Steves first pick (Ristorante La Carbonara) was apparently closed or out of business. Judging from the website they're still there, but they certainly weren't open when I was there.
Three menus appealed to me but one place had a very nice, really cute waitress who told me about the specials and chatted me up, so after another stroll around the square I sat there. She sat me at the edge of the patio where I could watch the people in the square and I took a deep breath and was glad that the day was finally going better.
The restaurant was quite good. Their focaccia bread was fantastic. They had white vinegar which I had grabbed thinking it was olive oil, and that was a bit of a nasty surprise. I ordered meat balls, which was a small plate of 3 meat balls and very tiny salad. Followed up with tiramisu and a cappuccino and I was in heaven. I stayed for a while alternating between watching the people and reading my book. I was pleasantly surprised when a dude with a unicycle came by.
Steves has three "self-guided walks" through Rome he put together, and one of them was the "Night Walk Across Rome." This walk starts at Campo Dei Fiori ropes through the city, past the Pantheon and ends up at Spanish Steps; this was my plan for the evening. From Campo Dei Fiori it goes to Piazza Navona which had some amazing fountains and a place whose special death-by-chocolate gelato Steves says you have to try (though I'd try it another day).
There was some sort of ceremony going on which I didn't understand, but involved a huge circle of candles. The first picture here was from far away and so is dark, but you can see all of the lights.
Then the tour went past the Pantheon. The Pantheon seemed like a really cool place and I couldn't wait to see the inside of it. Again I realized that with all the modern stores around it's really easy to forget that you're in this place with thousands of years of history where the ancient Romans lived looking at buildings they actually built and used! It's really amazing.
The next stop was Piazza Capranica (Google-translated version), but I took a wrong turn and ended up at the stop after that which was Piazza Colonna. Unfortunately Colonna was blocked off by guards. I decided to try and backtrack a bit and see if I could work my way around the proper path of the tour. Unfortunately Piazza Capranica was also closed off and after a very long detour I made my way around the west side over the north and back down the east of the entire 10-block section they had blocked off. I was particularly bummed about Capranica because of the sun-dial-obelisk the book mentioned, but perhaps I'd see it later.
Trevi Fountain was the next stop and this is truly a breath-taking experience. I knew I'd be back to this again before I left. Trevi is a behemoth sculpture that makes up the side of a building. The sculpture is also (obviously) a fountain - a massive fountain powered entirely by an aqueduct. It's not possible to describe the sense of awe. I threw in 50 cents for good luck, as is customary. This was easily one of my favorite places in Rome.
It's difficult to take good pictures at night of large things (you can't use flash and so have to be very still), but I did the best I could.
The last stop on the tour was the Spanish Steps - the longest and widest staircase in Europe. This was a neat little place to hang out. An Australian couple asked me to take a picture of them and the steps, and so fortunately you'll see I was also able to get a picture of me taken as well.
I walked all the way up the stairs to the Trinita dei Monti church at the top and took lots of pictures before settling down about half way up the stairs to just sit and take in all the people and the Roman nightlife.
The sinking boat sculpture in the pictures is at the base of the steps.
I jumped on the metro around 11:20pm to head home before transportation shut down for the night.
While walking the roughly 50 meters from the station to my hotel I saw some interesting things. First I passed two girls sitting on a bench at a gas station, one of which was changing her pants. It seemed like they may have been waiting on the guy pumping gas, but the whole scene stuck out. Then I passed a girl in very short shorts and a denim jacket walking in the opposite direction as me. It seemed likely at first she might be a prostitute, but then this didn't seem that likely. It was a low traffic street, there were no other girls, and the street didn't provide many easy places for drivers to stop. She was also walking far enough from the street as to not be seem easily form the street.
Then I saw a girl wearing jeans and a tank-top and high-heels standing at the side of the street. This girl looked like she was waiting to cross, but as I got closer to her and eventually passed it her it was clear she was not going to be crossing. At this point I had to rethink my rationalization of the other girls I'd seen. Hmmm.
I woke up at a painful 7:45am and was out just past 9 after a quick breakfast in the hotel. The plan for today was to buy a "Roma Pass" which gives you a 3-day public transport pass, a discount on most sites, and free entrance plus skip-the-line for your first two sites. Unfortunately I figured I'd have to buy a 1-day pass to get into town to buy a Roma Pass. Which I did. And then saw the Kiosk next to me where I bought a Roma Pass. This was OK because I could save my 1-day pass for later.
Since I had a Metallica concert today and the venue was 2 stops south of me I figured I'd head down there quickly to make sure I knew where I was going and then head out for a day of sightseeing. However the map in the subway showed the stops and the venue, and so there was really no need. So off to the Coliseum I went!
My Roma pass skipped me straight to the head of the line and got me in free, which was great given the long line. I'd had relatively good luck with guided tours in the past so I sprang for one of those.
They came and handed us some walkie-talkies with a strap to put around our necks. Then the tour guide came and spoke rather quietly into a microphone which broadcasted to our set-to-only-one-way walkie-talkies. There was a whole variety of problems with this. First, the speakers were total crap. Second his accent made it rather difficult to understand him when I was standing next to him, much less through the crappy speaker. His tour was pretty bad as well. He had a fair number of facts, but he seemed genuinely disinterested in the Coliseum or his tour though he occasionally attempted to feign interest.
The tour aside, however, the Coliseum is an amazing place. The size is quiet striking (it seated 50,000 spectators). It's organization - marked sections, etc. is very similar to today's arenas. The floor of the Coliseum is mostly gone which means you can see down into the underground cells where they kept the fighters and the animals and such, which is really cool. It's really easy to just stare down and imagine Rome at its height watching gladiators fight. It's truly amazing.
Just outside the Coliseum is the Arch of Constantine. This arch marks Constantine becoming sole emperor and turned Christianity from an obscure and illegal religion to the state religion of the entire Western civilized world.
Then I was off to The Forum, the civic center of ancient Rome. The path in that the book had mentioned had turned into an employee-only entrance (and an exit). I tried two other entrances that were not actually entrances and walked up several hills and around several blocks before finally getting in.
One of Steves' three "self-guided walking tours" is a walk through The Forum which I followed. Since I started in the middle of the Forum and his walk starts at one end I did quite a bit more walking to take the path in the book. They'd also closed some paths adding more work to follow his order but all in all his tour was thorough and interesting.
His tour started at the Arch of Titus which celebrated the Roman victory over Israel.
I then followed Steves to the Basilica of Constantine... or what's left of it. There's really only a few arches of one wall and a few bricks of the other walls. Originally this was a massive "hall of justice," as the book put it. I tried to capture the epic scale of these arches here - remember these aren't just a single outdoor arch - these were walls if a building!
