While everyone thinks that Europe is awesome (and it is) because of the train system, you are wrong. Well, partly wrong. The trains are awesome, but depending on where you are going they are EXPENSIVE. Definitely a surprise. It is not as inexpensive to travel by train as it use to be. For example, train tickets to Rome were upward of 300euro. So we debated driving. Long drive. 6hours. Not a winner. Especially because parking in Rome is ridiculous and once again very expensive. So we decided to drive to a little town about 4 hours away and catch the train into Rome from there. We were able to park our car for free and experience the train! It was a pretty great deal. The drive was beautiful- we drove through the Tuscany and Umbria regions. Parts were covered in snow. Untouched snow. You could see it for miles. And every once and while you could see where the animals had roamed. It was beautiful.
Fun fact of the journey: We didn't have our GPS. I had let a friend borrow it the week before so she could get to church and completely forgot about it until we were pulling out of our street! For some reason, I had pulled up the directions to the train station on the ipad and we were able to navigate our way through Italy via ipad directions. Once again, not as easy as it should be...our iPad isn't 3G, so we just had directions and a picture of a map. Thank goodness for James' ability to read maps!
Orvieto train station=why I am not a good traveler. I just want to know what to do. It really shouldn't be that hard, but for some reason we struggled. Well, maybe not struggled, but just took a little while to figure out everything we were doing. And somehow my broken Italian was able to help us figure out where to validate the tickets. We got on the train. Safe and sound. And headed into Rome.
Another fun fact: Rome as 2 train stations. TWO. Rick Steve's did not prepare us for this. We picked the right one though.
Once we got into the city, we bought the ROMA pass. I highly recommend this pass!! It is 30euro for 3 days. You get free admission into 2 sites (so go to the most expensive ones first- Colosseum and The Roman Forum) and reduced prices at other galleries and sites, but the real deal is that you get all of your transportation for free! Buses and Metro.
Rome's public transportation: Gross, gross and gross. We were definitely spoiled in Paris. Also, the metro system is not very accessible, but the buses went everywhere.
We stayed at this awesome little bed and breakfast. We got coffee and a pastry every morning at the cafe next door, free internet, Italian Tv (which is so entertaining), and the ladies that ran it were so helpful and showed us where everything was on a map and how to get around!
Another fun fact: SUPER disappointed in the food. I had only one dish that really good- it is a traditional Roman dish called Caio e peppe (pronounced like catch-eh eh pep-eh). It is basically spagehetti with pepper and 2 different types of cheeses- caico de roma and pecorino de romano)
The first day we walked. A lot. We spent the morning at the Vatican Museum, Sistine Chapel, and St. Peter's Basilica. The museum was pretty cool- there were a LOT of things to look at. It kind of reminded me of the Louvre. We spent a lot of time looking at all of the sculptures and tapestries- which were unreal. The best part was the Sistine Chapel. It was beautiful. I had no idea. We listened to a Rick Steve's podcast about it- so we picked a seat on the side and sat there for 25ish minutes while he explained everything to us. I am so glad that we did that! It really put things into perspective and he pointed out some incredible details that I would never have understood or probably seen. I think the best part of the ceiling was seeing Michaelagenlo's rendition of God creating Adam. It is such a popular painting, but seeing in context- beside all of the other frescoes, was seriously unbelievable. James and I decided that the whole trip was worth seeing the Sistine Chapel.
Sadly, something was going on at St. Peter's so we were unable to get inside or climb the dome. But we did get to hear some absolutely beautiful music that they were broadcasting from inside the basilica.
The rest of the day was spent running around and seeing the Spanish Steps, the Trevi Fountain, the Pantheon, Campo di Fiori, and Piazza Navona. It was exhausting. But as we wondered our way through Rome, we were able to see some beautiful buildings and eat some tasty gelato! Piazza Navona was our favorite. There were so many vendors and painters! And the beautiful baroque church that lined the square. We even caught a little show put on by some traveling artists- bare stage, minimalist costumes, absolutely hysterical even though we could not totally understand.
Funny moments throughout this day: James almost took out one of the men trying to hand out roses at the Spanish Steps. He would not leave us alone, kept trying to put roses in my hand, then finally got them in my hand after he told us we didn't need to pay him, and then harassed us for money anyway. James was over it and finally got in in face and told him to back off. Then...as we were wandering around, we had stopped to pull out our map to see what our next turn would be and this man came up to us- only speaking Italian. We thought he was asking for directions so we pointed him in the way of the Spanish Steps- but he kept on trying to get us to follow him and then trying to get us to go somewhere. We tried to tell him that we knew were we were going and that we weren't lost, but I haven't learned those words in Italian yet...so it turned into a game of charades. Once again, irritated, we walked away and he threw his hands in the air at us. Oh well.
We ended our night in Trastevere. It's this artsy little area in the south east area of Rome. We were really trying to find this chocolate bar that we had been told about and another Rick Steve's recommended trattoria, but it was a bust. We ended up in some sketchy area and we were starving to death, so we picked out a random place to eat. Pretty good homemade ravioli with mushrooms and prosciutto. Getting home was a whole other adventure in and of itself, but we somehow figured it out. The good thing about big cities is that the public transportation system is usually pretty dummy proof, so once we figured it out we were good to go. Once we figured it out.
The next day, we slept in a little bit and then enjoyed the rest of the day at the Colosseum, Palentine Hill, and the Roman Forum. We even got to see a Bolivian parade in front of the Capitol. The ancient remains were awesome. All of the marble and columns is what I had envisioned in my head of Rome. I have a hard time even comprehending how the Romans were able to build such magnificent buildings!
Today was the day that we did not eat very Italian. McDonald's for lunch and sushi for dinner. That evening turned into a rainy one and we were unable to get reservations at the Borhgese gallery, so we called it a night and enjoyed a little walk around the neighborhood we stayed in.
Now, I wouldn't really mention the drive home, except for the fact that we drove through a snow storm. James drove us through it. I hate driving beside trucks- and there were way too many on the road, let alone the fact that we were driving in the mountains. So when the snow storm hit, I was glad to be sitting in the passenger seat!
This picture looks a little more like rain- but at this point you couldn't even see the trees that were right beside us to see all of the snow on them, and then I got distracted.
.jpg)
Last funny story and then I'll stop. So for some reason on the way down to Orvieto we didn't listen to music or a podcast. James was sleeping and I couldn't reach the iPad...Did I mention that we don't have a radio in our car, yea... So on the way back home I was tried to play a playlist on the iPad. SOMEHOW I had deleted ALL of my music except Celine Dion Christmas, Carolina Girls, and Body Language. Did you know that James hates Celine Dion? He does. So we listened to Carolina Girls and Body Language on repeat for a while until the snow storm hit. Then it was concentration time.
No comments:
Post a Comment