Rome Day 2: Obscure and Not So Obscure Sights of the City!

 

And now I present to you, the latest in the “Mary feels like crap while traveling the world” series….sigh.

Yes, it’s only Day 2, but it’s already our last day in Rome! Woke up and headed out as engaged peoples instead of just boyfriend and girlfriend at about 9am. 😍 We had a few things on our list to get done this morning before our tour of the Colosseum and Forum at 1:40. The plan was to get everything done, do our 2.5 hour tour, then come back and relax for the rest of afternoon/evening.

The day started out great! One of the things on our list, the Alchemy Gate, was in a park literally across the street from our bnb! I bet you’ve never even heard of this place. That’s why we were there. 🙂 Here’s the story. There was a villa here in the 1600s. This “gate” (more like a door) was one of the 5 entrances, with the other 4 now gone. The owner of the villa was very interested in alchemy (basically turning things into gold). An alchemist visited the villa, and said that he had the recipe to turn herbs into gold. The next morning, the alchemist was gone, but he left two things behind- some gold flakes that were “proof” of his abilities, and the recipe. Except the recipe was written in undecipherable symbols. The villa owner then constructed this gate in 1680, and inscribed the recipe on the door. The hope was that some passerby would see it, understand it, and translate it so more herbs could be turned to gold! Fun story!! Where the gate is, there are also Roman ruins from the 200s. I mean, c’mon, Rome! Could you get any cooler! Oh, and did I mention it’s all behind a fence and guarded by dozens of cats, all of which give you the dirtiest looks when you walk by or dare to speak to them…

From there, we walked to the Spanish Steps, which I didn’t see last time I was here. That was about 1.5 miles, and “eh”. It’s just a bunch of stairs. With about 50 tourists for every stair. Brian snapped a couple of pics. And I realized when I downloaded them that he took pictures of everything there EXCEPT the steps!! This is what happens when I hand over the camera…. So here I present you with “random things you can find AROUND the Spanish steps”. 🙄

I looked at the map and decided we could walk up toward the park that is behind the steps. Another half mile or so. We got to the park, it was now well after 10am, we had gone over 2 miles in the heat, and not had anything to eat. Food was now a PRIORITY! We passed the National French Academy, and of course I had to google to see what it was. Apparently, it was founded by Louis XIV (my Sun King!!) to send French artists to Rome to study and for inspiration. They live at the academy for a year. Apparently you could go inside, but we are both a little “eh” about art unless it’s something super duper spectacular, so we continued up the hill in search of food…

Here is what I learned about Italy that day. They don’t believe in breakfast. Hardly anything was open. If something was open, it was all pastries, because Italians don’t believe in protein before 11:30am. I think it’s a papal decree or something. At this point, I’m getting antsy, because I do not function well on lots of walking, heat, and no protein. I have to have my morning protein, or things get ugly fast!! We strolled hand in hand in the beautiful park, while I started having an anxiety issue about food….. Walked through the ancient Roman wall back into the city and found food alright….like 40 euros for breakfast!!! WTF?? I want protein, not a home equity loan!! Apparently we had stumbled into the fancy schmancy part of town…

Brian googled for a breakfast place and found one. We hoofed it another half mile. It didn’t exist. There was nothing but pastries. My body was tired and I was getting a gnarly headache. We decided to just walk toward our next stop, and hope we’d stumble upon food somewhere along the way… We’re up to like 4 miles at this point.

Next stop was to go see the “immaculate” body of Saint Victoria at the Santa Maria della Vittoria church. I may or may not have suggested I would take a few nibbles off of said 1800 year old body…. I did take control of the camera at this point, because weird ass creepy shit is my specialty and I didn’t want Brian fucking it up (this was even before I knew about the Spanish Steps debacle) The church was pretty unassuming from the outside. Inside, it was kind of dark, very decorated, organ music quietly playing- it was all an air of some sort of spirituality- not “hey, we’re a super gaudy church- exit through the gift shop!” vibe like most have. Found the body. Oh for Christ’s sake. It looked like a mannequin. If I had bitten into that dumb thing, it would have been like biting into a candle. And probably not even a good one like Yankee. Those teefers are real, and the true miracle would have been braces for that poor soul. Fake skin, fake hair, fake eyes. Common denominator? Fake. Draw your own conclusions… That said, why are Catholics so freaking morbid? Shudder.

At this point, it’s 11:30, we’ve walked about 4 miles total on zero food, and my body is in full blown rebellion. It’s either get food, or lay down in the street and die. I wasn’t going any further. Thankfully, Italians finally can serve protein after 11:30, but it’s still hard to come by. Dear Italy, Woman cannot live on carbs alone. Love, Mary. Found a pizza-ish place where you could buy just a slice. There was one with prosciutto and fig on it that looked unique, so I went for that. Pretty good! I thought I would immediately feel better. I thought wrong….

Trevi Fountain was up next. It was a little over a mile from where we were. I checked the Uber rates. 10 euros. I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I should have. We started walking, and I was feeling worse and worse. It was a combination of the heat, not enough protein, a massive headache (that I would have taken an aspirin for if I had had one- that’s a big deal for me because I don’t take pills unless it’s a serious situation), my stomach not being happy, my muscles being tired, my brain being foggy….I was a mess. But we got to the fountain. I had already seen it, so pics are Brian’s.

