bcholmes | When in Rome (Reply)

So here I am in Rome. the_siobhan and I arrived yesterday after flying all night. We got into Germany around 7 am, and then waited around in an airport in Frankfurt. We then took a quick hop over to Rome around lunchtime. So far, so good. We managed to find our way to the train to the city, and from the train station to our hotel. After that, we really didn't have any plans.

So yesterday we found some ruins downtown, and wandered around the Colleseum. I think that one of the things that's blowing my brain is the scale of everything. The hotel room isn't terribly spacious. It's obvious how they've retrofit a really tiny elevator into the centre of a stairwell. And the cars are eentsy-tiny. But in and amongst that are the absolutely massive ancient buildings. The Colleseum is enormous, ferinstance.

Today we went to Vatican City. There was something Very Important going on in St. Peter's Basilica, and they wouldn't let us go in, so we popped over to the Vatican Museum. I could not believe how huge it was. There were halls and halls of ancient Roman statuary. Popes, emperors, gods, and what-have-you. Huge long halls painted with murals and frescos. The building itself is labrinthine, and from the moments that we were able to look outside of the building, it appeared that it's at least nine stories tall -- several of those stories being twenty feet high or higher. The Sistine Chapel itself was around fifty feet high; the ceilings brighter and more vibrant than I ever would have imagined. And packed with people. Just cram-packed.

Then we started wandering. We found ourselves at the Castel S. Angelo and decided to take a peek inside. Again, after a gazillion stairs and rooms and balconies, we were at the top, looking out above the top of Rome. I don't think there was anything taller. And yet, this place is so old. My brain is exploding trying to take in the Herculean effort of constructing it.

Every time we stop for a meal, we seem to be surrounded by tourists. And the few that we've spoken to don't appear to be here because of the Olympics. I find myself wondering just how many tourists wander through here.

We've been wandering back to our hotel for the last hour or so. We stopped in an Irish Pub so that Siobhan could have Guinness, but we've been making the lengthy trek back. There's something like six or seven kilometres between Vatican City and the hotel, and we've passed these huge, ancient buildings. We've stopped in an Internet café to post to our journals.

Anyway, we're alive and well and awed by everything. Tomorrow, we're probably headed to Naples and Pompei.