Two Bs in a Blog

Our flight from Ams­ter­dam to Rome was only delayed a few hours, which made for a rather bor­ing wait in the ter­mi­nal while we waited for the plane to arrive. Com­pared to our last one it was a short lit­tle hop about 3 hours, but of course we slept through much of it. We got at least a good hour or two of sometimes-interrupted plane sleep­ing in on this one.

After arriv­ing in Rome we donned our back­packs, instantly remem­bered that a heavy back­pack is even heav­ier with no sleep, and quickly found the train sta­tion at the air­port. We got on the “Leonardo Express” air­port express, which took us straight to Roma Ter­mini (Romes main train sta­tion ter­mi­nal) in about 30 min­utes pass­ing through some Ital­ian country-side and offer­ing us our first glances of the Roman aque­duct and our first expo­sure to some Roman his­tory. We were able to check some maps at the local Tourist Infor­ma­tion booth and about fif­teen min­utes later we were at our hotel.

We had booked a room at Hotel Ocea­nia before our trip, based on some reviews in the “Rick Steves’ Rome” travel book. We entered through huge wooden doors, into a beau­ti­ful tile-and-marble build­ing. White mar­ble stairs curved up to the left, but we saw a sign direct­ing us, via the lift, to the third floor. The lift was a tiny box (only barely big enough for the two of us plus our back­packs at our feet.) inside a cage that extended up about four floors. It was a lit­tle nerve wrack­ing, but once we did it with our packs, we felt braver about it later by our­selves. On the third floor, we found our­selves on a lit­tle walk­way across a court­yard, vines dan­gling across the walls, and opera music waft­ing up from some­where below. We were greeted warmly and shown to our beau­ti­ful lit­tle room just past the main com­mon area. We took off our packs, washed our faces, and made sure to not lie down for fear of falling into deep deep sleeps.

We had just arrived in this beau­ti­ful excit­ing city, and shortly after hav­ing relieved our­selves of the back­packs, our energy lev­els were up again. We wan­dered about 15 min­utes south of our hotel, and found some incred­i­bly impres­sive mon­u­ments, ruins and his­tory. We didn’t know what we were look­ing at, but we knew it was breath­tak­ing. But we also knew we were tired. Our brains fought between excite­ment and exhaus­tion. The air was so warm, the sights so amaz­ing, it seemed a waste to sleep through any of it! But even­tu­ally our more log­i­cal minds pre­vailed, and we turned back towards the hotel.

We bought a cal­zone (for Brian) and a slice of pizza (for Brandi) and took them back to the lit­tle court­yard of our hotel. The air was warm and cool and per­fect, and dark­en­ing. As soon as we ate, it was clear that the only next option was to crash. And that we did. I believe it was instan­ta­neous. Our heads hit the pil­lows and we were out.

Until 1:30am. Brian got up to pee at that time, and I woke up when he did. Then we laid there, won­der­ing why we couldn’t get back to sleep. Then real­ized our bod­ies thought it was 5:30pm. Even­tu­ally we did drift back to sleep though, and slept solid until later that morning.

On Wednes­day we toured The Forum and Pale­tine Hill. We started with the Forum; it was the polit­i­cal, reli­gious, and com­mer­cial cen­ter of the ancient city of Rome. Rome’s most impor­tant tem­ples and halls of jus­tice were here as it was the place for reli­gious pro­ces­sions, polit­i­cal demon­stra­tions, elec­tions, impor­tant speeches, and parades by con­quer­ing gen­er­als. As Rome’s empire expanded, these few acres of land became the cen­ter of the civ­i­lized world.

The Forum was amaz­ing, we walked on the same cob­ble­stone street that the emper­ors of ancient Rome did. Truly mind-boggling, hon­estly. We saw the Tem­ple of Sat­urn (where they kept their spoils of war), the house of the Vestal Vir­gins, and the very spot where Julius Caesar’s body was burned after his assas­si­na­tion. Today it is a mound of clay and dirt, cov­ered in flow­ers and other offer­ings. We saw the spot where his house had been, and through scaf­fold­ing we saw the rem­nants of Caligula’s Palace.

Pala­tine Hill was once a huge palace, the res­i­dence of emper­ors for three cen­turies. Orgies, royal wed­dings, assas­si­na­tions, con­certs, intrigues, births, funer­als, ban­quets, and the occa­sional Tup­per­ware party took place within these walls. The palace was built by Emperor Domit­ian in about A.D. 81. A poet of the day described it as so grand that it “made Jupiter jealous.”

We walked through the ruins and saw the remains of the Impe­r­ial Palace, which housed Emperor Nero, and oth­ers. We saw the site of Augustus/Octavian’s home, and that of his wife, Livia, as well as more of the aque­ducts bring­ing water from the mountains.

All our guide­books said each of these tours would take about an hour and a half, but we took closer to two or three hours each. Partly because of stop­ping to take lots of pho­tos, but partly also because we kept lin­ger­ing, try­ing to wrap our brains around what we were see­ing and touch­ing. So old, so full of sto­ries. It was an incred­i­ble day of learn­ing. By six or seven pm, the tour sites were clos­ing and our cam­era bat­ter­ies were dead, and our feet were aching.

We went back to our hotel to shower and change for din­ner. Eat­ing time for Romans is closer to th 7-11pm time frame with rel­a­tively few (mostly cater­ing to toursts) open ear­lier. We wan­dered out into the streets to find a nice lit­tle Ital­ian restau­rant with an out­door patio — of which there are many! We ate our yummy lit­tle din­ner next to a cou­ple of priests. They spoke flu­ent Ital­ian to the waiter but had their per­sonal con­ser­va­tion in French — and as they left, they wished us a good evening in English.

After eat­ing, once again, our minds turned straight to sleep. We picked our way back through the vibrant Roman streets, and slept more solidly on this sec­ond night.

Thurs­day morn­ing we got up early enough to get to the Col­los­seum. You didn’t think we’d leave Rome with­out doing that, did you? Hon­estly we expected to tour all three sites the day before, but our time grew too short. So Thurs­day morn­ing it was for The Col­los­seum. Again, words can­not describe the feel­ing of being in this amaz­ing his­toric place. If you can imag­ine it full of peo­ple as it once was, you can almost feel the energy of the crowds.

By noon, we were back to our hotel to get our packs (we had checked out ear­lier, but they were happy to store our bags) and then back to the train sta­tion to catch a train to Civ­i­tavec­chia, which is the port our cruise ship departs from.