Roman Holiday

Way back during our England leg of this trip, we’d stopped for several hours in the town of Bath to see its ancient Roman bath ruins. We’d marveled over how well they’d been preserved, and walked around the site with a sense of historical wonder, silently comparing the 2,000-year-old stones to the scant 200 or so years of our own country’s entire history. So our amazement was magnified dramatically upon reaching the city of Rome, a place so strewn with ancient ruins that subway construction is often held up by new underground finds, and the Roman Forum is still undergoing excavation even after 150 years.

The accessibility of the ruins, especially the Colosseum, particularly mystified me. If any place in the U.S. was discovered to be 2,000 years old, they’d encase it in glass, charge admission and monitor its climate environment. But here in Rome, tourists and locals alike clambered over the Colosseum rocks to get a better view of the once-secret underground passages used to transport gladiators and their exotic wild animal opponents.

Later on we visited the mammoth Pantheon and its famous ceiling sun roof. Hopefully now that I’ve actually been to Rome, I will no longer confuse the name Pantheon with Parthenon.

Anchors Aweigh!

Our group split up for dinner, and so I found myself at the Trattoria Moderne, just off the square of Campo del Fiori. But since the menu was solo italiano, I had ?? chicken with ?? spinach, plus some ?? vegetables. But luckily, it (like all food in Italy) was delicious.

For our evening walk, we trekked on to the Piazza Navona, formerly a chariot racetrack. Offered the choice of amazing chocolate dessert or henna tattoos from scruffy street vendors, 20 of us chose the latter. Angie scored a beautiful butterfly, and I soon sported an anchor on my arm.

It never dawned on any of us that the ink tattoos might bleed onto our hotel bedsheets and blankets. Everyone was quiet at breakfast the next morning, unwilling to admit anything in case they were the only ones.

No-fly Zone

Despite having been warned incessantly about pickpockets on the subway, I detected none as we rode to the Vatican City stop and passed through tight Swiss Guard security. After trudging through countless rooms loaded with priceless art and holy treasures, we reached the sparkling new restored artwork of the Sistine Chapel. Every few minutes, one of the guards would chant “Silencio!” or “No-o-o foto!” but I still caught a few naughty people taking pictures.

I was especially looking forward to exploring the vast open square outside of St. Peter’s Basilica. Many years ago during a visit to Disney’s Epcot Center theme park, I had tried a bulky-goggle-style virtual reality simulation of this exact same spot. After I “walked” around the square and listened to the water in the fountains, the Disney guide had me push a button that enabled me to fly around to my heart’s content. I soared in through the entrance of St. Peter’s and flew around in circles, bringing gasps of delight (or motion sickness?) from the onlookers tracking my trip on overhead TV monitors.

“So, when you were here last time, did you fly around here in the square, or just up inside the church?” Angie asked me, ignoring the supremely puzzled looks of the tourists nearby.

After buying lunch at a nearby pizzeria, we ate it on the roof of our hotel, while Chris Two and I fed crumbs to a one-legged pigeon. Then I promptly fell asleep for four hours.

Since all the big sights were now closed for the day, Angie and I convinced Natalie, Kelle, Kyle and Zach to head out for our last night out on the town. We took the subway to see the Spanish Steps and the nearby giant McDonald’s, yum-m-m. Back in our neighborhood, we continued our break from foreign culture and watched Charlie’s Angels 2 (in English, thankfully) on the big screen at a megaplex theater.