Romaaaaa per Pasqua! ....for Easter

Another magical trip. Allie and I woke up early on Friday and took the 3.5 hour train from Florence to Rome, where we met up with Nick and checked into “David’s Flat” – our hostel only ten minutes walk from the Colosseum. Since the room wasn’t ready yet (typical Italy), the three of us wandered down to the Colosseum while we waited for my roomie Eva and her roommate to arrive from Germany. The walk was a little sketchy, through a park full of what looked like homeless people and down a gravelly hill of youngsters playing soccer among broken Heineken bottles. At the bottom, the Colosseum loomed before us all of a sudden – a huge stone ruin in the middle of a busy rotary, cars churning incessantly around it. Rome is a strange contrast of urban against ancient, modernity against dilapidation. I sipped a cappuccino gazing out at our first view of this city of newness and ruin, amazed that it took only a few hours to go from quaint Florence to bustling Rome.

After Eva and Macey arrived, we set out for the Trevi Fountain and the Spanish Steps. All of the ruins (Colosseum, Palatine Hill and the Forum) were closed Friday because the area was preparing to host the Pope that night for a pre-Easter cross-carrying ceremony. So, we landed at the beautiful Trevi fountain among hundreds of other tourists, tossed coins in the crystal blue water for good luck and started our trip out right. Us girls talked about the part in the Lizzie Mcguire Movie when Hillary Duff visits this fountain, while Nick looked on with confusion. We grabbed gelato – our first of I think 4 gelato stops on this trip – and went over to the Spanish Steps nearby. No one was really sure what the Steps signify or why they’re called Spanish, but they are a pretty breathtaking part of the city. The Steps were over-crowded while we were there, covered in tourists and Italians basking in the day’s sun that shone on the hundred-or-so sparkling marble stairs. At the bottom is another boat-shaped fountain which also signifies something I can’t remember. But, either way, the Spanish Steps are a must-see in Rome and provided us with a nice rest from our full day of walking (since we had gone all the way to the Colosseum only to find it was closed). After, we visited the “world’s largest, most lavish” McDonald’s down the street – a necessary stop for our group of American youth who obviously depend on McD’s as a part of our daily lives. It was pretty big, and yes, there was a large gold ‘M.’ I guess I was impressed.

Then, we headed home to meet Anna – me, Eva and Nick’s friend from GW – at the hostel, where she had flown in from San Francisco. With the whole group finally together, we went to dinner at a restaurant recommended in my Rick Steves’ Italy guidebook. Did I mention that I LOVE guidebooks now? Kind of weird I know, but Rick Steves is the best, and always has great day-guides and tips on how to skip lines, eat at the best gelato places etc. Anyway, Rick led us to a good place, where we enjoyed pasta and tiramisu with the Colosseum glowing in the background. The waiter called Nick “maestro” and “boss” since he was dining in the company of five lovely girls; it was funny. And when we finished, we continued on to the main area of ruins, where the Pope was doing a ceremony on the hill of the Roman Forum, overlooking the Colosseum. It was about 9:00 at night and all the ruins were gorgeous, lit up against the night sky and surrounded with thousands of people holding candles for this Easter vigil. We stood on a hill by the ruins that gave us a pretty good view of the Pope and the crowd; Anna and I perched on the tires of parked cars to get a better view and I even sat on Nick’s shoulders like a five-year-old for a while. I’m too short for this stuff! But it was a fantastic start to the trip, gathering with so many people to witness Benedict XVI speak in Latin and Italian about God knows what. Still, this couldn’t even prepare us for the awesomeness of Easter mass on Sunday…more on that later.

