Leaving Rome, June 29

We packed up and headed to the train station. Just as in Florence, I felt sad leaving our apartment and leaving the city. It didn’t last long though, because all I would have to do is think about my cats. This made me very ready to get back home.  I spent the train ride catching up on my blog and making the following list:

My Top 4 Favorite Things about the trip:

1.     Cooking and having dinner with Laura and her family

2.     Walking to and from our apartment in Florence, or just walking around in general.

3.     Seeing all of the art and churches in person.

4.     Hanging out with Maddie and Devin

Things I will not miss from the trip:

1.     Paying for water at restaurants

2.     Small drinking glasses

3.     Paying to use restrooms

4.     The lack of air circulation in buildings

5.     The frequent “CASH ONLY” or not being able to break “large” bills like 20’s and 50’s.

6.     Pizza, Paninis, Pasta-While I love all of these, I’m ready for a break! I want to eat rice, quinoa, and soup! I will miss gelato so VERY much.

Rome, Italy June 28

This is our last full day in Rome. We headed out around noon for the Colosseum. We made the decision not to go inside, and that we would be fine with viewing it from the outside. The ticket was 12 euro, but it also got you into Palatine Hill and the Roman Forum. At this point, we were pretty numb to a lot of things we should care about. So maybe we will go inside one day when we have the energy to really pay attention.  We took the subway there and decided we would walk back and stop through the Jewish Ghetto.

I didn’t get any pictures in the Jewish Ghetto. It was pretty small, but interesting to see another area. Probably the thing I found most interesting and haunting was the square called Largo 16 Ottobre 1943. It was named after the date that the Nazis came to the ghetto and demanded they collected 110 pounds of gold or else they would collect people to take away to concentration camps. They scavenged what they could and even the non-Jews in the area contributed what they could to help come up with the total amount. Although it was achieved, the Nazis ended up taking close to 2,000 Jews with them anyway and only a handful ended up returning. The history isn’t very apparent when you’re there. You can tell it’s a Jewish area with “Kosher” being advertised, but the only way I knew some of the history was from the Rick Steves book.

We started to head towards home with the intention of stopping to get something to eat and finding a dress/skirt for me. We stopped to eat a café called Osteria dei Fortuna. It was known for it’s fresh pasta made there daily. Sometimes a woman sit in the window and make it in front of customers, but not today I guess. While sitting there the same black cat I had seen on our visit to Compe di fior was roaming the street. I pet him for a bit and he tried to follow me to the restaurant. For the most part, it seemed like people passing him gave him friendly attention. It didn’t seem that he had an owner as he was pretty roughed up with some sores around his eyes. But his belly looked plenty full. It made me sad to leave him though and think about people possibly being mean to him.

Craig and I made the long trek home, but didn’t find a skirt or dress for me. I went into a few shops but they were either way out of my price range, or just not my style. I typically have a difficult time finding clothes because of this. We did however buy a machinetta to take home!

We spent the rest of the night packing, cleaning, and relaxing before our train ride to Milan. We did go out for our last gelato in Rome. I had the pistachio and dark chocolate. Once we were almost to the apartment Craig realized we didn’t have our keys. My stomach dropped thinking that maybe we locked them in the apartment.  I thought it would be too good to be true that we would lock our keys in the car at the beginning of the trip, and then lock them in the apartment at the end. Thankfully, this last part wasn’t true. Craig left them on the counter at the gelateria, and we made it back without any panic attacks.

Rome/Santa Marinella, Italy June 27

Our final beach day! This was our 3^rd beach day and it went the most smooth out of all our attempts and by this time I had pretty much forgotten all about the stresses of the train station days before.

We arrived at the beach, paid for our umbrella, and basked in the sun for a bit. Craig mentioned he thought he said a woman topless and pointed in the distance. I told him it was a man, but apparently he was looking in a different direction because I was indeed looking at a slender man in a speedo bathing suit with no top.

