Fodor's Travel Talk Forums - Trip Report Rome in August

Sunday, August 3
We arrived about half an hour late at Leonardo da Vinci Airport at 8am, waltzed through customs, and picked up our bags. We couldn't find our driver from Roman Homes - we though he would be in the baggage area, but later found him beyond the customs barrier. This was just our own inexperience with getting picked up by a driver. The driver spoke very little English, and was our first taste of Roman driving -- fast, confident, and somewhat frightening.
Our apartment was at 98 Via Guilia, in the old Central City near the eastern bank of the Tiber River, just a short walk across the river from the Vatican. The apartment was about 600 years old (though modernized and refinished, of course), on the second floor on a tiny, quiet street 2 blocks from the river. Even in August, we were the only non-Romans in the neighborhood. It's not cheap to rent an apartment - ours slept 4 comfortably, had a kitchen and full bath, washer & drier, phone, TV with satellite, and elevator - it cost about $1,650 (1,430 Euros) for the week. But we figured two hotel rooms would have cost that much, and we wouldn't have had the kitchen, or the experience of living in a real neighborhood.
After our orientation from Julie, we were disoriented, exhausted and hungry - Rome is 6 hours ahead of Eastern Daylight time. We walked a couple of blocks to the Paparazzi Bar on the main drag, Corso Vittorio Emmanuel (bars are sort of sandwich shops, though they also sell beer and wine; cafes are coffee shops). We had a very light snack, then returned to unpack and nap. After a couple of hours' sleep, we felt up to exploring the neighborhood, and bought fruit, sodas, and snacks at the friendly "Mini-Mart" on Vittorio Emmanuel (it became a daily stop for us). After 5:00 pm, we went for a longer, more explorative walk. We saw the Largo Argentina ruins, home to 400 stray cats, with a volunteer staff to feed and care for them. We noted the guided tour of the cat shelter on Friday evenings. We sat in front of the Pantheon in the fading light, and wandered through Piazza Navona, with its 3 beautiful Bernini fountains. Then we went for an early dinner (8:30) at a wonderful family-style restaurant near Campo dei Fiori called Dar Pallaro, where you eat what you're given. In this case, 3 full courses, including proscuitto, lentils, chopped tomatoes and olive oil, bread, mozzarella cheese, pasta in a light tomato and cheese sauce, roasted pork, homemade potato chips, sauteed zucchini, fresh peaches, lemon tart, mineral water and wine - all for 20 E a person. We managed to roll home and were very ready for bed.
Monday, August 4
It is HOT in Rome - 35 degrees Centigrade, which is about 95 Fahrenheit. It stayed that hot, and sunny, every day. (But it's a dry heat.) We didn't know it would stay so hot, so we decided to duck the heat on Monday by touring some nice, cool catacombs. After breakfast in our apartment (I was now a pro at making Italian coffee in the tiny steamer pot), we took a taxi to the Vittorio Emmanuel Memorial, an enormous white marble wedding cake structure visible from space, where we boarded the hourly "Archeobus" tour of the Appian Way. This ancient interstate from Rome to Capua, built in the 4th Century B.C., proves the lasting value of infrastructure investment. At some points on our ride, we were driving over the original, 2,400 year-old paving stones. We got off the bus at the Catacombs of St. Callistus, the most important of the catacombs, since it housed the tombs of four early popes and the perfectly preserved remains of St. Cecilia. The catacombs are cool and dark - they remain the same temperature year-round. Our tour was fascinating - there are no bones or remains on public view (they are in the lower levels of the tunnels), but we saw many kinds of niches and family burial rooms, frescoes, Christian symbols etched into the walls, and tiny oil lamps that were used to mark the tombs and light the way. Our tour guide warned us not to get separated from the group, because we could get lost in the labyrinth of tunnels and end up sleeping in a niche ourselves. A little ways off the Appian Way is the St. Domatilla Catacombs, but when we walked there, they were on their afternoon break (a common Roman practice). So we picnicked in the shade of the gardens and waited out the 2 hour closure. Domatilla was a very disappointing tour, though. It was a much larger group, and the guide wasn't very personable -- the tour was over in a perfunctory 20 minutes. The St. Domatilla 2nd Century church is built below ground into the catacombs themselves.
WE decided to see the rest of the Appian Way as a windshield tour back on the Archeobus (which is air-conditioned, hallelujah!). At the far end of the tour, we got out for 15 minutes to look at the ancient Aqueducts. Some water is still carried into the city by aqueducts, though not the ones we saw. After we returned home, we napped a couple of hours and ate a meal in the apartment of pizza and good bakery bread from the market at Campo dei Fiori (there is a farmer's market in the square every morning). After dinner, we wandered across the Pont S. Angelo to check out a summer festival on the grounds of the Castel Sant'Angelo - it had live bands, food, thousands of happy Romans milling around, and fireworks at 11:00 pm, which we watched from the bridge. How beautiful!
