italee: Rome: pictures suck

You have no idea how frustrating it is to take a picture of a place and then look up and realize that there is nothing that can truly capture the beauty that is in front of you. That's what I felt like constantly in Rome.

Rome was breathtaking, everything about it. It was like walking through a huge city and having these ancient ruins just pop up out of nowhere, I fell in love (with the place).

The first day we got there and settled in for a little bit and then headed out for our first tour. We went a pretty much walked the whole city. We walked the famous street from the movie 'Roman Holiday,' saw the Spanish Steps, a famous café filled with lots of expensive art, had our photo opt in front of Trevi Fountain, went into the most beautiful church/coolest I've ever seen, went into another famous Café (supposedly the one they take the famous people/presidents to when they come to visit), visited the Pantheon (sadly under construction yet still breathtaking), and ended the first day with a building that can be compared to our version of the White House. Yes that was all one day. I could go on for ever about all these things but that would turn into a book. I think my favorite that day was the church known as 'Santa Maria Sopra Minerva. The ceilings were beautifully painted, one of the only ones I seen where it gives a 3-Dimensional feel, AND the dome of the church wasn't really a dome! It was a flat ceiling painted in such a way, that walking in, up until a certain point, it looked like a real dome! Then once you were directly underneath it you realized that the center was no where near the actual center and that it was all an illusion. I was impressed. The first day was awesome but it was also jam-packed with everything we did. That was how most the trip went though.

The whole next day was dedicated to the Vatican. It was really intriguing to me, although not a spiritual experience like it is for some people. The fact that there were so many people and it was such a tourist thing really didn't appeal to me that much. The Sisteen Chapel was beautiful, but they kind of kept you moving through it. The architecture was astounding to me. I wish I could have been completely alone walking through there to take it all in. On the other hand, Saint Peter's Basilica was…well I don't even have a good word to describe it. It was huge first of all, and the detail was beautiful. That was probably one of my other all time favorite churches but for other reasons. Even though there were tons of people in it, contrary to the Vatican, in the Basilica you felt like it was still pretty empty. In some of the side chapels, I felt like they were the size of our church back home, and this was just along the side! HUGE! That night we went out and wandered the city, found some more ruins, saw the Colessum at night, had a great dinner by our hotel and then collapsed from exhaustion.

The next day, it was off to go explore the Colesseum, we were some of the first people in so it was great to see it mostly empty. It boggled my mind how on earth they put it all together back then! We found out that really the battle and what not were not near as gory as people think they are, they did have some sort of referee and rules. We also wandered in the gift shop where they had pictures of what it probably looked like when it was first built, the contrast was incredible.

Finally on Sunday morning we went to 2 Villas outside of Rome to the hills. This was definitely in the top 3 of my favorite things in Rome, mingled in there with the Colesseum and the optical illusion Dome. The first one was known as Tivoli and was an ancient ruin villa. We stared by looking at this small reconstruction map thing (I know there's a specific word for it but my mind can't find it right now). Then we set off to go through most of it. It was a huge area so we didn't even cover it all. Some of the 'buildings' still had parts of a roof intact or the original floor. Once again my brain could figure out how on earth the Roman's had built this incredible architecture so long ago. From Tivoli we went to a functioning villa called Villa D'Este which was like a palace and then huge gardens with beautiful fountains. The had up above the main fountain, another set that was also a water organ so we listened to the short little concert they gave. I felt like I was in a fairy tale prancing through all these old trees and fountains playing hide and seek with bunnies…or something along those lines. That's the kind of magical feeling it had.

I'll admit, Rome was my kind of place. A practical, functioning city woven between this ancient history that snuck up on you wherever you walked. As much as I love Florence, I think if I were to do it again…I might choose Rome. I can't explain it other than to say Rome has a different feel than Florence, then again each place has a different feel. Yes Rome is also a big tourist place, but it's also a big city so there's also plenty of locals. In Florence, there's a ton of tourists/students and it's easy to tell that the locals are sick of it. In Rome, I didn't feel that way. Maybe that's not true about Florence, maybe I'm crazy. Rome felt a bit like a fresh breath of air. Let me reiterate, I love Florence. I loved Rome in a different way. It took us more than a whole day to walk the whole city and even then we didn't cover quite all of it. Florence I can walk the main center plus a few laps and stops for coffee in a full day. I think the safe route on this one is to say that after visiting Rome, I love ALL of Italy even more and continued to be fascinated by it.