Craig left to cool off in the water, while I sat in the sun a little longer. Eventually, I went to the water and stood with just my feet in trying to get used to the temperature. I heard a female walking really close behind me, talking on her cell phone. When she was past me I could definitely see, out of the corner of my eye, that she was only wearing black bottoms and no top. I looked out to a smiling Craig floating in the sea. As I inched my way out further into the water, the girl continued to pace along the shoreline, talking on her phone topless. Eventually, we saw she had a friend who was sporting the same style. It was probably Craig’s highlight of Italy.

After about 3 hours, we headed home and relaxed the rest of the evening.

Rome/Vatican City, Italy June 26

Our goals for the last few days in Italy were to pretty much take it easy and get in the last few sites we wanted to see: St. Peter’s and the Colosseum.  We slept in and leisurely made our way out the door. Our plan for the day was to see St. Peter’s and walk through the neighborhood known as Trastevere. Rick Steve’s had a walking tour through this area that I wanted to follow. It had been raining a bit this morning and was still cloudy out so I put on my rain jacket. I put a rain poncho in my purse in case Craig got desperate. As we were heading out the door it started to rain pretty heavily and I suggested Craig take the umbrella for himself. He said he was fine and I stared at him for a long time. He was wearing flip flops, his long dress/casual/Friday work pants, and a shirt. We didn’t even make it around the block and he was getting drenched. (I’m sure this is another situation that doesn’t surprise his parents!) We had at least 10-15 minutes walk ahead of us. I saw a café and wanted to get a coffee, so we stepped inside and had a break from the rain. It became a dilemma because we only had a card and a 50 bill to pay for my 1.50 euro coffee. They could not take a card, or break a 50 so Craig tried going to the store next door, no luck. Customers were even trying to see if they could break our 50 bill, and no one could. If I hadn’t already taken a few sips of my drink I probably would have just left. I asked Craig what we could do and he offered to go back to the apartment where we had smaller bills. If we weren’t in the middle of our only downpour we’ve experienced in Italy, I would not have hesitated. Plus, he didn’t have a jacket or umbrella. I asked him if he would at least change his shirt (shoulders already sopping wet) when he got there, and he said, No. I figured it was his decision, and prayed I wouldn’t be paying for this later. I agreed to have him go back to the apartment, while I anxiously waited and not-so-much enjoyed my drink. After he had been gone awhile, thunder started to cackle loudly and there were a few spurts of lightning. I was watching down the street for him from a window at the café’s bar. I put my hands over my face praying he would be carrying an umbrella back with him. After some time, I saw a brown umbrella bouncing down the street with Craig attached to it. We paid for my latte, and I gave him a big kiss and told him that he was my hero.

We trekked towards St. Peter’s. While the rain made it quite uncomfortable, it also helped to diminish a lot of traffic and crowds. I ended up becoming desperate and wearing the rain poncho, but still got soaked until just above my knees. We only had to wait less than a minute while going through security to get into the basilica. Because of the rain, I didn’t get as many pictures outside as I normally would have.

After leaving the church, we saw a post office right by it. We popped in and discovered that it was indeed going to cost at least 2 euro to send each post card. We would have bought them there, but didn’t have enough cash for our 33 postcards we wanted to send. (So, if you get a postcard from us know that it cost close to $3-4 and we love you!!! And, if you didn’t get one from us, we still love you but already spent all the money we could!)

We started to walk towards the area of the Trastavere. We wanted to start at the Santa Maria of Trastevere, but eventually got lost. Before telling Craig for the third time that we had walked in the wrong direction I sat him down and said, “Craig, if you would like to go back to the apartment, we can because we are again walking in the wrong direction.” He immediately said, “YES.” to giving up on Trastevere. I said I wanted him to take on navigating our way home because I wanted to be the follower for awhile. We stopped at a café for lunch and made our way home.

We ate at Napoli Bella a recommended restaurant  around the corner from our apartment for dinner. Overall, I thought it was okay. We had fried zucchini stuffed with anchovies and cheese for our antipasta, a mushroom pasta for first course, and swordfish for our second course. Craig and I both agreed that the fried zucchini was good, but we needed some ranch or blue cheese dressing!! (There’s so much more American in me than I ever thought.) The mushroom pasta seemed simple: oil, parsley, and mushrooms, but it was surprisingly rich with the mushrooms so I could only eat so much of it. And the swordfish was again, okay, I liked the capers on it. But overall I’d say I was a bit disappointed because we had walked by several times and everyone’s food looked so good! We did get tiramisu to go, and that was delicious in the comfort of our apartment.

