Another day of non stop rain in Rome is putting a damper on what has turned out to be a very confusing city. There are ancient ruins on every corner of every block, and at each of those corners the street name changes atleast once, making situating yourself quite difficult. There are only two actual metro lines for the entire city and so everyone travels by car or bus. This means the buses are continually overcrowded and stuck in traffic.
All of this wouldn’t be so bad, since there are so many things we were so looking forward to seeing in Rome. It’s just that it rained all day yesterday and all day today. Not just a little sprinkle either – full blown pouring rain. There are millions of tourists everywhere and as one waitress said today, “Come back to Rome … but don’t come in May because you’ll either get wet or walk around looking like a bananna – like them,” she was referring to two tourists looking over the menu on the sidewalk, wearing bright yellow ponchos. We’ve both agreed – we’ve never seen so many umbrellas and/or ponchos in all of our lives, combined!
They say it may clear up tomorrow and we are planning on it since first stop, first thing is the Colosseum, Roman Forum and Nero’s Circus Maximus. These are the things we came to Rome for and so tried to save them for what hopes to be a nice day.
This morning we managed to find our way over to St Peter’s Basilica and Piazza di San Piatro (or St. Peter’s Square). They were truly amazing, especially the inside of the church. It was built on the tomb where St. Peter himself is said to be buried. We spent an hour or so in the treasury museum inside where we saw lots of challices from past Popes adorned in unbelievable amounts of diamonds and jewels, as well as a tomb from a former Pope and similar antiquity. There were tons of tourists there and so we were ready to go after getting through the square, church and inside museum. We plan to return for the Vatican Museum, which is where the Sistine Chapel is, on Friday.
We had a late lunch at a little place just off St Peter’s sqaure – it was awesome! The food in Rome is great and thank goodness we haven’t been here for our entire trip because if we had been we wouldn’t be able to fit in our plane seats on the way home!
After lunch we went over to Plaza Venetzio and walked around Campadaglio. Again, every corner here is ruins or ancient history and purely amazing. We then took a taxi (because it was once again pouring rain and we were also once again lost) over to the Trevi Fountain (or as the cabbie made a point of making sure I at least tried to say – il Fontana di Trevi). We’ve had so much fun just speaking to people and trying out our Italian accents that I’ve decided I simply must learn to speak Italian – it’s a beautiful, poetic language. I’m not just saying that either – it is actually derived from the language of Dante’s poem, The Divine Comedy.
The Trevi Fountain is really cool but it’s very hard to see through the masses of tourists in panchos with umbrellas – and even when it’s not even raining. We sat for drinks, and to wait out another storm, at a little sidewalk cafe just off the Trevi Fountain. The people there were really nice and we enjoyed the shelter very much.
Finally some actual art! There was a painter with a small stand of watercolors he had done that was trying to set up shop in between rain storms just across from where we were seated at the cafe. He had some beautiful pieces of the Colosseum, the Trevi Fountain, St. Peter’s sqaure and other tourist attractions. But he also had a few pieces that were just beautiful Rome – without the tourist attractions. I got a small painting of a door that immediately caught my eye. It’s the best thing I’ve gotten so far and I just hope it makes it home safely. C bought it for me as a gift and I couldn’t think of a better one! The painter even said it was his favorite, but I bet he says that to all the girls.
I took some pretty good pictures today but it’s hard when it’s constantly raining and I have to keep putting it away. We had to buy a waterproof bag yesterday just so we could take it out of the hotel room but I still don’t like to chance getting it wet. The picture size I’m using for the pictures is set to medium now but takes still creates really large image files so that they can be edited with Photoshop later, if need be.
This also means, unfortunately, that they take up a lot of room on the computer when I upload them every evening. We bought a 2 GB jump drive at the airport in Barcelona that has been sufficient enough up until now. But I’m full again and so can’t even open the pictures to crop them down to a size appropriate for posting here to the blog. This means no pictures again today – so sorry.
We have plenty of room on the camera still so I’ll continue to take them and we’ll look for a place to maybe get another jump drive or some sort of extra memory – but in the mean time this means no more pictures. I know, I know – that’s the best part! Sorry!!
We’ll do our best to get if fixed right away and continue to keep you posted on what’s going on otherwise.
Ciao for now!