The next stop was the main square - the original forum. But on the way is the only original bronze door still swinging on its hinges. Steves never mentions what this building is though.
And as I walked, I looked at the ground and thought "man, thousands of years ago, Caesar and Constantine walked this very path..."
And then I made it to the main square.
At one end of the square was the Temple of Julius Caesar where Caesar's body was burned after his assassination. You can see the area of dirt where he was burned behind the stones in the second picture.
Near Caesar's temple is the Temple of Antoninus and Fastina, a massive structure next to the small tin roof of the former.
Back up the path I came in on is the Basilica Aemilia, a public forum often serving as another justice building. There is pretty much nothing left of this building, but you can see where the columns were.
Steves' next intended stop was a vague area in the distance that may have been Caligula's Palace.
The Temple of Vesta was a small white circular temple that had a fire burning just as a roman family would have in their house. The flame was attended by the Vestal Virgins and it was thought that as long as the sacred flame burned, Rome would stand.
Behind the temple was the House of the Vestals where the Vestal Virgins lived. You can see what's left of the walls, but that's about it. In the last picture below I've backed up so you can see the space the building was in.
Next up was the Senate House. There's not much left of this, unfortunately and it was surrounded by things, so I don't really have a picture of it.
Here is what's left of the Rostra where Roman orators could stand and speak and try to sway public opinion. Democracy at its finest!
And next to this was the Arch of Septimius Serverus. Apparently one used to be able to pass under it when the book was written, but that was no longer the case.
At the top of the hill is what's left of the Temple of Saturn.
The final thing added to the Forum was the Column of Phocas, a gift from the Byzantine Empire to the fallen Roman Empire. It's the lone column on the left of this picture.
And that was the last stop on Steves' Forum Walk. Here's a few final pictures that didn't fit into the above categories.
The Forum is connected to Palatine Hill which was my next destination. I walked up the path to Palatine Hill and took a picture looking down at The Forum.
The Hill doesn't have as many specific sites, but there were interesting things to take pictures of.
The one site you can see from the Hill is Circus Maximus, a chariot course.
With that I made the long hike back across the Palatine Hill down through The Forum and out. While wondering around trying to find food, I managed to pass another one of those gas-pumps-on-the-street.
Funky, huh?
I found lunch not far from Piazza Venezia, and had a fantastic margherita pizza with garlic. My next sight was the Victor Emanuele Monument (at Piazza Venezia) and Capitol Hill, which are back to back. Some random photos on my way...
On the book's advise, I went around the side of the Victor Emanuele Monument to a wide staircase that led up to Capitol Hill.
At the top of the staircase you're in the middle of a few government buildings, in the middle of which is a large statue. The square was redesigned by Michelangelo and intended people approach it from the grand staircase (hence the book's recommendation). It's quite a powerful square.
The statues on the top of the buildings are particularly cool.
Around the corner is the copy of the famous She-Wolf statue.
From up there was a beautiful view of the Forum and the city as a whole. But the book mentioned a short-cut to the top of the Monument. And next to the shortcut was the back door to the Santa Maria in Aracoeli, a small but apparently amazing church. Unfortunately, it was closed. Anyway, the short cut is quite hidden - it's the back door to a cafe whose front door is around the side of the top of the Monument. Once I found it, I found myself at the top of the magnificent Victor Emmanuel Monument!
It's hard to describe how cool it feels to be at the top of such a massive and expansive staircase. It was really breathtaking up there.
My next stop was the Pantheon, and on my way I passed a cool obelisk.
The Pantheon is a fairly large and impressive looking building from the outside. On the inside it's, in all honesty, a bit disappointing. It's quite cool: it's massive, the dome is cool, and the art is incredibly well preserved. It's one of the best preserved buildings left from ancient Rome. However it's a big empty room, and I was much less impressed with the art here than most other places in Rome. The hole in the ceiling is fascinating.
The construction of the dome was amazing and baffled architects for ages. During the Renaissance, Brunelleschi was given permission to cut into the dome to study it. Here you can see the square he cut out.
I sent some time trying to get a few good shots of the dome.
There was a marker on the center of the floor which helped, and for some reason I found it amusing.
The door was very impressive, note the spikes.
As I mentioned, I was more impressed by the outside than the inside.
I was near Tre Scalini where Steves had said the death-by-chocolate icecream was amazing. I had skipped it on the night walk since I was so full, but it was time to swing by and get some. The label on it was very much not death-by-chocolate and it took me a while to realize what it was I wanted (it doesn't look like icecream, it looks like a brownie). But man, I'm glad I went, because it was a truly blissful treat.
At this point it was time to head back to the Coliseum metro station and on to the venue.
You can review my review of the show at IPOM.
After the show I hung out with some friends from the Metallica camp and then took a cab home.
Back at the hotel I tried to get wireless working, but they required WPA2 which my ancient laptop doesn't support. So I scribbled some notes and crashed.
I decided to sleep in a little today given I only made it to sleep around 3:20am and was already low on sleep before that. So allowed myself until 9am, still pretty early.
Today's big event was the Vatican, but by recommendation of Steves, I'd be getting there around 2:30pm. So to fill the morning, I'd check out the National Museum which was conveniently right next to Termini Station. I read through my book while eating breakfast and noticed that the Borghese gallery required reservations, so I made some for tomorrow and then headed out.
The National Museum is a square building with a courtyard in the center, 2 stories high. While a few pieces caught my attention, on the whole it was not a terribly exciting collection. I realized, however, that I'd seen so much art at this point that only the truly exceptional was really kinda standing out to me any more. I was excited to see an old abacus in the basement that Steves mentioned, but it wasn't there. They did have a mildly interesting room of coins from throughout the years though. They were in cases with this magnifying glass on a remote control which you were supposed to be able to move around the case with some buttons so you could see coins "up close." Unfortunately most of these were broken. Of the whole museum, the handful of large statues they had on the first floor were particularly interesting to me, as well as a few very intricate reliefs, and a mummy. Look closely at the very dark picture below and you'll see the mummy. It was in a dark room and flashes weren't allowed.
This sculpture was in the courtyard, and sculptures like this were all over the city - all the same style, clearly modern. They were in the Forum, at the museum, everywhere, and I have no idea why.
I sat down outside the National Museum to look through the food options that Steves listed. Most of them were only open for dinner, but "Est est est Pizzeria" caught my eye and was walkable. 10 blocks later, I found it was also closed for lunch. I then looked for another place near that he said was good called "Nazionale Cafeteria", but it was no longer there. It was now getting late and I wanted to eat, so I picked a random place nearby and ordered a margherita pizza with garlic and which turned out to be fantastic. While I ate I read a bit about the Vatican and thought a bit about dinner. I decided that after a week of local food, I was going to take the opportunity to get in some Hard Rock for dinner. Satiated, I was ready to head to the Vatican.