Rome, Italy June 25

Craig and I slept in and headed for the beach. This was beach day #2, and was so much more smooth than the first attempt. It rained in the morning, but cleared up by the time we got off at Santa Marinella. I packed some sandwiches, a brownie, cherries, pears, and waters.

The beach was practically empty! 10 Euro for an umbrella and a chair.

So glad to have some stress free days!

The red flag was up, which meant swimming wasn't safe. Craig still got in about waist high. The waves knocked him off balance a couple times. I mostly just stayed back, ankle deep, and yelled at him to come closer to shore.

Craig tuckered out. It wasn't hot or very sunny, but still relaxing. The waves were great ambiance.

We headed back and had leftover pasta for dinner, and tiramisu for dessert.

Rome, Italy June 24

We were planning on going to St. Peter's Basilica this day, but after TTSSMO was over... we really needed a chill day. I had slept for 13 hours and felt pretty groggy. We both agreed to relax for the day and prepare for our friends, Maddie and Devin to come over. We went to the market and got veggies, chicken, and pasta.

We went back to the apartment to drop off groceries and headed to a place called Fabio for lunch. It had good reviews and was close. I was feeling pretty shaky by this time because I hadn't eaten much after my sleeping binge. There was a line out the door, which is always a good sign to me. The place was being run by two guys, kind of like I Due Fratinelli, but not as speedy. We got sandwiches and fresh squeezed juice (carrot and peach). I felt pretty good while there because I helped a French girl translate some of the menu with my knowledge of Italian.

After eating we went back to rest more and pick up the apartment. Maddie and Devin arrived and we showed them around our apartment. I'm glad they could come over because I felt we needed to use the space a bit! They complimented the apartment and I said, "I feel like I should say 'thank you,' but it's not mine!" We ate pasta with roasted veggies and chicken, bread, and salad. We visited a while and then went for gelato. I had pistacchio and dark chocolate which has been my favorite combo so far.

We said good bye to Maddie and Devin as it would be our last time seeing them in Italy. They headed off to Amsterdam and then back to France. It was so nice to share our time with them. It gave us people to share our daily experiences with while here, and a bit of fresh air to our conversations. Craig even mentioned traveling to Ireland with them! I'm so on board for that!

Rome/Naples/Pompeii, Italy June 23

It has taken me awhile to write this because it took forever to upload all of the pictures! There are close to 80, so I'm going to try to keep the writing in the captions of the photos.

However, getting to Pompeii is something I need to explain because it's the last day of TTSSMOE. If you don't know what that is, visit my post for June 21. We received and e-mail from our tour company telling us to watch out for a specific train. I wrote the train's times down and gave it to the person helping us buy tickets the day before. They explained it was a train we could just hop onto with our euro pass and didn't need a ticket. So, the morning of our trip I looked up the number of the train and saw that it was: Autobus NA21474 (or something like that). I thought it was weird that it said autobus, but we're in a different country so, "Who knows!?!" Our trip to Naples on the train went just fine, but when we got off and tried to look for our Autobus "train" it wasn't very clear. We saw a sign for terminal buses, showed an employee the number I'd written down, and he pointed us in the direction. We followed this long hallway that past several other hallways and eventually ended up outside. I went ahead and figured that the Autobus was actually a bus, but still wasn't sure. It was so frustrating because there was no one official-looking to ask for help, plus we only had 10 minutes to find the right mode of transportation! So, we went to the loading area for the buses, I asked one driver and he pretty much told me he didn't know by flailing his arms at me. We started to walk away from the loading area and I could feel the tears coming because it was happening again! Not knowing what to do or who to ask and on top of it, we were on a time crunch to get on our way and meet our tour guide by 11:30am.  I saw two men that were wearing the same shirt and figured I'd give it another go and ask them. The first guy I asked didn't know, but his co-worker took my paper with the information and pointed to the bus all the way at the end of the loading area. He pretty much said it would be that bu or the next one. So, we went down and the driver looked at my paper very briefly and waved for us to get on the bus.

