Italy: Sunday in Rome

This post is a bit late.  We had some friends staying with us for a few days and now Darren's family is starting to arrive for their 2.5-week tour of Switzerland, Germany, and Denmark.  I'm finishing this post while the new arrivals are taking a nap to recover from their jet lag.  :) 

We began our first full day in Rome on Sunday by visiting the Coliseum.  We had bought a Roma Pass that let us get in a special line, but the regular line at 9:30 am really wasn't that long.  Ready with our great (and FREE!) Rick Steves' audio guides on our music players, we walked around the Coliseum as we listened to his commentary.  The guide explained how the games at the Coliseum came about, how they operated, and what happened to the Coliseum over time.  We learned how the Coliseum was built on the old site of the hated Emperor Nero's manmade lake in 72 AD.

The ruins of the Coliseum

A shot of me next to a cross erected in memory of Christian martyrs who may have been persecuted or killed during the games (they're not really sure if that happened here or not)

The small holes in the walls are where people stole iron from the structure after it fell into disrepair

The marble blocks you see here would have been the prime seats for watching events in the arena

The Arch of Constantine, celebrating Constantine's rise to power, as seen from the Coliseum

Darren and the Arch of Constantine

The original arena floor is gone, but you can see the passageways below where slaves and staff prepared gladiators, wild animals, and scenery for shows.  There were trap doors in the floor to send things up to the main stage. 

A great picture of the Coliseum by Darren

After visiting the Coliseum, we walked across the street to see the Roman Forum.  In ancient times, this small valley was the main "downtown" area of Rome, where many temples and government buildings were located.  Again, we walked around as we listened to our audio guides and learned about the structures that once existed around the forum.  I'm sure back in the day the forum was an amazing sight to see, with tall, grand buildings all covered with beautiful white marble.  However, the remaining ruins show only a few columns or stones of most buildings, so it was hard to visualize how breathtaking it used to be.

Another arch, this one celebrating the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 AD

While on our trips, I've recently thought about how all this history we are learned is coming together and intertwining.  For example, we went to Jerusalem and learned about how the Romans completely devastated the temple and other precious sites, while also capturing and killing many rebellious Jews.  Then in Rome, we saw this arch (pictured above) commemorating that occasion and learned how it was built by those Jews that were taken as slaves.  What an amazing way to learn history!  I think we'll see more examples of this when we visit Berlin in 2 weeks.  This is a thrilling way to gain an education.

Basilica of Constantine, an enormous building used like a courthouse and city hall.  These vaults were actually just one side of the building.

Remnants of the Temple of Vesta, where a sacred flame always burned and was tended by virgins

Inside the well-preserved building where the Roman Senate met

Yet another arch that Darren and I admired for the intricate relief sculptures

Remnants of the Temple of Saturn, an important place of worship in Roman times

A stadium that was formerly part of the imperial palace (home of the emperors) on Palatine Hill, next to the Roman Forum

We took a break from ancient Roman history after Palatine Hill to see more modern Italian history. We visited the beautiful Victor Emmanuel Monument.  Victor Emmanuel helped to unify Italy in the 19th century and became king of the new nation.  This grand building reminded us that this probably was how all the buildings in the Roman Forum might have looked back in the day.  We walked up some stairs to take in the view from the observation deck.  Afterward, we headed next door to tour the Capitoline Museum, which first began in 1471.  The two buildings that make up the Capitoline Museum house a variety of art pieces (primarily sculptures) across a wide range of historical periods,  from ancient Roman times through recent Italian history. 

The grand Victor Emmanuel Monument

Pieces of the gigantic statue of Constantine that used to be in the Roman Forum

This is like those big foam fingers they hold up at basketball games, except harder to wave around when your team scores.  :) 

The beautiful galleries inside the Capitoline Museum

Not only were the statues great, but the rooms were beautifully done

The famous statue of Medusa done by Bernini

A sculpture of the birth of Rome: Romulus and Remus being raised by a she-wolf

The museum also had great views across the parts of the forum that we'd seen earlier in the day

The cafeteria on the top floor had an amazing view of Rome, with St. Peter's (the most distant church, between the other two domes) in the background

After finishing at the museum, we headed over to the Spanish Steps.  Man, were they disappointing!  They weren't architecturally interesting, and were just jam-packed with tourists and annoying merchants.  So we walked on to visit a large park (called the Villa Borghese) near the Spanish Steps to rest.  The park wasn't very nice -- it was in need of some maintenance -- but we rested for a while on a bench and and then headed toward the Piazza del Popolo to have dinner at a place recommended by one of our guide books.  We chose to eat inside since I don't like smelling smoke while I'm eating (and people in Europe tend to smoke when they sit on the patio at restaurants), but there was no one else inside the restaurant.  That was totally fine with us, but it was just funny that we were the only ones there.   The restaurant wasn't busy in general, but we thought the food was good.  Haven't had a bad meal in Italy yet!

