With my Ancient monuments class I’ve seen the remains of the Mausoleum of Augusts, Augustus’s Ara Pacis (Altar of Peace), the obelisk of Marcus Aurelius, an obelisk/sundial from the Field of Mars, and the Pantheon. And that was just last Tuesday. On Thursday our class went to Ostia, an ancient city with very well preserved, albeit boring, ruins. The highlight was seeing the stone public toilets, I’m so glad I didn’t have to use those. They are incredibly unsanitary. Today our class went to the baths of Diocletian, which was cool because the remains of the huge public bath building were incorporated into a church as well as an archeological museum. We also saw remnants of Rome’s city walls right near the main train station. I’ve been right near those walls 8 times in the past month, and have embarrassingly never noticed the huge structure. We also went to the lower level of the train station, where remnants of another part of the wall sit in the McDonald’s seating area. That’s Rome for you!
On Wednesday I went with three girls to see the Vatican Museums and Sistine Chapel. The Vatican Museums are supposed to be some of the best in the world, they hold art collections from popes. The marble statues you would expect sit alongside ancient Egyptian artifacts, old maps and enormous tapestries. I ended up splitting the cost of an audio guide with Laura, since we both wanted to know what we were looking at, but couldn’t rationalize spending 7 euros extra after paying the 18 euro entrance fee. It worked out really well, because as soon as one of us got bored listening to the guide ramble on about obscure sculptors, the other one saw something they wanted to know more about.
The only part of the museums where I listened to the entire audio guide was in the Sistine Chapel. It really is as beautiful as you’ve heard. The colors are incredibly vibrant, and everything is so detailed. There is a ton to look at, it’s definitely overwhelming. We sat on the edge of the crowd for 45 minutes just taking it all in. I <3 Michelangelo.
I liked the museums a lot, but the audio guide was frustrating because there weren’t explanations for things we were curious about, while we heard far more than necessary about unimportant objects. Also, the museum is a huge maze, and the signs are terrible. It took us a lot of time wandering around halls we’d already seen to find other parts of the museum, which was just silly.
On Monday night, Claire and I decided to take an adventure. There is a huge outdoor staircase not too far from my apartment. I’ve always wondered where it lead, but never ventured there, since it’s not necessarily the safest for women to be wandering around Rome with no clue where they are or where they’re going. Claire looked at a map and figured out that the steps led towards Janiculum hill, which was supposed to be a great lookout point over Rome. We weren’t disappointed. After an uphill hike through a residential area with huge beautiful houses, we spent awhile gazing out over our adopted city trying to pick out landmarks in a skyline packed with church and temple domes. Eventually, we meandered back down to Trastevere towards Pizzeria ai Marmi , a restaurant we wanted to try since it’s always packed, no matter the time of night. Of course we got there at 6:15 and it didn’t open until 7:00. We’re good little Romans, so we got gelato before our excellent pizza. :-)
Last night six of us went on a mission to get pastries at a positively reviewed bakery in the Jewish Ghetto. We got there to find it closed until August 31. Definitely a bummer. We ended up getting fruit tarts at a restaurant near the city center instead.
From there, we hopped on a bus to Castel Sant’Angelo, an impressive prison turned museum. It’s a huge, circular, ominous looking building. They have special performances and markets at there on summer nights, so we were excited to see what they had going on. Castel Sant’Angelo was SO COOL, it’s no wonder parts of it were featured in Angels and Demons. We paid admission plus a supplement to walk part of the passageway to the Vatican (the pope’s escape route in times of trouble) and the prison below. The building was full of winding stone staircases and passageways, and had tons of huge doors. There were beautiful views of Rome from the top. The passageway was really creepy, a narrow covered stone hallway with slits for windows which led to an uncovered pathway high above the city streets. I loved it.
We didn’t know where to pick up the bus we needed, so instead we headed towards the Vatican to pick up a different bus, and spent awhile in St. Peter’s Square staring up at the huge, lit up Basilica. Absolutely beautiful.
This morning, Heather, Claire, Laura and I got up early and met at 7:30 to head back to the Vatican to go into St. Peter’s Basilica. We got there quickly, and went right in. We have heard rumors of hour-long lines beginning at 10 a.m., so it was great to enter quickly. The Basilica is enormous, ornate and beautiful. We saw gold taken from the original Pantheon decorating the interior, as well as Michelangelo’s Pieta, the only sculpture he ever signed. There are a few popes in crypts there, as well as the tomb of St. Peter.
We went from the Basilica to the entrance to for its dome, where you have the option of climbing 520 stairs, or taking an elevator and then walking up 320 stairs. We paid an extra 2 euros for the elevator, a great plan considering the treacherous walk up. There was one incredibly narrow and steep spiral staircase that seemed to go on forever, at least 75 or 100 steps. There was literally no end in sight, and I started getting a little claustrophobic, even though that usually does not happen to me. There were other sections higher up in the dome where I had to lean to one side as I was climbing steps so I didn’t hit my head on the ceiling, and I’m only 5’3”. It was bad. After 320 steps we were out of breath, but found ourselves high above the city with a cool breeze blowing (a rare event in Rome). It was a really, really great view of a really, really great city. The view was the reward for climbing 320 steps. It almost made the trek enjoyable. Almost.
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