I headed out from the restaurant, took a right towards the metro station and was facing a massive and gorgeous fountain in the middle of a round-about in the road. I could find no mention of this fountain in the book, but it was quite amazing.
Conveniently there was a metro stop at that corner, so off I went to the Vatican.
I get off at the stop the book mentions, but other than Steves saying it's "a 15 minute walk" there's no information to tell me how to get there, or at least which direction to head in. There are several exits from the metro stop, and as usually in Europe the streets are often not labeled, so I can't even align myself with a map. Given the gelataria in front of me, I decided to get some gelato first and then figure out where I was. Unfortunately they didn't have stracciatella, a true crime against gelatarias everywhere, so I walked 2 blocks and found another place which not only had stracciatella but also had chocolate-dipped sugar cones. My lucky day! The best of American icecream mixed with the best of Italian icecream.
I walked around with my gelato for a while, was able to find a few street signs and a few maps, and eventually figured out where I was, and walked the 15 minutes to the Vatican.
The book was right, it was perfect timing, the lines only took about 10 minutes to get through. For those who have not been to the Vatican, there's 3 basic things the public can see these days: The Vatican Museums, The Sisteen Chapel (which is actually sorta 'part' of the museums buildings), and St. Peter's Basilica. Note that the "museums" is really just wings of one large museum. The general idea is you go through most of the museum, then you go down a very long hall into the chapel, enjoy that, and then head back down the other side of that very long (and crowded) hall to see one final room, and then you're done with the museum and you can head off to the basilica. However, there's an exit from the chapel which lets out right next to the basilica so if you're not too worried about the last room (the Pinacoteca) you can skip it and save yourself a lot of time. Optionally you can find your way too it before you head down the long hall.
Unfortunately the map in the book was sub-optimal, and to make matters worse, I'm pretty sure they changed the path they try to get you to take, which required lots of back-tracking on my part to match things up with the book. On top of that they'd moved a few key pieces. I tried to find the Pinacoteca but could not line the map with the actual building well enough to find it.
Anyway - onto the museum itself. The mummies were amazing and I particularly enjoyed the Egyptian section as a whole. Some of the statues were breathtaking. The detail was exquisite. I really enjoyed a lot of the art here. I ease-dropped in the occasional tour to learn a few extra facts.
Walking through the Vatican is a very unique experience. The amount of art in the museum is staggering... it's not nearly as much as in the Louvre, but it's still a lot. When you then realize that what's in the museum is only like 1% of what they actually have, it's a hard concept to actually swallow. They have billions of dollars worth of art and artifacts, and who knows how much more about the world's history we would know if historians and scientists had access to their collection. When you control that much of the world's history, what modern perceptions might have been carefully crafted by the Vatican? It's a scary thought.
They had a section of Raphael's frescoes which I quite enjoyed. Frescoes are always refreshing to me. They had 8 rooms of "modern art" which not only didn't fit in at all, but were pretty bad. The whole section came off as lame.
As far as I can tell they switch which of the two long hallways they take you down into the Chapel vs the one you return on. It used to be that on the way there you see tons of figurines and on the way back you see tapestries and maps. I saw tapestries and maps on the way there. As always, I found the tapestries fairly boring (although the art on the ceiling was amazing). But, as someone pointed out to me when I got back, if they have enough maps to cover the walls of several very long hallways - just maps - imagine how much stuff they have!
I don't really know how to break up these photos, but I really recommend you click through them. In particular, the ceilings are easy to underestimate, you'll see quite a few of those. There were thousands of pieces and I took only 108 photos, so these really are the highlights (at least, to me).
Anyway, at the end of this long hall we finally came to one of the most famous works of art anywhere in the world: The Sistine Chapel. The first thing that strikes you is that it's a lot of surface area to cover. From there, before you can really appreciate anything you have to pick a spot and start looking at individual sections. Of course, it's all on the ceiling so this isn't the easiest task in the world. I looked around and found 2 small stairs off to the side, so I sat on one to make it a bit easier to lean back and look up, and no sooner did my ass touch the marble than a guard was yelling at me to stand up. Because as we all know, sitting on the ground will hurt the ceiling.
There used to be picture-taking allowed in the chapel, but a few years ago it was restored by an art company who took many years of poor "restoration" paint and chemicals off and part of the contract said that the Vatican could no longer allow photography of any sort in the chapel.
Now, I can understand this, but the guards had a little too much zeal. As I stood up from my stair, I saw a guard yelling at a guy to put away his camera. Now this guy had a very large camera he'd presumably used in the museum. While in the chapel he'd swung it around so it was behind his back. He had no backpack or bag with him, just a large camera which he was clearly not using. Yet the guard told him to put it away. It took several minutes for him to get the guard to admit he had no place to "put it away" to.
In fact, as I stood there two things jumped out at me: (1) how rude the guards were being to everyone and (2) that the guards saying "shhh" constantly was noticeably louder than anything else. Normally I have a lot of sympathy for the shitty job of museum guards/attendants/whatever - keeping people quiet and respectful is a thankless job. But in this case they were so rude and unhelpful, I kinda wished I had an air horn just to piss them off.
I found a spot away from most of the guards where I might study the ceiling in some peace. Generally I'm less of a fan of paintings than sculpture, but I don't see how anyone can't love this place. It's so awe-inspiring! The scenes just jump out at you.
One thing that really stood out at me was the "structural" painting, for lack of a better word. The columns and the decoration at the top of the columns were so realistic it was quite difficult to tell they were actually just part of the painting. Truly spectacular.
I was also surprised that it was lots of smaller paintings. I had thought it was a massive God-touching-Adam painting.
The place was crowded and I didn't care enough about the Pinacoteca to be led back down a long crowded hallway, so I took my sore neck and went out the back door and made my way around the corner to St. Peter's Basilica.
The courtyard outside the Basilica is a courtyard deserving the company of such a building.
St. Peter's Basilica is the largest church in the world and it's impossible not to notice. Many churches can fit in the covered outside entry-way area!
On the inside of the church they apparently have markings to show the boundaries of where the 2nd and 3rd largest churches would be if they were put inside the basilica! The book mentions these markings but I didn't find them - and neither did Kyle and his family when they were there.
To go along with a massive building they have lots of massive art. Huge statues and paintings. Pictures were allowed, but flash wasn't, and lighting was quite low, so my photos didn't come out that well.
The guards in the basilica were much more polite making it much easier to appreciate the art.