On Saturday, we decided to do the humungous Vatican Museum and Saint Peter’s Basilica, the largest church in all of Christendom that sits grandly in the huge piazza of Vatican City. I had heard that the lines for the Vatican could be pretty long, especially because we were there at the peak of tourist season and also Easter weekend, but nothing could prepare us for the sight of thousands of people circling a six block radius around the museum when we arrived. It was utter chaos, and we finally gave in to the third English-speaking tour guide who approached us asking if we wanted to skip the line – even if we had to pay a tiny fortune to do it. In the beating sun, we agreed to the 35 euro price and figured it was worth it to ensure our entrance to the museum before it closed, since the line would have been about a three-hour wait. Ridiculous! And so, we emptied our pockets to the tour guide and joined a group of thirty other American and British tourists on an English guided tour – complete with headsets and a guide who held her felt flower high so we could always see where she was in the crowd. I thought the streets surrounding the museum were chaos – then I went inside. Even crazier, almost toe-to-heel people traffic throughout the whole museum, moving like snails in one large pack. Our headsets buzzed with our guide’s explanations of famous statues and ancient maps of Italy, before reaching the long-awaited Sistine Chapel at the end. She showed us close-up images of Michaelangelo’s paintings on the ceiling and walls of the chapel, describing in detail the meaning of each. I didn’t really know what to expect of this renowned church, and actually thought that the painting of God reaching out to Adam took up the whole ceiling of it (the famous one with two fingers pointing to each other and almost touching?) In truth, the painting is pretty small and takes up only one section of about ten other paintings in a row along the chapel’s fairly small ceiling. More impressive was Michaelangelo’s “Last Judgment” painted on the largest wall of the chapel, swathed in bright blue sky and angels contrasting with the grotesque images of Hell. One of the people even holds the skin of a man – Michaelangelo himself, where he painted his own body (or just hanging skin) into the painting. According to our guide, Michaelangelo wasn’t even happy about having to do the Sistine Chapel. He was on bad terms with the Pope at the time, who commissioned the work, and had to struggle day and night with a crick in his neck and poor lighting to finish the paintings for which he didn’t even approve the subjects. As Michaelangelo became even more frustrated with the Pope, he changed the subjects of some of the pieces and even painted one figure in the “Last Judgment” with its naked butt facing the Pope’s seat in the chapel – so the Pope would have to stare at some guy mooning him every day during mass. Go Mich.

After the Sistine Chapel (where I managed to take some forbidden photos), the two-hour tour finished and we visited St. Peter’s Basilica next door. The massive church took my breath away as I walked in, staring at the huge length of it and not even being able to see the rest of the maze. Exhausted from the day, we ended up walking in the wrong direction around the church – against the traffic of everyone else – and only glanced at the famous “Pieta” sculpture of Mary holding the crucified Christ. Still, the Basilica was an amazing sight inside and out, with its giant dome and interior marble sculptures of previous Popes and Bishops that outdid any statues I’ve seen in Florentine churches. I even recognized one of the two Medici Popes that ever served, from the Medici coat of arms above his sculpture and my engrained knowledge from Art History class this semester.

Unfortunately, the crypt of past Popes and the Vatican Museum closed just as we finished the Basilica – so we weren’t able to see Raphael’s famous “School of Athens” painting that pictures tons of philosophers and painters like Donatello and Michaelangelo depicted talking together in one huge piece. For some reason, the English tour didn’t take us to these must-see rooms and our guide neglected to mention that the Museum wouldn’t allow us back in after viewing the Basilica. Sad. But, this gives me a reason to go back someday! And so, we grabbed lunch instead and headed to the Pantheon. Again, another structure that no one knew the real significance of – except that it’s a random large dome in the middle of a nice piazza. Nothing is painted onto the inside of the dome, but the light flowing from its ceiling windows makes the circular building a unique place to stand in for a moment. And after, gelato again! This time, we stopped at what Rick Steves calls “Rome’s Best Gelato” – indeed, you could hardly walk through the tiny gelateria, crowded with tourists with sticky fingers and dripping cones. And then, home for naptime, where I caught an hour of sleep before waking up in time for a late pizza dinner down the street with Allie and Nick. The others went out for a pub crawl, but by the time we found out their exact location, it was too late to meet up and go out all together. Instead, the rest of us got a good night’s sleep in preparation for morning Easter mass given by the Pope at St. Peter’s Basilica – the most important Christian man in the world at the largest Christian church in the world, for the most significant Christian celebration in its faith…quite the day.