As we left the station, I had a funny, uneasy feeling that it just wasn't right. More and more people kept getting on the bus to the point that there were no more seats and at least 15 people were left standing. And it wasn't like the metro where standing is a normal thing and they have bars for you to hold onto. Anyways, we began making our way into and through the city. People talk about going to foreign countries and being on crazy taxi rides, well this was one of those, but on a giant bus. This driver was on and off his cell phone and the two way streets were the size of one of our one car lanes. He honked his way through the city making people move and back up. At one point there was an ambulance trying to get by us but because there was a line of traffic going the opposite way, we had to keep moving forward. I could quickly see that we would be late, so I e-mailed the tour company, told them what was going on and that I wasn't sure if I was on the right train/bus.

To make this already long story short, we were on the wrong mode of transportation and got taken to the other side of Pompeii and arrive at this spot 30 minutes after our tour was supposed to have started. It was frustrating because I feel the tour company should have let us know the train they were talking about wasn't with Trenitalia (the most popular train company), it was with a different route that isn't even covered by our EuroPass. When Craig and I finally got off the bus and realized we needed to get to a different location, I immediately wanted to take a taxi which would take us less than 5 minutes and cost 10 Euro, while walking would take 15-20 of a walk and be free. I'm sure Craig's parents can guess what he wanted to do. However, I was pretty adamant about taking the taxi because we were already late. Craig was not happy, but I figured we'd be miserable either way. So, maybe getting to Pompeii quicker would help us shift our moods.

 

So, this picture means we made it! This is the very beginning.

Our guide explained that the Pompeii we look at today is actually built on top of another civilization that was buried under another explosion's debris. (I may have screwed that explanation up a bit.) This picture shows that by seeing the structures on the bottom, and then the blob of lava rock towards the right, and then more structures on top of that.

The front part of the "park" is beautiful and well shaded, while the rest of the ruins are all sunny. Our guide (Elisa) explained that this area we were in used to be the sea before the eruption.

This is kind of like a common area outside of the theatre where food and such would be sold for performances.

Different dressing rooms and such for actors/performers/gladiators.

Another view of this area.

This is our guide, Elisa. While her and I were talking the mayor of Pompeii walked by us as well as some people filming us. Maybe I will be on Italian TV?

This is the inside of one of the theaters. Elisa explained that the upper class got to sit the closest, and then the middle class and women sat in the last rows. She explained that one of the rulers agreed to let the women watch, but only if they sat in the back because women would obviously talk a lot.

The stands/seats are made of lava rock while....

The stage is made of pieces of marble.

Elisa said they did this because it helps the sound project. And she was so right! She had us stand in this spot and even just talking with our regular voices you could hear that it was loader. It was pretty cool.

View of the roads and structures along them.

You can even seen the wheel tracks!

This was an elevated crosswalk that kept pedestrians from walking in the street's sewage water.

Elisa demonstrating.

You would see these holes along the sides of the roads. They were meant for people to tied down their carriages.

This is a shop that probably sold food. These were stoves that would heat terracotta pots.

Example of their stone walls.

I thought this decorative element was cool.

The outside of an upper-class home. See the rectangle with writing on the right of the doorway?

This is the name of the family that owns the home. It's the original paint!

This is the inside of a different upper-class home. This is a religious altar right by the front doorway.

All of the paint on the walls is original. It has only been brushed, no wiping with water or anything.

This is the foyer after you enter the front door. The couple is standing where the front door is. There is an opening in the roof above that lets light and rainwater in. The rainwater would be drained and used for cleaning or watering the garden.

Column inside the home

Interior wall paintings. I thought it was interesting to see these because it's so many years ago, but they wanted to cover their walls with art, too.

Interior Wall Art.

Interior Wall Art.

Interior Wall Art.

Interior Wall Art.

Interior Wall Art.

Garden in the middle of the home.

Another view of the garden. They also had the original specie of plants growing because when they did their research, they were able to identify which specie it was.