I did my usual first walk through to enjoy the art, take pictures, etc. there was a small chapel on one side where a few people were lined up to go in and pray so I figured I'd head there after my first walk through. However when I got back there they were closing the chapel. So I figured I might as well take one more walk through. As I got to the front I noticed they'd started letting people up front in the main part of the basilica to pray. I put my camera and book in my bag and went up there. The guy reminded me (nicely) that I could only go up to pray. I nodded and found a mostly empty row of pews close to the front. I spent a few minutes admiring the alter, the stained glass and the organ. The organ was particularly neat: it was split in two parts, half on the right, half on the left, with the player on the left. Then I spent some time meditating. As I was meditating I heard the organ start playing. Then the choir started singing. And then I smelled incense so I opened my eyes and coming in from the back was a processional of priests and cardinals! I looked at my watch - it was 5 o'clock mass! I was catching 5 o'clock mass at St. Peter's Basilica! I watched the processional and waited until opening prayers were done before quietly excusing myself. It was truly an amazing thing to watch. I was disturbed by how many people left during the processional (walking straight in front of it) or in the middle of opening prayers. Tact and respect, people!
I wanted to catch the tour of the dome before it closed, so I asked someone where it was and followed their directions out of the basilica and around the side. There were two options - elevator or stairs. The book had tipped me off that even with the "elevator" option there was still over 300 stairs to be done, which I decided was enough after a long day of walking, so I went for the elevator option.
There are two "stops" when going up to the dome; the first is after the elevator and a small handful of stairs: the inside of the dome, at its base. From here you can see all the art on the dome up close. The art up there was also interesting. There's alternating paintings of what I presume is Cupid. They alternated between paintings of a relief of his face, and a painting of this whole body making a pose on something that I think was a leaf. Each face and each pose was slightly different, but all the paintings alternated between relief and whole body around the dome. Taking a picture of this proved impossible because I was too close to take a picture on the same side of the dome that I was on, and the fencing made any pictures of the opposite side of the dome not come out. Even more interesting than the art is the fact that you can look directly down at the service going on below you. It's hard to describe how cool this is, and I tried to capture a few pictures, but it was quite difficult.
Our next stop was 320 stairs up to the very top of the dome on the outside. The walls are slanted and the staircase is just wide enough for one person at most places, so you have to sort of walk leaning slightly to your right at various points. The views at the top were phenomenal, but much like most "climb to the top of X building" views. I think the inside of the dome was a more unique experience. Still it was really cool to look down at the Vatican gardens and out at Rome from up here.
Back down the long staircase, we stopped off at an intermediate floor where there was a small souvenir shop and some views of the dome.
At the bottom I decided to sit on the steps in front of the basilica for a few minutes and rest while I figured out what to do next. I decided the catacomb tour was a good call. However, this turned out to be quite boring. There was a bit of art here and there, but mostly just coffins and plaques telling you which pope was where.
As I exited I got a text from Janine asking me if I'd seen the Swiss guards yet and mentioning they were so embarrassing. I told her I had not, but I couldn't understand why it would be embarrassing. About 20 steps later, I came across two clowns, er, I mean Swiss guards and I understood. I would never have known they were Swiss had I not gotten that text from Janine. These guys were wearing truly ridiculous costumes.
I wondered around and enjoyed the courtyard and took some final pictures.
I ran into one of the guys from the Metallica show and we chatted a bit, and I resumed my picture taking until my camera battery died. I was pretty bummed about this, but at least it happened after I was done with the Vatican.
I headed down the 15 minute walk back to the metro stop, figured out the best way to Hard Rock and headed off.
The Hard Rock hostess gave me a table in a room by myself which was a bit awkward, but it didn't take too long for it to fill up. I read my book for a while and had a drink (it was still a bit early), and then had a fantastic rare 10oz burger with cooked onions, an onion ring, cheese, and bacon on top and onion rings on the side. American food at this best. This is one of the things I really miss.
At this point I was right next to what Stevens dubs the "shopping triangle." So I decided to walk the whole triangle. Most of the shops were closed, however. I stopped by the one place you always know you can find a free bathroom: McDonald's. The McDonald's near the Spanish Steps (where I was) is quite elaborate - you walk into a gelataria before heading up some stairs into a very large and clean main area where the lines and tables are. The bathrooms were, apparently, not run by the same people. Most of the stall doors had the locks broken, seats were missing from most of the toilets, and the place was generally a mess. The juxtaposition of this kind of world-class McDonald's and this kind of gas-station level bathroom was a bit perplexing.
At this point it was time for desert and one of the detours Steves lists for his evening stroll (the one I took the first night in Rome) is the Gelotti gelataria, which is famous for having some of the best gelato in town. So that was my next destination.
On my way the two stops of the night walk that were previous closed were now open. That meant I could check out the two obelisks I had missed. One was OK, but I was particularly excited about the sundial one. It took me a few minutes to figure out how it worked - there's a straight line going out from one side of it on the ground with various zodiac signs on it. At various parts of the year its shadow will reach various signs. I really wanted a picture, but as mentioned, my camera had died.
Gelotti has a really, really long fucking line. To make matters worse, you have to pay first, and then get in this long line, and they don't make it clear what the various sizes actually are so you don't know what to buy yet. I picked medium hoping it would be a sugar cone, since that's relatively common (small is often those crappy cardboard-like cones, medium a sugar cone and large a waffle cone). I was pleasantly surprised to find out it was a chocolate-dipped sugar cone I was getting.
The guys here were clearly big fans of showmanship and one of the guys would fling his spatula into the icecream like a knife after preparing each cone. I acquired the exquisite awesomeness that is Gelotti and headed the short walk to Trevi fountain to enjoy my gelato and watch all the people. After a while I headed back to the Spanish Steps to catch the metro home.
Remember the possibly-prostitutes I saw the other night? Remember the one at the gas station taking off her pants with her friend standing next to her and some guy filling up the truck next to them? Well I saw her again at the same station, but without her friend and without the guy. It was immediately clear that the guy had not been with them in any respect. This time she was filling a bottle of water from a spigot and wearing short-shorts. If I wasn't sure before, I was definitely sure now.
After many days of walking and countless stairs I was tired and my feet hurt and I was thrilled to scribble some notes about the day and crash a bit early.
I was up at 8:30 and while eating breakfast at the hotel I read about the Borghese Gallery I'd be visiting today. The book noted that it was about a 20 minute walk from the metro stop to the gallery and apparently it's quite confusing and involves tunnels crossing parks and more. Given the extra 20 minutes I was going to need to find, I scarfed down the rest of my food and hurried out the door.
Just getting to the stop took longer than I anticipated and you can't be late for your appointment at the gallery or you don't go, so I was already starting to worry. I raced down the hallways of the metro station, up some stairs and emerged onto a small block of concrete next to a divided highway. Nothing around me looked like anything Stevens described. I ran back down the stairs, tried a few other exits, but they were all definitively more wrong. So back I went.