I actually assumed that we would witness very little of the mass. The square in front of the Basilica can hold 350,000 people, and the mass was expected to see even more than that, crowding the blocks surrounding the church. People with reserved tickets (expensive ones) sat in thousands of chairs set up in front, while the rest of us lowly tourists were meant to pack in through the piazza and beyond. I thought we might get as far as a block after getting off the metro, and then have to watch the crowds in front of us listening to the Pope from nearly a mile away. Well, the day had a surprise in store for us. Nick started following a Police motorcycle making its way through the crowd, with the five girls scrambling in tow, clutching each others’ purses to make an unbreakable line. We landed somehow in the center of the crowd, but still at the very back of the square – probably four football fields away from the Pope, who stood chanting and singing and speaking Latin from a red-velvet-covered balcony in the middle story of the Basilica. At random intervals, the crowd surged forward and we moved with it, not knowing what we were inching towards. Suddenly, we found ourselves at a small entry point in the metal gate surrounding the square – and an official waved us inside. In minutes, I was walking through wide open spaces in the middle of the square, moving easily between people and getting closer and closer to the Pope with the others following behind. We were confused – how did we even get here? Who let us through? Was this a ticketed area? Without hardly voicing these questions aloud, we sped through the sparse crowd and found a good spot in the very center, looking at the Pope from only about 200 yards away. As we looked around in awe at our amazing location, feeling so lucky and baffled at once, the Pope began blessing each country. The crowd shouted and waved flags as Benedict XVI blessed everyone from Russia and Iran to the Phillipines and, of course, America. We whooped and hollered and took a million photos of our unbelievable morning. It was an Easter to never forget!

And to keep the greatness going, we visited the Colosseum, Palatine Hill and Roman Forum for the rest of the day. The Hill is a huge area of old Roman palaces left behind from its emperors – it’s full of temples, housing and a stadium for ancient games. Ruined columns and walls litter the ground at random, while one of the buildings even shows off an interior with painted walls still intact from ancient Rome. From there, you walk straight into the Forum – with its long expanse of arches, temples and lonely pillars from buildings that were once there. I’m pretty sure this is where the Senate of Rome met, where Caesar would have been killed by Brutus on its steps. And best of all, the Colosseum was next. I’d been looking at its grand beauty for two days and hadn’t gone inside yet, so I couldn’t wait to see the oval interior where gladiators fought and ancient Romans battled against captured animals in front of shouting crowds. It was everything I hoped for – sky-high stone walls where I could imagine the laymen sitting to watch duels, and a maze of walls in the center where animals (and people) were kept before fights…surrounded by several levels of tiny arched windows and crumbling stone. It was beautiful but also kind of sad, to remember the thousands of deaths that happened here while a blood-thirsty world looked on. And at the same time, the Colosseum gave me the closest view of ancient glory and architectural splendor Rome provides. Best. Day. Ever.

On our last day in Rome, Eva and Anna and Macey left early in the afternoon to go back to Germany – so Nick, Allie and I wandered the city looking for something to do that wasn’t closed, since it was Easter Monday and most sights are closed on Mondays anyway. We tried to visit Nero’s Golden House, the home of one of the most brutal Roman emperors, but it was closed for renovation. We tried to see the Borghese Gallery of Art but that was closed too, and finally ended up taking the metro to a sketchy part of town where there’s a famous cemetery (right up Nick’s alley) that also turned out to be closed. Luckily, there was a cute little cat village we could see through the gates and a petite marble pyramid built by an ancient emperor when Rome was influenced by the Egyptian fashions of Cleopatra and Emperor Marc Antony. The area was sort of ghetto-ish and we got out pretty quick, back on the metro towards a church called San Paolo that turned out to be probably my favorite church in all of Europe. San Paolos’s Church was the largest in Christendom until St. Peter’s Basilica was built, and it is today the most beautiful – at least that’s what I think anyway. The interior is made completely out of different colored marble: blue, greens, pinks, beige and pure whites created the columns, walls, stairs, railings and everything else. One arm of the cross-shaped church seemed a mile long and was lined with marble pillars on each side, then lined with a border directly below the ceiling that depicts circular mosaic portraits of every Pope in history. At the end of the line (Benedict, who we saw) were empty circles for future Popes. And when we went outside, I realized that the church was even more gorgeous that I saw inside. There is a grassy, palm-tree filled courtyard with white statues and beautiful white pillars in front of a painted, golden peak of the church’s façade. It was the prettiest outside and inside of any church I’ve seen, and we hadn’t even planned to see it. Sometimes the best things are off the beaten path…