December 27, 2003 - 8:18pm - Kathmandu, Nepal - 9 C and raining

(Krista) As I mentioned, the walking tour from Rome's Circo Massimo metro station towards Via Appica and the catacombs with Claudine and Tony were a definite highlight to Rome. Besides the catacombs, the entire trip towards the road named Via Appica, and down it were very impressive. I'm not too sure why this street and area exist, but there must be a reason, as this entirely rural area is only a few metres from the flurry and chaos of downtown Rome. Down the narrow cobblestone streets exist lived-in houses dating from the 11th to 13th century, as well as ancient churches and monasteries that still bear witness to the Greek Orthodox church in Rome (the Greek cross was found in many of the churches). Also, along the walk we encountered one of the first walls built around Ancient Rome. I cannot tell you how amazing it was to walk down these ancient roads, with very little traffic, and to read about the history along the tree-lined road burying ruins of ancient tombs. Via Appica was impressive too; old buildings and the odd cafe along its length. It felt like we were walking through rural Italy, whilst buried within urban Rome. Cool.

Besides this incredible walking tour, the Lonely Planet guide to Rome turned out two other exploratory walks through otherwise-unexplored neighbourhoods. Rome is full of narrow streets lined with buildings, cathedrals and monuments that are over 2000 years old. Without having purchased this guide, Tony and I would likely never have made our way off of the main, no less historial, streets into these wonderful neighbourhoods. The other two walking tours though led us from these busy streets into the trafficless neighbourhoods of the Jewish Quarter and Trastevere, respectively. The Jewish Quarter tour took us past the only kosher pizza restaurant in the city, and through narrow narrow streets filled with cathedrals, squares, and Roman ruins of buildings and a theatre that bears a striking resemblence to the Colliseum. I love old Rome's ubiquitous squares, which may be used as a parking lot, but often is centred by a fountain, bordered by a cathedral, and lined with street-level cafes allowing their guests to watch the world go by. My favourite square is the one fronting the Pantheon (I can't wait to get this photo uploaded).

The third and last walking tour took me up one of Rome's seven hills, Aventine Hill, and down through the old streets of Trastevere, where I saw some magnificent cathedrals and some more cool squares (many functioning both as a parking lot and as cafe hosts). After I finished the walking tour up on the Palantine Hill, I was pulled to eat at Augusto restaurant, where Tony and I enjoyed a very Italian meal with plenty of white wine (which we did not finish and thus took with us to a "seat" within the busy Torre Argentina to finish while Tony downed some cheese-free pizza). This walking tour took me to some really cool sites, including this "keyhole" of a gate to an aristocratic garden whereby you look through it and see only St Peter's dome staring right back at you (you have to see the photo to understand what I mean). Further, the walk started up on the Aventine Hill, which features a terrific panorama of Rome and features many busts of Roman generals and dignitaries, and a large sculpture of a Roman general who symbolically faces downtown Rome and has his back to the Vatican City (read into that one!).

All in all, if any one is considering a trip to Rome - pick up Lonely Planet's Rome guide and do all three walking tours.

A trip to Rome in winter is not a warm one, as many would expect. For three of the six days we wandered the city's streets, we experienced temperatures that dropped below anything London threw at us, AND there was more rain. Rain is the funny thing in Rome, as it seems the entire city, man or woman, throws up an umbrella at the first drop, no matter how small it may be. They must really want to protect their hair. This would be no problem if it didn't make walking down the sidewalk a full out attack by unpredictable moving weapons threatening to take our eyes out!

Okay, while I'm on a roll about highlights (with a slight diversion there), I must talk about our encounters with the Pope, which Tony touched on above. Tony mentioned our very fortunate opportunity to partake as audience members during his weekly talks in the Vatican auditorium. The second encounter with the pope, which deserves mentioning, occurred on the first evening in Rome. Here we were standing waiting for bus 492 along a narrow street that spurs from the heart of Roman traffic, the Piazza Venezia. Suddenly the ubiquitous Roman police sirens shrilled and a few slow moving police cars passed by us. At this point, Romans started moving in droves to the road's curb where we were standing. TOny and I looked toward the street where the people were staring, and who of all people drove by in uptop a car in a throne-like position? The pope. There he was going by about 15 feet in front us, waving like just like he does on TV. Cool.