A few other people were also there looking confused. I pulled out some maps, and decided I'd follow the couple in front of me when they decided to go right. About 20 feet down there was a small gate on the right with a sign pointing into it, and merely stating "gallery." I followed the couple through the gate and across a nappy mostly dead field. We then came upon a street which they crossed with seemingly more certainty. Having no good ideas of my own, I decided to stick with this plan. Across the street they wondered into the park, and I kept on their tales. We passed a mini-carnival looking thing and the woman stopped and asked where the Gallery was (or so I assumed). The couple was pointed across some more grass and off they headed with me not far behind them.
At the other side of the grassy area, we came to a cross-roads with a nice fountain in the center. Left or right? There was a sign, but unlike one we'd passed a few minutes ago, this one didn't list the gallery on it. A little trolly/bus thing passed and I tried to flag the driver down to ask, but he just glared at me. We started to head right when the guy said his GPS said it was left, so we turned around (I was happy they were speaking English). At the end of the street a sign shows that the gallery was clearly right, not left. The woman yelled at the guy for a minute before we quickly headed in the other direction.
At a break in their arguing I finally asked where they were from - Latvia, it turns out. We chatted as we walked and two turns (both of which had helpful signs) later, we were there. They ask you to be there 30 minutes before your appointment and they start giving away slots 10 minutes before your appointment; we got there 12 minutes before our appointment. By the time I got to the check-in counter it was 10 (almost 9) minutes before my appointment and I was very relieved they still had my spot. I dropped off my bag in the coat check and purchased a slot on the guided tour, but in the process lost my Latvian friends.
While recently I'd been disappointed with some of the tours I'd taken, this one was truly awesome! Our guide was extremely passionate about the works, spoke fantastic English and was really interesting.
There's an insane amount of art in the place, but I had a few favorites I'll discuss briefly. Unfortunately, no photography was allowed in the gallery, so you'll have to use your imagination.
The first piece that stood out was Bernini's Pluto and Proserpina, a statue of Hades kidnapping Persephone and taking her down to Hell. The sculpture was designed so that you can look at it from every angle, and the detail at every corner is amazing. In particular, where Hades' hands are on Persephone, his fingers sink into her skin perfectly. It's so realistic, it's just amazing. The look of terror on Persephone's face is truly brilliant. The flows of Hades' robe and the different textures: skin which was amazingly smooth, the cloth which was a bit rough, and the dog hair, which was very course, were all incredibly well done.
Another highlight was Bernini's Apollo and Daphne, a statue of Apollo chasing a Nymph as she turns into a tree. This was a truly unique piece because it's meant to change as you view it from different sides. From the front the Nymph was mostly girl and Apollo was trying to grab her. As you walked around it, more and more of the Nymph was tree and less and less of her was girl. The texture of the soft skin and the rough tree bark and the individual leaves was all so exquisite. Interestingly, there was a fresco on the ceiling of the same scene by a different artist.
In the next room there was Canova's Pauline Bonaparte, a statue of a girl laying on a mattress. The thing about this one that stood out was the way the mattress sank under her weight and all of the wrinkles in the mattress that were just so unbelievably realistic.
One painting in particular caught my attention, Caravaggio's St. JeRome which depicts the saint transcribing books with a skull on his desk. The lighting in that piece was really amazing, and of course, I love anything with skulls.
Finally there was a sculpture of some boys done by Bernini when he was only 11 years old. While the piece wouldn't necessarily stand as one of my favorites in the gallery, it was very good - it clearly belonged in a gallery... and it was done by an 11 year old! Short of his age at the time, this work doesn't appear to be otherwise that important in the world, and I can find no references to it online.
There was a "special" treat for us: the aviary was open. It was not part of the tour, but we had 45 minutes or so out of the 2 hour appointment in which we could wonder on our own (most people wondered on their own the whole 2 hours, but if you bought the tour, that took about 1:15) and they recommended checking it out since it's not often open to the public. Wow, what a waste of 10 minutes of my life. It was basically just 2 rooms with some birds and some bad paintings on the walls.
The other thing that was quite noticeable was the Frescoes on the ceiling which were incredibly 3-D looking. Several people had asked if there was a beam here, or a gold thing there or whatever... it looked like there were things on the ceiling, but it was just all the frescoes.
Honestly I hadn't been that excited about the Borghese Gallery, but it was a fantastic two hours. If you go to Rome, do not miss this!
At this point I hiked all the way back through the park, across the street, over the field, down the street and back to the subway. There's a long tunnel with a people mover between the metro near Borghese and stop at the Spanish Steps. I took this tunnel and then headed to the street near the Steps that Stevens said had a lot of restaurants.
As I walked down the street looking for a restaurant, I passed a bizarre store with some insane clothes; I had to take a picture!
I picked a restaurant with a view of the street and ordered some bread and "Lasagna ala pesto" which I expected to be, I dunno, somehow related to lasagna. It turned out to be squares of pasta with pesto on it. Oh well.
After lunch I walked around a bit more and I saw a guy doing some amazing side-walk-chalk art.
As you can see in the pictures they have a website with their spectacular art.
Then I headed back towards the Spanish Steps so I could catch the subway. While at the steps I thought it'd be good to get some pictures during the day.
Back the subway and to the Bernini stop where the Capuchin Crypt was. I was quite excited about this place - it's a massive collection of art made out of the bones of some 4000 monks!
Since it was a bit early (they weren't open yet from their lunch break), I went off to find some gelato and then walked up and down the street a bit. I was surprised when I passed the Latvian girl looking at some postcards, but I didn't say anything since I thought it might seem a bit stalker-y.
I finally went back to the church with the crypt, but it was still closed. A few minutes later they opened up and a line formed quickly. They ask for at least a 1 Euro donation, I gladly threw in 2 and walked in behind a friendly looking US couple.
Folks. Seriously. This. Place. Is. Fucking. Awesome. No pictures were allowed, but I bought some postcards which I've scanned below. As I said, the bones of four thousand monks! Some of them are just stacked but most of them were made into arches, skeletons, butterflies, hearts, crucifixes, and various other designs. Some of what they did with these bones is just mind-blowing. The crypt is several consecutive rooms, and it culminates in a room with a full skeleton on the ceiling holding a scale! It's just amazing. I chatted with the American couple (or rather, the guy in the couple) in front of me as we walked through and we pointed various things out to each other; they were quite nice. The guy very strongly reminded me of my brother, Anton, but I have no idea why.
Back at the front I looked through the postcards and picked out several and watched the poor woman try to stop various people who kept trying to wonder in without paying. She was quite rude to them (usually referring to their ethnicity), but fortunately she was very nice to me. My favorite comment from her, "You! Hey Chinese! Or Japanese/Taiwanese/whatever, there's a line. Especially you!" Wow, so much for tolerance, eh?
