Cone, phone, dome...all words that rhyme with Rome

I swear, I wrote 3 blogs last week and through a slip of the hand I hit the discard instead of save button on gmail (I write them as drafts so I can edit/write the posts as ideas come to me in my downtime at work...I don't use wordpress because it often has problems).  I will rewrite them this week.  Until then, Rome

This past weekend was my scheduled trip to Rome.  As always, I have a highlight of pictures and will throw in some comments.

I met up with Mo early Friday morning and we headed to the Vatican.  We missed the turn to the museum entrance (it was a tiny brick sign in a brick wall) and ended up in St. Peter's square and almost missed our guided tour, but we made it with 1 minute to spare.  Luckily the Vatican is smart and the first thirty minutes of the tour is a discussion of history and an explanation of some of the top sights, so you could be late and still make your tour.

• Top left: You can see the empty seat next to me.  Sad times for Drew.  Jo was scheduled for this trip, but recruiting called her elsewhere and I had to fend for myself.  I was excited...and scared.


• Top right: Met up with Mo early Friday morning.


• Bottom left: You know the drill.  See a cat, make a cat pose.


• Bottom right: Not many pictures from inside the Vatican.  They have no picture rules and Swiss Guards.  Swiss Guards come with Polearms (spear-like weapons).  Enough said.

We missed going into St. Peter's because as Mo and I tried to find the entrance (there is a path for people on guided tours so they can go straight to St. Peter's and don't have to get back in line) and an employee assured us we wanted the path on the left.  This led us to the Tomb of the Popes and then outside.  Oh well, we decided to head to the Colosseum and catch St. Peter's the next day when the lines were shorter.

• Top left: Cool model that shows how the elevator system there worked.


• Top right: Thankfully they had a nice model to help you envision how the Colosseum looked.  Over the years, people have looted the marble from the building so all that is left is the skeleton (and even that is amazing) so the model shows you what went on top of that skeleton.


• Bottom middle-left: Not quite a lion in the arena, but close enough.

And my best attempt at a panoramic shot from inside.  Of course I have a nice postcard of this (I buy postcards because they are always better shots than I can take) but I do not have a scanner.



After that, Mo and I went back to the hotel to meet up with Becca and then to dinner.

• Top middle-right: I ordered liter cola, the girls ordered wine.


• Top right: Italian wiring.

After dinner we got a bit lost, and after consulting a map next to a large brick building (remember this building) decided it was better to walk out the way we walked in.  Rome is pretty good about labeling their streets.  Problem is, the streets are so old and not continuous, that there is not enough room on a map to label a majority of streets.  you just keep walking until you find a street that is labeled on your map.

We planned to take a hop-on hop-off style bus to the Catacombs, but we ran into a few problems.

• What you have here is the front and back of a metal sign.  Not a sign with a plastic insert that someone forgot to change.  A metal sign that was printed this way.  If you look closely at the sign, you will notice that the start time and intervals between buses do not match.  You've gotta love Italy.

After waking up nice and early for the 8:30 bus, we found out that according to the other side we had to wait until 9.  Ok, fine.  At 9, the bus arrived and informed us that because of a protest today near the main train station (we were wondering why they were setting up portable toilets in the area) the bus would not be making the runs in the afternoon, thus stranding us at the Catacombs.  We instead opted for a taxi.  Not many pictures from inside the tombs.  It is not allowed.

• Top right: The fact that there is a sign there telling you not to make out because this is in fact holy grounds, means that it was happening enough to merit a sign.  You've got to love the Italians.

Next we took a cab to St. Peters.  Wait, that is not fair to Becca or the situation.  It would be better to say we were incredibly lucky that a cab even showed up at the Catacombs.  Becca had a list of about 30 cabs companies, and it is a good thing too.  The first 6-7 companies hung up on her when they discovered that she spoke English.  Finally she spoke broken Italian well enough for someone to understand where we were and what we needed.

St. Peter's was well worth the trip back to the Vatican.

• Top left: Apparently the Vatican does not allow yellow spaghetti strap dresses or pink overalls.  I don't blame them.  I've been told that if you wear a tank top (and think about how hot Italy is in the summer) they make you put on a paper dress.  Awesome!


• Bottom middle-right: I had to take a picture of St. Andrew, since that is my name.


• Bottom right: Could not catch the wedding quick enough, but not a bad place to get married.

• St. Peter's Basilica is unbelievably big.

• St. Peter's Square, also quite large.

After that, we just sort of wandered the city.  We got a different hop-on hop-off bus and did a loop, listening to the history of some of the buildings.  They also had route problems due to the protests, so when the bus deviated from the normal path and the audio did not match the scenery, we just changed the language to something else.  Always fun.

• Bottom left: The Tiber is a very shallow, dirty, and unimpressive river.  Apparently it floods and that is why so many things in Rome were just covered and built over as the city declined over the ages.


• Bottom right: The protests.


• Middle middle: Awesome mullet spotting.

The last thing we absolutely had to see before it got dark was the Pantheon.  As we worked our way over to it, we again got lost.  We finally stopped, very confused, next to an old brick building...no idea where we were.  We kept walking around the building and realized we were in the same spot where we got lost the night before.  Then we realized that the old building we were standing next to twice, each time declaring that we had no idea where we were, was in fact the Pantheon.  Oops.  It turns out, that when you rob all of the beautiful marble from a great building like the Pantheon (aside from the giant marble columns that are only in the front) the Pantheon looks like an old brick building.

• Top left: During the renaissance, they could not figure out how the Romans had built the dome, so they cut a few freaking holes in the side (notice the black spot to the right of the arch, and then a similar spot one level above it).  Great job engineers.  Bravo.


• Bottom right: Mo figured out that if you put your finger in the faucet, it turns into a drinking fountain.


• Bottom middle: Worth every penny it cost to get this guy to do the MIT with us in front of the Pantheon.

On the final day we checked out some of the old ruins before leaving.

• Top left: Cat pose.


• Middle left: Actual cat.


• Bottom right: Time to fly home while trusting my life to Italians...who, as I mentioned several times in this post, you gotta love.