Another highlight for me was actually getting to see St Peter's Cathedral this time around. The first time I visited the Vatican City in 2000, hordes of tourists and pilgrims were onsite to celebrate the Jubilee Year of 2000. You would not believe the masses of people streaming into the cathedral while Nadine and I were trying to sneak a peak. The only way one could actually move in the cathedral was by being pushed by the hordes of people like a water molecule rushing down a waterfall. After about ten minutes, and about ten feet into the cathedral, a man decides he is going to reach around in front of me and start rubbing my thigh - right in the cathedral! At this point, I had had enough of crowds and was worrying about my personal security, so we turned around and left. Thus the only thing I saw of St Peter's was the high alter hundreds and hundreds of metres in front of me over the hundreds and hundreds of visitors heads.

Thus, this time to the Cathedral was a real treat, as there weren't many visitors, and we were given the opportunity to wander at our own pace (although we hitched on to a "free" tour being given by a very fast-talking Irishwoman who took us around at record pace, but left us full of information of the cathedral, its art and history - she got 8euros from us). Michaelangelo's Pietra is definitely a must-see. A totally amazing feature of this cathedral is that all art is done in mosaics. Even the painting masterpieces that once existed on the walls have now been replaced by mosaics for protection. Michaelangelo's entire dome is covered in mosaics too.

A must-do at the cathedral is the climb to the top of the dome to look down onto the cathedral's floor, and to walk outside and catch the amazing 360° panorama of Rome. It was a little chilly that day, so we spent only about fifteen minutes up there, but I took many photos to capture our memories.

Of all the ancient structures in Rome (including the Colliseum), my absolute favourite of both times in Rome is the Pantheon. This gigantic Roman structure, built in 118 to 126 AD, still remains intact for visitors to wander for free. I can't quite figure out what I love so much about it, but I think it has something to do with the hole in the top of the domed roof that allows sunlight to shine down onto the precious marble floor, and around to each chapel that lines the walls of the circular cathedral. I also love the marble within. It seems that St Peter's and the Pantheon could very well contain the world's entire inventory of precious marble. In fact, the Pantheon's dome was once covered in precious marble, which was pillaged by Barberini to make some art and sculpture for St Peter's Cathedral. The dome is now only concrete, but I imagine it was beautiful before Barberini got his hands on it.

This time around in Rome, I actually had the chance to visit the inside of the Colliseum (I was too cheap in 2000, and seeing that it is now 10euros to get in, I probably should have gone in then). I must say, the outside is much more impressive, and in less ruinous state. This is one thing I likely could have skipped, although it is kind of cool imagining what the place would have looked like 2000 years ago.

One of my most favourite buildings in Rome is the Palazzo Venezia, a building dubbed by Romans as the "typewriter" for its shape. This huge white building fronting Piazza Venezia, dominates Rome's skyline huge, especially at night when floodlights light up the entire structure and its massive sculptures lining the roof. This time around, Tony and I stumbled upon the museum housed within the building, and thus I was able to catch a glimpse of the renaissance and baroque sculpture within. It seems that most of the museum is devoted mainly to national tourists, and not foreigners as all explanations are in Italian. The main draw for foreigners is the views from the structure's doric column-lined "deck" over the Roman forum and old Rome.

So what was food like in Rome? Well, we really don't know since we ate in the hostel most meals. This was an effort done to both save money and to save us from the frustration of finding foods that were both dairy and wheat free. Don't get me wrong, we did hit some restaurants, and Tony did have his share of cheese free pizza (a large share), but eating it was the way to go. We find that supermarket shopping is a great way to see the way locals interact with each other, and to see what they actually eat! In one of our frequented supermarkets (Standa, near the Colors Hostel), it seems that the Italians were sucking up Christmas cake. Tony and I, on the other hand were sucking up this amazing dessert called Torrone; a nougat bar, with hazelnuts and cocoa. Yumm. One phenomenon we experienced on our night of arrival into Rome was the Roman "drug store". While searching for a 24-hour supermarket, we stumbled upon a drugstore, dismissed it as a possible food market, and kept on following the directions given to us. We subsequently got lost on the desserted streets (it was late), and turned around, only to become drawn into this busy drug store. Here we found what we were looking, and learned an important lesson - apparently Romans call 24-hour supermarkets "drug stores". There are four or five of these things within Rome, and are all labelled as such.

One last thing I should mention about Rome is the age of the majority of its population! It seems that most people were over the age of 50, and there were not many kids. This observation was confirmed by our guidebook mentioning that Italy has one of the fastest declining populations in the world! This is a vast difference from London, where most people were our age, and even more different from Nepal where kids are the definite majority (more on this in the Nepal journal). I personally think that it would be beneficial for people our age to move to Italy to cover for their aging population and potentially growing job market.

I have a million more things to say about Rome, but I feel I covered a vast majority of it. I will likely have the photos up in the next few weeks to recount our stories, altough with our bad luck on finding acceptably fast internet connections on the Indian Subcontinent, we may not.