Purchases made, I exited the crypt and went up to the actual church which was very nice. I walk around and enjoyed the art and had a few moments of silence. I was going to "buy" a candle to light, but they were fake candles (plastic with lights) and this rather bugged me, so I didn't.
On my way out I saw the American couple sitting on the stairs outside. I suspect the woman was a bit scared of me as she hadn't said one word to me the whole time. But as I walked by he said "have a good one" and I wished them the same.
I stopped outside the metro stop and sat down to ponder my next move. I decided the Ara Pacis (Alter of Peace) was worth a go and took the metro back to Spagna and then walked down to it. It was quite difficult to find, but eventually I did. It was supposed to be 6.50 Euros (and I still had a discount with my Roma card), but it's actually 8 and 6 with the discount. I hesitated a bit since the entire thing can be seen from the glass outside the building and didn't look that exciting, but went in anyway. Once inside, it was immediately obvious that it was not worth the 6 Euros, particular since I could see it just as well from the massive window 10 feet away - but even if I couldn't have, it was still not worth 6 Euros. In fact, it was the most boring thing I saw in Rome.
Having already paid and all, I went downstairs to their horrible museum briefly, and was even more annoyed when I realized you had to walk back through it to get out (it was a long winding maze which ends in a dead-end).
I left and decided to find a cafe to sit at, at the Piazza Del Popolo. The piazza is the beginning of the so-called Dolce Vita Stroll, popular in the late afternoon among locals every evening around 6pm. Since I had planned on doing the stroll tonight, I had just to kill some time reading and relaxing at the cafe.
On my way I passed a Ferrari store, which I of course had to stop in. Most of the stuff was uninteresting, but this race car they had was pretty insane. Check out the controls.
On my way I also passed the side-walk-chalk artist again. This time he had a partner and they'd made a lot of progress!
At the piazza I took some pictures and then found a table and read for an hour.
Around 6 I got up, took a stroll around the piazza to look at the various street performers and stuff before heading down the Via del Corso for the "Dolce Vita stroll." And what did I see? A ... blue statue of liberty. You know those street performers that dress up as various famous statues? Right, well this one was the Statue of Liberty... except in bright fucking blue. Blue. Blue! ::sigh::
This is looking down Via del Corso from the piazza.
I walked down the streets and the neat thing about Rome is little nooks you'll notice like this.
While strolling I passed a record store which I stopped in, but didn't have much of interest, and then veered off the main road following directions on a sign that had mentioned a store with skulls, band shirts, etc. When I found said store, it was a Gothic women's clothing store. Needless to say I was a bit disappointed. Across the street though was a moderately interesting comic book store, so the detour wasn't entirely a loss.
Back on the main drag I ducked into another record store where I managed to pick up a European Metallica single I didn't have (Broken, Beat & Scarred), score!
Continuing on I once more passed my side-walk-chalk friends who were nearly done.
Arriving at the end of the stroll (the Spanish Steps), I sat on the steps and snapped a picture of the cool scene of all the people coming down the street from the stroll.
I took out the Steves book and contemplated dinner. I decided on a place near the Pantheon that Steves mentioned called Osteria da Mario. An American family was waiting to be seated when I walked up and also had a Steves book and commented to themselves that I had the same book. They seated the family and me at the table next to them, and I noticed yet another table with a Steves book out.
I got some bread (which like all bread in Italy, as far as I can tell, was stale) while I pondered the menu and eventually decided on a first course of some sort of sausage and then some penne carbonara. Unlike recent meals, this one was not good. The carbonara was horrible and while it wasn't their fault, the sausage was intolerably sweet.
I read for about an hour and then walked back towards the Spanish Steps. I stopped at Trevi Fountain for one last look and some pictures.
Then took a final few moments at the Spanish Steps and finally jumped on the metro.
Back at the hotel I was very pissed they'd taken the paper out of the card slot (those ones you're supposed to put your room key in to turn the lights on and then when you take your key with you, you can't leave the lights on). I'd put a piece of paper in there to keep the A/C on (it was bloody hot). Fuckers!
A few friends had emailed to weigh in on this bidet that doesn't seem quite like a bidet (this hotel also had one). The majority opinion was that it wasn't a bidet, but I was unconvinced when I found a packet of "intimate cleanser" on it. I think it's just a poorly designed bidet.
At this point I turned on the TV for a few minutes and there was a Michael Jackson marathon on. I hadn't been watching the news, so I didn't know he had died, and thus found this a bit odd.
I got up at a painful 7:45am to pack, eat, and get out the door. I made an appointment to see Michelangelo's David in Florence and then checked out, and unfortunately after all that didn't get of the hotel until 9:20. I ran to the subway stop, got to Termini station and ran across the station making it to my train's platform at 9:50 just in time to watch it drive away without me.
I found an office and fortunately there was another train at 10:30 which I could get on for only an 8 Euro changing fee and no guaranteed seat.
On the train I picked a seat but it turned out to belong to someone else. I walked around a bit but the train was full. Finally a nice lady with two kids let me sit next to her since her kid was in her lap and not using his seat. She spoke absolutely no English so our ability to communicate was quite poor but we managed to exchange pleasantries. She profusely apologized for her kid accidentally kicking me once, and with some effort I managed to relay that I didn't mind. We also eventually worked out that we both wanted to get off at the same stop and that the stop we were approaching was not in fact ours. Not bad for no common language.
Off the train, my hotel was only 2 blocks away so I didn't have worry about acquiring public transportation tickets, at least for the time being. I asked a cabbie which way to Nazionales, the street my hotel was on, and he pointed it out. I found my hotel fairly easily.
The small flat-panel TV aside, this hotel felt a lot like what I expect a nice hotel in the wild-west days of the US were like. I decided to take a few minutes and check my email since I hadn't had Internet access in Rome. However, I couldn't DHCP an address and didn't want to mess with it.
I went downstairs in search of food. I walked up and down the street a bit and settled on the place right across from my hotel whose pizza with cheese and onion had caught my eye. I asked for that with garlic on it, and it was by far the best pizza I'd had since I'd arrived in Italy.
After enjoying my phenomenal pizza - and the view of the cute waitress - I decided to head to Duomo.
As I got to the end of the street, back in front of the main train station, I saw a massive church, which a quick check in the book revealed was the Basilica of Santa Maria Novella. OK, I'd stop here first.
But as I crossed the street towards it, it occurred to me that the entire place was surrounded with street vendors selling... crap. "How will I find the door amongst all this shit?" was the only thing I could think. I couldn't even tell if this was the front or the back of the church. And the closer I got the more I realized that the merchandise really was shit. "No, shit's too nice of a word for this - it unfairly elevates its worth," I thought.
