Next Stop - Rome, the capital city of
Italy.
We arrived at the bustling Roma termini
station and boarded the taxi to our hotel. As we navigated through the city, we
could clearly sense the rich history amidst this busy modern city. We came
across beautiful churches, magnificent buildings, immense traffic and tourists galore.
We soon arrived at our hotel- Hotel Navona Colours in the Pantheon/ Piazza Navona neighbourhood. A lovely modern boutique
hotel with all necessary amenities such as air conditioning, wifi,
complimentary breakfast and located in the heart of the city, an ideal location
I thought.
For our first night in the capital, we had
signed up for a food tour and it truly was the best way to experience the
culture and the food of this great city. It was that good that I had to
dedicate one sole post to it and you can read about it here.
Next morning, we had charted out a visit to
the Colosseum along with the side sights such as the Roman Forum and the
Palatine Hill. It was a bright, sunny, hot day. We quickly purchased our
combined tickets at the nearby Forum rather than the Colosseum, a smart idea
from the Rick Steves guide book and first visited the ruins with the help of
the audio guide again from Rick Steves (No, I am not his brand ambassador,
incase you were thinking :) )
The whole experience of visiting the spectacular
structures from more than 2000 years ago and imagining the city in its full
grandeur picturing the great Roman emperors such as Nero, Julius Caesar walking
through the city was truly enriching. We also saw the spot where Julius Caesar was
cremated among several other sights. Unfortunately the maze like pathways and
the heat played spoilsport and we decided to visit the Colosseum the following
day, considering the tickets were valid for two days.
We then boarded the efficient but crowded
metro to the Vatican and headed straight to a pizzeria suggested by our guide
from the food tour- Alice.
It was a small cafeteria like restaurant serving around 15 types of pizzas with
various toppings and all priced al taglio (by weight). We chose the classic
Neapolitan , 4 cheese-mushroom, Ham-broccoli and a potato pizza. The Neapolitan
pizza was surely the best I had eaten during the trip with the super crunchy
crust and the fresh tomatoes and buffalo mozzarella. It looked so beautiful and
tasted even better. We were surely in food heaven. But due to lack of time for
our Vatican guided tour, our hunger and the heat, we did not manage to click
any photographs.
Next stop, the Vatican, which is the world’s
smallest country with a mere area of 110 acres.
The Vatican museums housing some of the
largest art collection in the world are further divided into 54 museums of which
in 4 hours, we managed to visit hardly a few.
The art and sculpture found in each of these
museums was impressive such as the Gallery of Tapestries, Gallery of Maps and a
special mention has to be made to the notable painting known as School of Athens by
Raphael in which were depicted practically almost great philosophers known till
date such as Socrates, Aristotle, Plato, Pythagoras and even self-portaits of Raphael
and Michelangelo.
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| Laocoon |
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| Ceilings inside the Vatican museums |
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| School of Athens |
Then at the end was the Sistine Chapel, which
was undoubtedly Michelangelo’s magnum opus. We were given a brief description
of the implication of this art work by our guide and about the labour, effort
and time involved in creating this great piece of art. We were not allowed to take any photographs due to some copyright regulations.
We finished our Vatican visit at the St
Peter’s Basilica, the largest Catholic church in the world where we also saw
the Pieta by Michelangelo. What impressed me was that inspite of it being
overly touristed, the Basilica invoked in me a devotion probably realizing the
fact that I was standing in one of the greatest shrines of the Christian world.
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| Pieta by Michelangelo |