Mosaic floors of the family's sauna room.

Family's sauna room.

Family religious altar towards the back of the house.

This was towards the back of the house/garden. It was said to be a writer (name starts with an "M") that the owner of the house liked. I thought it would be the equivalent of a person wanting a band poster on their wall.

Remember when I said Pompeii was built on top of another town that had been destroyed by a volcanic eruption? Well, these were actual human remains they were able to dig up from below this home. They were preserved because of those layers.

Another wall art close up.

Another view of us and the walls.

A bakery and it's oven in the back.

A water fountain. The spout is new of course, but everything else is original.

Another view of the structures and streets.

These marble blocks were put out in front of all public buildings to let people know they were public spaces.

This was a gymnasium for men to play sports. The area straight ahead was a latrine. She told us how they eventually learned they could sell their own urine as a cleaning product. Eventually, the government put a tax on the urine because it was becoming such a popular thing for people to sell.

This is another view of the gymnasium. I was still a little confused on the whole cleaning with urine part. I've heard it's sterile, but cleaning with it? Apparently, Elisa said, it has ammonia in it so it does indeed clean things. To deal with the smell, they would burn plants and the smoke and fumes would mask the urine smell. This is where the word perfume comes from. "Per/For Fume" When I asked her about the whole urine cleaning thing she kept saying "It is perfect! It is perfect!" Still confused.

This is a women's locker room that leads into the public baths. She explained that to preserve women's fertility, they were not allowed to do the cool baths. Only tepid and warm.

The lockers for their belongings.

Some ancient graffiti right here!

Another view of the women's locker room.

The ceiling of the Men's locker room. Much more elaborate than the women's!

More decor in the Men's area.

This is what we usually see in the books when we read about Pompeii. I didn't realized this part though. These aren't vitrified human bodies. They are plaster casts of the cavities that were left after the bodies broke down. The ash surrounding the bodies would crumble if touched, but plaster could be poured through the tunnels and cavities to show the forms.

It actually picked up a lot of detail. You could see the folds and outlines of their clothing.

Also, on the inside of the plaster is the skeletons which didn't disintegrate.

More detail.

The men's sauna. This was a platform built recently, but helps show how the floor below them was hollow which is how they heated the rooms.

This is leading to one of the more interesting parts of the tour: the brothels.

This was a private brothel, just one room right off the street. She explained it was private, more expensive, and the men weren't required to wear protection like in the public brothel. This is the bed and stone made from a pillow. Elisa said they had some type of cushion to go over it.

This is the outside of the brothel, and the aperture above the window is supposed to be the obvious giveaway for the brothel, without actually putting out a sign.

Elisa laughed while pointing out the deep grooves from the carriages in front of the brothel because it was obviously a high traffic area.

The front of the public brothel.

One of the rooms.

Elisa explained that this was graffiti on the wall claiming that the woman who worked in this room had an STD.

Another room. Those stone pillows crack me up.

After we had left the brothel and been walking for awhile and looking at other things, Elisa pointed this out and directions for sailors to know where the brothel is.

A closer look in case you couldn't see it from the last one. Yes. That's a penis.

Us in Pompeii's square with Mt. Vesuvius behind us.

Columns in the square

Another thing that was interesting is that the volcano that destroyed Pompeii actually wasn't Mt. Vesuvius. It was the mount right next to it. It started with an "M" and I tried finding the name of it, but it's so widely accepted that it's Mt. Vesuvius, because it's the bigger one.

Elisa told us at one point these two Mounts were actually one giant volcano. I can't even imagine because they were already so huge.

More columns in the square.

These were cool reflective rocks (the white ones) that Elisa said they used at night to be able to see the road.

The view while leaving the ruins.

Looking back on what we were leaving.

Elisa helped us get back on the correct, quick train back to Naples. We were also able to switch out our ticket from Naples to Rome for an hour earlier. When we got home, I showered and went straight to bed at 7:30pm, and didn't wake up until 8:30 the next morning. I slept through dinner! I woke up at some point in the night and felt hungry, but remember thinking, "I'm more tired than hungry." So I kept sleeping. It was much needed.