The disappointing Spanish Steps

A more distant view of the Victor Emmanuel Monument from the Villa Borghese

Our empty restaurant where we had dinner

One more Rome post left to do!  Hopefully I'll get a chance to write it soon, but I make no promises while the Bakers are in town.  :)  

Italy: Amalfi Coast and Rome

We woke up early on Saturday morning to head out to the Sorrento harbor.  We knew we wanted to take a boat cruise around the Amalfi Coast, but we hadn't been able to get any trusted information on the internet or even at the docks when we went down there the night before.  We just had to show up the next morning and ask around to find out what boat was going where and when it was leaving.  Oh Italy. We did end up finding a boat that was going all the way around the coast.  We had wanted to stop in Positano, but they only run two boats a day and we didn't have time to be in Positano all day, so we just took the boat all the way to Salerno.  It was a beautiful 90-minute boat cruise though, and the boat was not crowded at all.  I was worried about crowds since most tour books said that Italians flee to the coasts in August to escape the heat, but maybe it was still early in the season for Italian tourists.

The island of Capri, another popular tourist destination

A small, rocky island just off the coast

Part of the resort town of Positano

The other side of Positano

Interesting rock formation along the coast

The town of Amalfi behind me

Darren enjoying the view

The huge container ship we followed into the Salerno harbor

The view along the whole boat ride was wonderful and it would have been great to spend all weekend on the Amalfi Coast!  But we had to get back to Rome and it was nice to at least spend one day there.  We got off the boat at the city of Salerno, which is at the other end of the Amalfi Coast.  We walked over to the train station to see that the next train that we could get on to Rome wasn't for two hours.  So we got our tickets and then just enjoyed a long lunch and the beautiful waterfront promenade.

The city of Salerno

The waterfront promenade in Salerno

We finally got on the train back to Rome with a transfer in Naples.  We originally had a 20-minute layover in Naples, but once again our train was late and we had to run to the next train.  We took the high-speed train from Naples to Rome, which seem to be the only trains that run on time.  So we barely got on the train as they were blowing the whistle to leave, but we at least got to Rome on time.  It took us some time to get tickets for the subway and get to our hotel, but we were glad to finally arrive and not have to carry our heavy bags around.  We stayed at the Hotel Barberini, which is next to Piazza Barberini.  This was a great location because we could walk to a lot of things.  

We got settled in our hotel room and went out at about 6:30 pm to see some of the outdoor sites and get something to eat.  Our hotel was very close to Trevi Fountain, so that was our first stop.  We were walking down a small, tourist-filled street trying to get our bearings, when we just run into this massive and beautiful fountain!  What a great way to start out in Rome!  We both really liked the fountain, despite the hundreds of tourists crammed around it.

Trevi Fountain in Rome

The fountain may be named after Trivia, the girl who was said to have discovered a spring here in ancient times.  An aqueduct was built here by Agrippa in 19 BC, but the fountain that is here today was built in 1762.  The fountain shows Neptune in the middle with two Tritons, each with a seahorse.  The right relief up above shows a virgin discovering the spring and the left relief shows Augustus commanding Agrippa to build an aqueduct here.  The fountain is very impressive, and impressively clean!

The fountain was built on the side of a building

After visiting the fountain, we had dinner at a restaurant around the corner called L'Archetto.  The restaurant served mostly just spaghetti, but they have over 100 pasta sauces for the spaghetti.  Literally, the pasta sauce list on the menu was five or six pages!  Darren had a pumpkin sauce and I had an artichoke sauce.  I thought both were delicious (I always try/finish Darren's food).  I would recommend this place to anyone.

At our cozy table at L'Archetto

After a great, relaxing dinner, we walked over to see the Piazza Navona, but ran into the Pantheon on the way.  I will explain more about this post later when we actually went inside to visit it.  We arrived at Piazza Navona to see the place packed with people enjoying the warm, summer night and all the spectacles to see.  There were lots of performers, artists selling their goods, and many many people trying to sell you knock-off purses and sunglasses.  They weren't aggressive though, which was nice.

The Pantheon lit up at night

Piazza Navona still filled with lots of people late at night

Another beautiful fountain, this one done by Bernini to represent four major rivers (one from each of the continents of Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas)

Me next to the fountain, which was also very clean and nicely lit

We wandered around some more of Rome and I was just amazed by the massive amounts of people that were out and about late at night.  Everyone was out enjoying a lovely Roman Saturday night at restaurants and gelaterias.  We eventually headed back to our hotel and passed by the Trevi Fountain again where there were even more tourists mobbing it than before.  Darren was lucky to be able to get pictures of it without any tourists in the shot. 

The Trevi Fountain beautifully lit up at night

It was a great day!

Italy: Pompei and Sorrento

This past weekend, Darren and I went to Italy!  Last weekend was a three-day weekend here in Switzerland because August 1st is Swiss National Day, which is like the Swiss version of the 4th of July.  We originally were going to stick around Switzerland to do some hiking and see some more beautiful mountains, but when we got close enough to the weekend to view the weather forecast, it showed nothing but rain.  We didn't want to be stuck at home for the last Swiss holiday before Christmas (yes, I'm not kidding you, there are no full days off between August 1st and Christmas), so Darren suggested at the last minute that we should go to Rome instead.  Rome was one of the last major cities left on our list of must-see places for our time in Europe, and we hadn't planned to visit it until September or October, but the free three-day weekend changed our minds.  We quickly organized our itinerary over a period of about two days and left Zurich on Thursday night!  