So I made my way around and eventually realized I had been at the back of the church - and the front was vastly different. The front was painted in what I would later realize was a very Florentine style - as opposed to the normal brick of the other sides.
That front door there was not open, but the little opening on the right was and led into a small garden adjacent to the church. In the garden, there was a side-door to the main church as well as an entrance to a small chapel on the side of the church. Entrance to the chapel was free - but only allowed for praying, entrance to the main church was 2.50 and according to the book had a famous 3-D painting.
There was no photography allowed in the church, but the 3-D painting was indeed pretty cool. Moreover, there were some interesting illusions in the church. It was quite a long hall but due to an optical illusion involving the art seems much longer. Much of the art can also play tricks on the eyes, and in general, it was quite a fun place to walk through. Obviously you couldn't go up to the alter, but this church allowed you to go behind the alter which gave a great view of the dome, which was really cool. I stopped for a quick moment of meditation, but it was way too loud, so I made my way out and to the small chapel where I got my moment of meditation.
I followed my map and made my way to Duomo (Florence isn't very big, I walked everywhere). "What is this ugliness?" I wondered as I turned into the Duomo Piazza. It didn't take more than a moment to realize that I was looking a small structure in front of the actual Duomo (which is massive and towers over this tiny building). A bit of reading later, it turned out that the building was the Baptistry.
Both buildings were done in white and (an unpleasant) green marble, but the actual Duomo was cleaner and better kept giving it a large and unique look. The Baptistry, however, just looked like an old house painted some awful colors.
The Baptistry isn't without redeeming qualities, however. It has doors "fit to be the gates to paradise," and that's not an exaggeration - they're very impressive.
The Duomo itself is also a pretty impressive building.
As I turned around, the line for the Duomo - a notoriously long line - was just disappearing into the church. "Long line my ass!" I thought, and ran up before it grew again.
It's a damn good thing I didn't wait in line for this place. All the art had been moved to the Duomo Museum which was behind the church and charged money. Because, as we all know, if they'd left any art in the church, art fans would be so satiated by the pieces in the church, they'd never pay admission to the museum! Art fans really only need about 10 pieces a day, really. Needless to say, I was a bit unhappy about the large empty church I was standing in.
As if this wasn't enough of an insult, they had corded off the front third of the church which included the only chairs in the place, the alter, and most importantly, the dome, which we had no decent view of in the area we were permitted to stand.
It's worth pointing out a large reason this Duomo is famous: it was built with a huge hole in the ceiling assuming the technology to put a dome there would soon be available. The dome was built after the rest of the church. So, as you might imagine, I wanted to see the fucking dome.
Duomo's other note-worthy piece is the huge Last Judgment by Giorgi Vasari and Federico Zuccari... which you couldn't see most of from where we were allowed to stand either.
Great view, huh?
You'll notice that I included the chairs as part of what was corded off. Unlike other churches where people who wanted to pray would be let back, this portion of the church was strictly being kept empty. So much for House of God first, sight second. A church where people can't pray. I'm sure God would be proud.
When I exited the Duomo it had grown very cloudy. Between this and the large number of stairs I'd climbed on this trip, the option to climb the Dome (whose entrance is on the outside) wasn't very appealing to me. I took a few picture of the longer side of the church which kinda plays tricks on your eyes.
At this point I decided I was boycotting the Duomo and it's museum anyway. So I headed to my next stop: the Medici Chapel. Again, no photos were allowed, but Medici Chapel's main room has lots of famous people buried under it. From there you can go up some stairs into a pretty amazing dome. I was quite bummed I couldn't take a photo of it. In the room next to the dome was there was a very cool set of pieces by Michelangelo: Night, Day, Dawn, and Dusk. On one side of the room is Night and Day - a woman and man respectively, and on the other side of the room is Dusk and Dawn - a man and woman respectively. These statues are quite huge and in them are clear depictions of various elements of these times of day. They were subtle, but very cool. Someone managed to post some pictures and there's a good article from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
At this point it had been lighting raining off and on and I wasn't certain what I wanted to do next. Seeing David was my only real must-do here, and I had a reservation for the next morning. Next to the church was a big street market, so I decided to bum around there truly amazed by all the crap being sold. There was some interesting stuff mixed in, but you had to be willing to wade through a lot of crap.
After the market, I decided to head to the Ponte Vecchio, Florence's most famous bridge which is lined with gold and silver jewelry shops. On my way I passed a few interesting bits...
Anyway - a whole bridge with almost entirely gold and silver all the way across! Definitely an interesting place to walk through, but I wasn't particularly interested in most of what the shops had. This guy is Cillini, the master goldsmith of the Renaissance. He stands in the middle of the bridge.
I headed back taking several pictures along the way, stopping briefly at the Piazza Vecchio. which had some great artwork.
I checked the book and decided on a place to eat in the market area so I went back there - but the restaurant wasn't there anymore. Since the square was empty it seemed like a boring area anyway, so I picked a place in the book near my hotel and went back to the hotel to wash my face and lance my new blister.
The restaurant the book mentioned didn't look as appetizing as it sounded, so I wandered around and found another pizzeria on the other side of my hotel from the one I had lunch at.
I ordered the garlic bread with tomato and basil expecting to not eat the tomato, but it came with so much that I left a little on just to be polite. Turns out that tomato too, is susceptible to the rule of butter (all things can be made better with butter)... although in sufficient quantities it can overcome it.
At this point I ventured to try some of the tomato on bread with olive oil hoping for a similar outcome. Nope. But what do you expect, tomatoes are evil.
I had some pretty decent but not amazing lasagna for dinner. I thought it odd that the bread they'd brought in addition to my garlic bread was a separate charge on my bill given I had not asked for it. Ah well.
Being in Italy I headed up the street to find a gelataria. When I'd originally found stracciatella a year ago at the yodeling festival in Switzerland, I thought I'd found heaven. Until this evening in Florence when I found panna cota. Can you marry a flavor?
Back at the hotel I somehow managed to trick the DHCP server into handing me address after a while of playing around and happily checked my email before writing up the events of the day and getting to sleep.
Due to missing my train the yesterday I had set my alarm for 15 minutes earlier even though my appointment at Accademia was 40 minutes later than yesterday's train. As luck would have it, of course, I also got ready in half the time.
As such I got to the Accademia Gallery about 9:30 for my 10:30 reservation. Unsurprisingly they didn't really care when my reservation was for and just wanted the extra 4 euro "booking fee" before giving me my tickets and letting me in. All this and no line (OK, 2 minutes in line). Reservations rule.
In my last bit of fleeting optimism for guides on Italy (they were so good in other countries), I wasted 5 euro on a useless audio guide. The few bits I was interested in I was able to eavesdrop from live tour guides and I promptly ignored the rest of the audio guide.
I doubt it'll come as any surprise that I was really interested in two things: Michelangelo's Prisoners and David.