Tuesday, August 5
Another HOT day, but we're going to the Vatican! We got there before 10:00, but the lines were still long and the crowds overwhelming. The Vatican Museum, which we started with, is built as two very long (1/4 mile!) hallways that connect at the far end at the Sistine Chapel. We did the audio tour, and took our time looking at the Map Room, the tapestries, trompe l'oeil ceilings, the stunning Borgia Papal Apartments, and the Raphael Rooms. Finally, we got to the Sistine Chapel. WOW! We just at on the benches along the wall for 30 minutes, looking at the Old and New Testament friezes, where scenes from the life of Moses are allegorically linked to scenes from the life of Jesus. We stared long and hard at Michaelangelo's restored ceiling, and especially, at "The Last Judgment" behind the altar - Jesus is definitely "no more Mr. Nice Guy" in this one. Then we made the long trudge back down the parallel long corridor (these art treasures don't get looked at with anywhere near the same enthusiasm as the ones on the way up to the Sistine Chapel). We stopped at the museum shop, then had a very tasty lunch at the Museum's self-service restaurant (recommended). Then it was time for St. Peter's Basilica. You must be properly attired to enter - no shorts or sleeveless shirts. We took a break and stopped for gelato right across the bridge on Vittorio Emmanuel. After gelato, we went back to St. Peter's and climbed up the cupola, for amazing views of the entire city. (Just like Washington D.C. and the Washington Monument, new buildings built in Rome can't be taller than the dome of St. Peter's.) It was an exhausting day for everyone. Later, we went to Luigi's near Vittorio Emmanuel (right next to the Paparazzi Bar) for an excellent, traditional Roman dinner. The entire week, whenever we ate at a restaurant, we ate outside under big umbrellas. Even with the heat, there was always a breeze, and many restaurants were not serving inside during the summer months.
Wednesday, August 6
We decided to make this a walking tour day. We went south down our own little street, Via Guilia, stopping to admire the lion's mouth fountain at the French Embassy and the skull and crossbones motif of the Santa Maria dell Orazione e Morte church. This church was where the remains of thousands of friars and monks were interred through the middle ages. We walked through Campo dei Fiori while the market was in full swing, then up to the Piazza Navona, stopping for the famous chocolate truffle gelato at Tre Scalini restaurant - tres rich, and tres expensive. Then it was a short walk to the Pantheon, which was designed by Hadrian and built in 128 A.D. It is a masterpiece, the finest example of ancient Roman architecture that remains whole and intact. Next to the Pantheon was a wonderful church, Santa Maria sopra Minerva, a gothic church built on top of a temple to Minerva, goddess of wisdom. In front of the church is an elephant supporting an obelisk (strength supporting wisdom), built by the ever-present Bernini. We visited two other beautiful churches - Chiesa di S. Agostina and S. Luigi Dei Francesci (the national church of France in Rome) - both of which featured gorgeous pictures painted by Caravaggio. We got to be real "church snobs". If the church didn't feature major ceiling frescoes and at least one Caravaggio, Raphael, or Michaelangelo, it wasn't worth our time!
After a brief rest at the apartment, we went to see Castel S. Angelo, an enormous fortress and papal residence built on top of Hadrian's tomb. The papal apartments were amazingly deluxe - Pope Alexander VI used this fortress residence during the years that Rome lived in fear of invasion by the Turks (late 15th Century-early 16th Century). We even saw the papal bathroom, with a beautiful tiled bathtub. No toilet - we assumed he used a throne chair with chamber pot. (Although the ancient Romans had actual indoor toilets that connected to a sewer system!) There were impressive views of the city from the top of the castle, which is guarded by a giant marble and bronze statue of the archangel Michael, who appeared in a vision to Pope Leo X on that spot. The pope took the vision as a sign that the plague was receding and Rome was saved.
For dinner that evening, we packed a light picnic and took a taxi to the top of Giancolense Park, a hill to the west of Trastevere across the Tiber River. Though not one of the original "seven hills of Rome", Giancolense (or "Janiculum" in English, named for the minor two-faced deity Janus) is a wonderful viewing spot to see the eternal city, especially at sunset. It was at least 10 degrees cooler on top of the hill, too. When we got back to the apartment, we decided to go see a movie (Charlie Chaplin's "The Great Dictator") at the Pasquino Theater in Trastevere, which plays all English language films with Italian subtitles, 3 films a day, changing every 3 days. We then sat outside and had drinks followed by a walk around the Trastavere neighborhood. We were impressed by the liveliness and color of Trastavere. We walked all the way back, crossing the river at Tiber Island and going by the Marcello Theater (part ancient ruins, part apartment building). It was one of our later nights turning in.