When we arrived in Rome late in the evening, we were introduced to the Italian version of transportation when the express train from the airport to Rome just showed up whenever it felt like it.  We just stayed the night at a Best Western near the train station and left Rome the next morning to see Pompei.  Though both our trains were delayed, we finally arrived in Pompei around 1 pm.  As most of us learned in some world history class, Pompei is an ancient Roman city that was devastated by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD.  About 2,000 of the town's 20,000 residents weren't able to escape as the volcanic ash settled on the city; the town and the victims were buried and forgotten until they were rediscovered in the 18th century and excavations began. 

The train station was right at the entrance of the archaeological site, along with some stands to get food from.  We ate a sandwich from one of the stands for lunch before entering the park.  The Pompei site scored some big points with us because it had free luggage storage (we had our luggage with us since we were traveling on after Pompei) and there were water faucets everywhere around the site to fill up water bottles, in order to stay hydrated in the hot sun.

One unfortunate thing is that most sites in Italy apparently don't put up many signs to read at their famous sites.  Instead they want you to buy audio guides or pay for guided tours.  Well, we did a brilliant thing and instead downloaded the free Rick Steves audio guides that he has for Pompei and the major sites in Rome.  The commentary was cheesy at times, but we were able to learn all about these important sites for free!  We spent four hours at Pompei (it is quite large) while we listened to the audio commentary off and on.  We learned a lot and saw a bunch of fascinating things, but I had to limit my pictures to just the ones below.

My favorite part, the forum, which is like the main square

Old columns with Latin text

The remnants of the main temple for worship of the gods in the forum

The forum in Roman times was their main square where major government buildings, shops, and religious sites were located.  I really liked the forum at Pompei because the building ruins around it were just complete enough that I could really picture what it was like to live in Pompei in 79 AD.  In the video below, Darren was nice enough to give a quick tour of the forum for us to remember it.

Another great thing about Pompei was actually all the little details that you were able to understand about everyday life.  For example, the ancient Romans would frequently flood their streets to keep them clean, so the sidewalks were elevated to keep people's feet dry.  To get across the street, instead of stepping down onto the wet street, elevated stones were built into the road for people to walk across.  The gaps between the stones were wide enough for chariots to still get through (all Romans chariot axles were a standard size).  Additionally, the number of stones showed whether it was a one-way or two-way street.  Also, you can see below in one of the pictures that there are three tall vertical stones blocking the end of the road.  This meant that the area beyond the stones was for pedestrians only and chariots were not allowed to enter.  Ingenious, eh?  City areas all over the world still use similar barriers to control access to pedestrian areas.  Details like these really made me feel like I knew what it was like to live in a Roman city.

Three stones marking the crosswalk for pedestrians 

Walking across the street just as Romans did 2,000 years

The tall stones marking the beginning (actually, the ending; from this point of view, you're seeing the street) of a pedestrian area

Even many statues were preserved at Pompei

Everyone's favorite part of Pompei is seeing the people who didn't escape and were covered in volcanic ash.  Some of the volcano's victims were clearly trying to protect themselves from the ash that covered them, but their bodies were covered so quickly that their poses at the time they died were preserved.  Over centuries, their bodies decomposed, leaving bones and human-shaped holes in the hardened volcanic material.  Archaeologists discovered these imprints and cleverly filled them with plaster to preserve the shapes of the victims before digging out all the ash.  It's a bit sad to think about how these people died, but also cool that we can see their last moments from 2,000 years ago.  

One person hiding from the destruction

Another terrified resident who died in the eruption

A steam room in a public bath house, lots of great engineering went into this room

Most Romans didn't have a kitchen in their apartment so they ate out at "fast food" places like this one

See the deep ruts from the constant chariot traffic along this road?

The main amphitheater of Pompei

Darren at the smaller amphitheater

 A view of some of the town's outer walls

I really enjoyed going to Pompei and obviously the experience was so much better with a guided tour.  The Romans were great engineers, and were very orderly.  It also seems like life was pretty good for city-dwellers during those times.  

After visiting Pompei, we got back on the train and went south for another 30 minutes to reach the town of Sorrento.  This is the beginning of the region in Italy called the Amalfi Coast.  This region is a lot like Cinque Terre with its clear blue water, rocky shores, little towns built precariously on the sides of the cliffs, and brightly painted buildings in the towns.  The scenery was beautiful, as promised.  We spent the rest of the evening walking around the main streets of Sorrento, and we also went down to the shore to take in the scenery.  We went back to our room for the night, but enjoyed listening to an Italian opera singer serenade the diners at a restaurant just below us.  It was great!

The view from our balcony at our hotel in Sorrento

Our hotel room in Sorrento

The pizza place where we had dinner

Looking up at the buildings on the cliff from the shore

Me on the Sorrento shore with Mount Vesuvius in the background

Me and Darren at the Amalfi Coast

Darren from up above the Sorrento harbor

Our cute hotel

That's all I can fit in this post today, so more next time!