Brian led us what seemed like 10 miles through the hot streets and got us to the Colosseo metro station where we were to meet our guide. We were about 20 minutes early. I needed a restroom STAT. The guide said we could go to a bar that was through the metro station and upstairs. I will say- Iceland, Scotland, Ireland, Malta- you could find public restrooms. Apparently there’s another papel decree that Rome can’t offer such things. But hey, they’ll give you all the free water you can drink, so… 😊 Brian ordered gelato while I went to the bathroom. He was still trying to figure it out when I got back, so I just sat down at a table to rest my weary, rapidly declining self. So, if you order gelato, you can’t sit at a table. Holy fuck. Brian walks over to hand me mine so we can go, and gets griped at by the guy that we can’t sit there with gelato. Yeah, dude, we fucking got it. Can he god damned HAND me mine so we can leave, because he’s juggling 2 gelatos and a fruit cup???? Sheesh.

I was feeling a little better after sitting for a few minutes and getting some cold gelato and fruit into my system. Went back and found the tour guide, and I sat on a dirty sidewalk trying to maintain my strength. Soon it was time to go. So let me stop here and explain this tour. Last summer, my son, his girlfriend, and I took this same tour with Walks of Italy- the same outfit we did the catacombs tour with yesterday. This is the skip-the-line, arena floor, underground, and Forum tour. I wanted Brian to get access to all of those places, because I knew we’d never come back again and it needs to be seen. Well, because we didn’t plan everything ahead of time like we should, it was literally about 4 days before that I got around to finding a tour. And EVERYTHING was booked solid. I just so happened to find this one tour through Get Your Guide, so I snapped it up. The operator was Touriks. They ain’t no Walks of Italy…

We walk to the far side of the Colosseum (kind of the back side), and go in. We then have to stand in the sun for like 10 minutes while we are handed off to another tour guide and got our audio sets. All of the recovery I had made from sitting and eating melted in the heat. It was 95 out. I was trying to drink as much water as I could, but fear of there never being any bathrooms was in my mind. I sat while the guide got everything sorted. Finally, we were off and into the shade. I had to immediately sit. My body was giving out fast, and we were only about 15 minutes into 2.5 hours… As the guide talked, I immediately recognized that she was not very good. She repeated herself constantly. Her stories didn’t flow. The woman from Walks of Italy last year was AMAZING!!! She really knew her stuff. She was passionate about it and explained everything in a way that got you excited about it as well. This woman…ugh. I thought maybe it was because I felt bad and was just critical of the entire universe right now. But as we moved to the next stop, Brian confirmed that he wasn’t digging her either.

Next stop, on the arena floor, in the full sun and heat. I sat on the benches while the guide explained how the floor was covered in sand and asked why. I piped up, “To soak up the blood.” Yep. And that was the extent of my interactive Hermione self for the day…. Next we went underground, which really is the coolest (literally and figuratively!) part of the Colosseum. I immediately sat on a cold rock and even took off my shoes and put my bare feet against the cold stones, trying to release heat from my body.  This was my favorite part of the Colosseum last year- to see where the animals were kept, to see how they used elevators 2000 years ago to move them from the underground area to the arena floors. It really is spectacular.

From there, we had to go to the upper levels, and I remembered that that meant a lot of stairs. I was NOT feeling stairs. The guide asked if anyone wanted to use the elevator. She didn’t have to ask me twice. So me, and an old lady with mobility issues, boarded the elevator. I’d rather be embarrassed than passed out… Up here, more sun. I sat while she explained everything, 60% of which was a repeat from what she had already said. It was frustrating as hell to pay this much money for this poor of a guide. By this time, even Brian was making fun of her constantly saying, “Can you imagine??” and “This is just the skeleton of the Colosseum.” And telling the story over and over of the “colossal” statue of Nero, over 35 meters high. UGH! She walked us right past the water fountain and didn’t even ask if anyone needed water, even though it was 95 today. The guide last year made sure to stop and let us fill our bottles. At this point, I’m just thinking ahead to the Forum tour, and having to climb Palatine hill….

Finally, it was over. We were supposed to go to the exit and meet the guide at 3pm. We had 10 minutes. I HAD to have water. So we backtracked to the fountain, filled up, then had to backtrack back to the exit. Got down there and found the original guide that we met. Where we were promptly pawned off on ANOTHER guide. We had the same guide for the entire time last year…. I pulled her aside, explained that I wasn’t feeling well and didn’t want to climb Palatine hill and I’d wait at the bottom. I knew they came down the same path again to get into the forum. So we entered the forum (which I love more than the Colosseum- it’s just STUNNING!!), and I found a bench under a tree near a water fountain to sit at for the next hour. Palatine Hill overlooks the Forum, and was where the emperors lived.

They came back, and the tour was basically over. She showed us some pictures in a book that showed the forum buildings and how they looked 2000 years ago compared to today. And that was it. Last year, the guide took us into the Forum to explain things. We were now on our own to explore the forum. Brian starts heading for the exit and I inform him NO WAY. He is going to see this. We’re just going to walk slow.  We walked through the ruins, marveling at how advanced this city was. At just how spectacular the buildings were. I can’t even imagine how impressive they were in their hey day… The Forum was the “heart” of the city- lots of temples, government buildings, and commercial/social venues. When we were done, the plan was to walk back to Colosseo metro and take the subway back to the airbnb. But I was too tired. I called an Uber. For only 7 euros more than the subway, door to door service was worth it.

Got there and grabbed some food at a café that was downstairs in our building and took it to our room. Then, we packed our bags, me giving Brian all of my winter stuff, making my bag MUCH lighter and easier to manage, and his MUCH heavier! We were both asleep by 6:30. I slept STRAIGHT THROUGH until the alarm went off at 4:45am. 10 hours. Holy crap. My body was just exhausted from all of this fast travel. Brian didn’t sleep as well, but he never does…