Thursday, August 7
We were up early to cab out to the Villa Borghese Park on the north side of town. We had reserved tickets on the Internet to the Galleria Borghese, an exclusive art gallery of Bernini marble masterpieces and Renaissance oil paintings by Caravaggio, Raphael, Rubens, Titian, Botticelli, and others. The sculptures and paintings were collected by Cardinal Scipione Borghese, just one of the luminaries of this great family of Papal Rome. The Borghese family also produced Pope Paul V. The gallery and gardens were spectacular. We had 9:00 am tickets, and were promptly booted out at 11:00 - the museum only permits 50 people in at a time, in two-hour increments. The Bernini sculptures were breathtaking - so alive and real that you expected them to spring into action. The "Rape of Properina" was especially amazing .... as Pluto carried Persephone down to the underworld, she struggles in his arms. You can actually see his fingers digging into the soft skin of her thigh - all this in marble! We walked through the beautiful Borghese Park to make our way down to the southern end and the Spanish Steps, probably the most famous spot in Rome. OK, I was not all that moved. For one thing, it was HOT! The marble steps baked in the noonday heat. And one side of the steps was closed for filming a commercial or fashion shoot of some kind. Via Condotti, at the base of the steps, is the Fifth Avenue of Rome: Prada, Christian Dior, Hermes, Gorgio Armani, Louis Vuitton, Cartier, Bulgari .... you get the picture. We didn't make any stops. We saw the Mausoleum of Augustus (yes, Augustus Caesar), though it wasn't open to walk through. We toured another gorgeous church, San Lorenzo in Lucina, and admired the Column of Marcus Aurelius (which a pope later decided was too martial, and put St. Paul on the top, instead). Near the column, we had our best gelato yet, at Gioletti's, a venerable gelatarium and restaurant with a nice, old-fashioned ice cream parlor feel, and about 100 flavors to choose from. We wrapped up our day's walking at the Trevi Fountain (another big-scale Bernini sculpture).
Dinner that night was low-key - we returned to Dar Pallaro (an identical meal to Sunday night's, except replace roast beef and fried eggplant for the pork and zucchini). Now we were family! Big greeting on our arrival, kisses all around from the owner and his wife when we left.
Friday, August 8
As unlikely as it seems, we saved the best for last. Friday morning. We left the apartment early, had a light breakfast of cornettos (croissants) and coffee at yet another local bar on Vittorio Emmanuel, and took a taxi to the Colosseum. A single 10 E charge got us into the Colosseum and the Palantine Hill (an ongoing archeological work site, with a wonderful museum of artifacts that were found in their explorations in the area); the Roman Forum itself is free of charge. The Colosseum is magnificent - you can close your eyes and hear the crowd of 70,000 cheering. Part of the wooden floor has been restored, so you can see how the chambers underneath worked (including animal cages, trap doors, elevator lifts, and the ability to close off all the lower level entrances and flood the entire floor of the arena to stage mock naval battles). At the Forum, we walked on the original Via Sacra (Ancient Rome's main street) and saw the triumphal Arch of Constantine; the House of the Vestal Virgins, complete with lily ponds; the Curia, or Roman Senate building; and many temple ruins. At the far end of the Forum, we mounted a series of steps to the Piazza del Campidoglio, flanked by two beautiful museums and the current Roman Senate, the Palazzo Senatorio. We crossed the street to the Vittorio Emmanuele Monument and had a light lunch, then returned to the Forum for more walking through the ancient ruins. We climbed Palantine Hill and saw the Farnese Gardens, which featured a courtyard with a bi-level fountain dripping to a cloistered room of statues surrounding the pool below. We ended our tour at the Palantine Museum, then were ready for some air conditioning and a rest.
We had differing late afternoon plans. Some wanted to go to the Largo Argentina cat sanctuary tour, but I was set on visiting the Cemetery of the Capuchins at the Church of the Immaculate Conception. In the crypts below the church, there are six chapels that are elaborately decorated with the separated bones and complete skeletons of 4,000 Capuchin monks. The dirt floors were brought from Jerusalem, and the effect of these thousands and thousands of bones and skulls arranged in rosettes, curlicues and arches was not as macabre as it sounds. (OK, so it is pretty macabre, but it is also reverential and, in a way, beautiful.) The mummified remains of about 30 monks recline or stand among the many archways and niches, all wearing their hooded Capuchin robes. We had to be back to the apartment by 6:30 to meet with the realtor, settle any outstanding charges, and finalize arrangements for getting to the airport in the morning.
Our final dinner in Rome was at Insalata Ricchi near Campo dei Fiori, one of a chain of restaurants that specialize in light meals, pasta and imaginative salads. There was something for everyone. After dinner, I picked up a couple of souvenir prints (of the Pantheon and of Castel S. Angelo and the Vatican) from the vendors at Piazza Navona. It was the end of a long and wonderful day.
Saturday, August 9
We got up, packed, had breakfast at a another bar on Vittorio Emmanuel (not as many places open on the weekend), and were ready for the driver to come at 9:00. The rest of the day is boring and "outer circle of Hell" awful, so I won't go into it. Chicago O'Hare was terrible - so bad that I will never take an international flight in or out of that airport again (90 wait at customs). We were happy to be home. It was a wonderful vacation, and I would go again, even in August.