Prisoners is one of those pieces I'd never heard about but could hardly believe this to be true. It's 4 blocks of marble, each with a person "escaping" from the marble. While they are technically, "unfinished," it's hard to use that term seriously with these pieces since part of the work is that they're still stuck in a block of marble. Unfortunately, these 4 parts of the same work were laid out in a most absurd way: spread along a hall with other pieces between them! What dimwit thought of this fucked up crack-head plot. It's a single work of art! Why not split the Last Supper into 13 pieces and put other paintings in the middle? Fuck! Anyway. The struggle of these figures emerging from the solid block of marble is an amazing image and I spent quite a lot of time with these despite David being at the other end of the hall calling to me.
David is ... striking. No, that's not a powerful enough word. It's blunt-force-trauma. You just don't expect him to be that huge. Or that perfect. Or that huge. He towers above you - way, way above you. Every detail of his body is correct and his gaze is calm, unassuming, and yet knowing. It's captivating and I spent a very long time looking at it. Truly an amazing piece of art. They had a glass wall around the base of it keeping you at about two arms' length away. This isn't really a problem in practice because of how large the piece is, and the protection was necessary given how many attacks David has had on him. You can barely make out the crack in his arm and another in his toe. The later happened after he'd been moved into this museum for protection but before they put up the wall. Some lunatic came in with a hammer and smashed his toe.
No photography was allowed but I snuck two quick shots.
The rest of the pieces in the museum pretty distinctly fell into the "old stuff, with gold" category. I walked through the rest of the museum pretty quickly, mostly unimpressed.
Done with the main site of Florence - plus several of the others, I wondered around a bit and pondered my next move. Begrudgingly, I decided upon the Duomo Museum. It was mostly sculpture, which I like, after all.
It's not a bad museum, but it's not particularly amazing either. The highlight was Donatello's Mary Magdalene in wood. She's old and covered only in her own matted hair. It's inspiringly unique.
The ... gnarliness of the piece is so unlike anything else you'll see in Italy and I really loved this piece.
A few other Donatellos were interesting as well, but outside of that the most interesting thing about the place was its nutty architecture - where one floor ended and another began was often unclear. Frustrating, but interesting.
Having crossed another Florentine museum off the list, I headed back to my beloved Danti - the amazing pizza joint I had lunch at the previous day. It was unclear if the waitress remembered me, which I must admit was a bit surprisingly in a place where I get even more odd looks than usual. This time I had a sausage pizza and added onion and garlic, and again it was just amazing. The fact that the waitress was really attractive didn't hurt either. I took a long lunch, reading my book and watching the people walk by.
Eventually I got up and walked around the market, but didn't find much among the merchants of shit. It reminded me a bit of the markets in China, except that those were pleasantly worse. As it turns out, if your product is bordering on useless, it's just better to take the plunge into ridiculously, laughably non-functional. At least then people will buy it for the humor. Stuff bordering on uselessness but still in the realm of serious is total and under shit.
Apparently, as I found out, wine and dumb nicknacks go together. Back near Duomo I wondered into a little souvenir shop and picked out a shot glass for my collection. However, upon trying to pay the women she told me to go pay at the wine shop 3 doors down - and then didn't watch to see where I went. (I was honest enough to pay, but still.)
At this point I didn't know what I wanted to do next, but in the mean time I headed to the McDonald's at the station - always a reliable WC in any country.
While walking around, I waited until I was good and overheated to buy gelato so as to have the maximum enjoyment out of it. I picked up more ambrosia (panna cota) and smiled the smile of the gods.
Back near the city center I decided to wonder off in search of more "market." Eventually I found myself lost, but having not found much. This didn't bother me so much as trying to find my way back would give me something to do. But eventually my controlling instinct took over and I looked at a map. After I located myself, when I looked up I noticed what my eyes (when in "lost mode") had filtered out as irrelevant information: I was standing next to another shit market! I saw two things I was vaguely interested in (a cool old knife and a skull flag) but neither booth would negotiate so I didn't buy on basic principle. Who doesn't negotiate on crap in an open air market?
After a while I headed in the direction I believed to be "back" but got more lost (although it was mostly the right direction). Small streets are never on tourist maps. Eventually I ran into a useful sign and a few turns later I could see Duomo looming in the distance.
The only thing you really need to do in Florence is see David. After that the Duomo and the Duomo museum are recommended, with a few other "if you're bored"s, and then the rest only if you're not going anywhere else in Italy. In other words, at this point, I decided the best use of my time was to sit in a cafe in a heavy-foot-traffic area, enjoy the sights, get a coke, and read my book. So I took a few final pictures of Duomo and then found a nice cafe on Duomo square.
Around 6 I got up and wondered back through the open air market between Duomo and my place (around San Lorenzo). In the market there I found a drum which I got for 25 instead of 35 euros. This only took a few rounds of negotiation and so I knew I could have gotten it for less, but at least I didn't pay full price. That's almost 30% off, which is respectable as long as you're not in China.
I returned to Danti's to try their dinner. The waitress recognized me this time and asked me, jokingly (I think) if I wanted the same pizza. "No, I'm going to have not-pizza for dinner," I said.
I can now confirm that Rome has horrible bread and Florence has better bread. You already know about the Rome bread, but tonight was the second place in Florence I had bread and it was also good. While two may not be a statistically sound sampling, I do believe there's a pattern here.
Did you know there's a Tuscan style for beef goulash? I can now tell you that the sauce is tomato-based which I really couldn't have expected less. It wasn't bad and again I nursed the meal for a while before leaving a healthy tip and then heading for sexy awesome gelato.
After getting my luggage, I asked the front desk to call me a cab (I was leaving from a different train station than the one I came in to and it was across town). This seemed to have been a slightly troubling matter, but eventually she informed me that I should wait outside - in 3 minutes the cab would arrive but there was no place for it to stop.
When the cab driver turned out to be female I found myself surprised not so much that she was female - or even that I'd never seen a female cabbie before - but mostly that I'd never noticed the fact that I'd never seen a female cabbie before. I can honestly say this was the first time I've ever been attracted to my cabbie.
She dropped me off at a painful 8:20pm for my 9:50 train. I was OK with this in theory - I wanted to be very early this time. However, I hadn't realized until today that my train wasn't from the main station but instead this smaller station at the edge of town. And this station didn't really have... places to sit, places to buy drinks, food... or really anything other than train tracks. That makes for a boring hour-twenty wait. Oh well.
Italy is an amazing place! Rome is definitely one of my favorite cities to visit and I hope to be back sometime. I absolutely loved it. Thanks to Lynn for all her recommendations, Kyle for introducing me to Rick Steves' books and lending me his Rome book and Janine for accompanying me in Milan.