Megan and I were off in the morning, and had an easy bus-to-bus-to-flight-to-train to Roma. We resolved to do some random exploring when we first arrived, and set off towards the colosseum. We got some help from some (presumably) North African dudes who pointed us in the right direction. On our way towards the colosseum we stopped for some pizza at this great little cheap Roman pizzeria. Our Italian was atrociously non-existent, but the shop owner was really helpful and the pizza was great. We were a few blocks past the pizza place when we decided to start looking for our hostel, so we roamed some side streets until I could bum internet from the air.
It turned out I was only able to get service in the middle of the road, so Megan played lookout for me while I pulled up Google Maps. To our great surprise, it turned out that our Hostel was literally directly underneath the pizza place we had stopped at before for food. We were literally eating underneath our future sleeping spots without even knowing what part of town our hostel was going to be in! The chance of that happening seems unfathomably low, especially in a city as large, and as populated with hostels and pizzerias, as Roma.
We setup shop in the hostel before adventuring out to the colosseum at night, which definitely came up on us as a huge surprise. We knew we were going in the right direction but it really seemed to jump out of nowhere as we came over the crest of a hill that lies near the ancient ruins. We walked around the big plazas on the West side of the Colosseum (which we had to ourselves!) and took some great photos before getting yet another fix of pizza, and some great gelato on our way back to the hostel.
The next day (Sep. 23) we went to spend some more time around the colosseum and the Roman forum. We continued our foot journey to a most-massive white building in St. Peter’s square adorned with even more massive statues of chariots and their angelic drivers. We also made our way to the Trevi fountain which was extremely claustraphobic due to massive tourist overcrowding, and after meeting up with Geleen and Lorraine (friends we were connected with by Marina!) we made our way to the Pantheon, and back to Geleen’s for a pasta dinner.
The next morning I dragged Megan along a couple wrong turns, but after realizing we were off-track, I followed my gut and (to Megan’s surprise) got us back on track after a bit of walking on a walled street with no sidewalk and fast traffic. The place we came out was atop a huge hill overlooking the entire city, and it truly was a beautiful view! Soon after taking in the sights, we set ourselves up with another cheap & delicious picnic lunch in front of the Vatican’s Basilica. Afterwards we hopped in line to get inside the Basilica, which I can say was definitely by far the most intense and epic cathedral of them all. The sheer size of the interior space of the building would have been truly impossible to grasp, if it weren’t for some guy walking around up in the rafters (who was actually difficult to see due to distance, despite being in the same room and in no way ocluded).
We later sat down to dinner at a little patio of a cafe and got some decent pizza, and chatted it up with the waiters who had some interesting English, but no shortage of conversation. Roman pizza is good, but I think the deep-dish adventures taken by American pizza makers of the past have won my favor too much for me to really appreciate pizza in Rome. I hold it to a strange standard again other varieties that many Italians probably wouldn’t even call pizza! Old Chicago Pizza comes to mind. Gelato on the other hand, is unbelievably cheap and delicious.
The next day Megan and I threw together another picnic from diperdi in a random square and had a good long think-tank session talking about our futures! We did the requisite tour of the Vatican Museums, which were very beautiful and unbelievably well stocked with ancient sculptures and paintings. We got dinner with Rob and Lisa, a British dude and Australian chick who we met at our hostel. After dinner we all walked together to see the Basilica & the Trevi Fountain at night. They were both really nicely lit at night, but the Trevi fountain was still far too crowded for my likings. (good thing we were in Rome off-season!) We also made our way to the Spanish Steps which provide a great view over the city at night. That night my chat with Megan about the future, in combination with the approaching ‘end’ of my trip, gave me a lot of trouble sleeping due to too much thinking.
On our last day in Rome Megan, Lisa (the aussie) and I ended up just hanging out in a park almost the entire day. We had grand plans, but the breakdown of the metro proved to be a problem too cumbersome for the three of us, and also forced Megan and I to further complicate our exit strategy for Rome. Our travels to Stuttgart ended up being exceedingly complicated, but that will come at the beginning of the next post!