Rome

Monday - Fly to Rome, Walk to Trevi Fountain, and Indian food for Dinner

Our Rome vacation began with an early morning cab ride to the London Stansted Zoo Airport. After the insane queues to check in and check our bags, we walked into the Airport for some nice breakfast at a Lebanese joint. Our flight to Rome was uneventful and even had some nice views of the alps on the way there.

The heat hit us as soon as we landed in Rome, and would be a constant villain over the next 2 weeks of our vacation. Rome, at first glance, reminded me a lot of Madras perhaps. The people on scooters everywhere, the architecture of houses on the way in from the Airport, the hot weather, and the bad driving :P.

We reached our hotel at the peak of mid-day heat. After a quick lunch at a nearby completely un-noteworthy restaurant, we decided to cool off in our hotel room AC before venturing out in the evening for some touristing.

We decided to walk to the Trevi Fountain. The walk was nice, and included some obligatory stops for Gelato.

Trevi Fountain was beautiful, but packed shoulder-to-shoulder with Tourists. A shock to our post-covid sensibilities of isolation and masking. We did our best to elbow our way to spots for pictures and to admire the fountain, but ultimately the crowds limited how long we desired to stay in that spot.

The Spanish steps were pretty close by, so we headed in that direction.

We found more crowds at the Spanish steps, along with some protesters that were protesting against animal cruelty against horse drawn carriages, and the horses being forced to work during the heat wave :O.

We strolled around the plaza some more, and headed back to an Indian restaurant near the hotel for some dinner.

Tuesday - Colosseum, Pantheon, Piazza Navona

On Tuesday, after a family breakfast at the hotel, we took ubers to the Colosseum. The Colosseum didn’t allow tourists in until 9 am, so we wandered around a bit and took some pictures. It was already starting to get warm, so the kids were happier sitting in the shade.

The tourist route in the Colosseum took us through different parts through a particular route. Thankfully this was mostly in the shade, and we did fine for as long as we were in cover. The day was noticeably heating up though, and we were loathe to walk in the sun anywhere.

We did our best to take in as much of the Colosseum as we could, until the heat really got to us. We canceled plans to go visit the gardens and roman ruins nearby. Instead, we retreated to a nearby cafe for some light brunch and refreshing fruit juices. We returned back to the hotel to wait out the sun, and ended up ordering in some Thai food, which we all ate together in the common area of our hotel.

After some naps, and games of cards, and once the day was cooler, we set out to visit the Pantheon.

The Pantheon was really amazing. A structure that has stood for the better part of modern history, was amazing in its size, and architecture. The interior, had a presence to its vastness, with the oculus adding the presence of light in a somber way. It was definitely a memory to cherish.

After a mandatory stop for Gelato, we shopped for some souvenirs, and hung around the Piazza a while, taking pictures and enjoying the evening. A short walk later, we found ourselves in Piazza Navona, and Fiumi fountain.

The piazza was lovely. We walked around, enjoying all the artists hawking their work in the open air, taking in the sights. We enjoyed a lovely outdoor Italian dinner at 4Fiumi, and the cooling evening air, before taking ubers back to our hotel.

Wednesday - Vatican Museum, St Peters Basilica, SVB Roma

After breakfast at the loudest cafe we’ve ever been in, we took Ubers to the Vatican museum. After the necessary queues to enter, our first area was the exhibit of Egyptian artifacts. The Vatican collection was really immense, and Tejas, our resident egyptologist-in-training was quite literally jumping with excitement about being able to see all the artifacts. He thoroughly enjoyed looking at everything, and was helpfully sharing stories from Greek mythology about the characters represented by the various statues and things that we were seeing.

We visited the hall of roman statues, and wandered the hallways taking in the sights. It was truly an overwhelming amount of history and cultures represented within those walls.

Walking down the gallery of maps, the amount of detail in all the maps on the walls, as well as in the detailed scenes painted on the ceilings, was immense.

We were starting to get hungry and tired, so we made a beeline to the Sistine Chapel. The chapel was truly impressive, and we were lucky, among all the crowds, to find some spots to sit and admire the frescoes on the ceiling and walls. The guy periodically coming on a mic and yelling “Attention por favore; Silencio!” at everyone who was talking periodically, is engraved into our brains now, and was a running joke throughout the whole trip.

Since photography was prohibited in the Sistine chapel, we don’t have any photos there.

We headed over to the cafe for a late lunch, and since our guided tour at St Peters wasn’t until 4.30, we decided to hang out in the cafe, and get our strength back. We ended up eating more coffee cream than we probably should have while waiting in that cafe :P

After multiple rounds of coffee, we walked over to St Peters Basilica

Since we arrived a bit early to the basilica, the office for the guided tour told us to walk through the necropolis, and visit St Peters tombs, since that closes earlier than the Basilica does, and would be closed by the end of our tour. We made a beeline and took the stairs under ground. Everyone was so creeped out by the tombs of all the priests under there, that we speed-ran the entire walk. A lot of us completely missed seeing St Peters Tomb.

After the speed-run, we met up in front of the cathedral, joined our tour guide, and enjoyed an hour long guided tour of the basilica. The guide was pretty knowledgeable and told us plenty of entertaining stories, keeping everyone well engaged.

After the tour, we hung around a bit more, enjoying the solemn ambiance of the cathedral, before catching Ubers back to dinner at Saravana Bhavan in Rome.

Thursday - Take a train to Firenze

Thursday was our day to travel to Florence by train. Since Purni and I had missed the climb to the top of St Peters the previous day, something that Suba and Mahesh strongly advised us to not miss, we woke up early, and took a cab to do that. We timed our arrival to the exact time they opened (7.30 am I think), and had the pleasure of climbing to the top and enjoying the lovely views. Being early in the morning, it was not too hot either.

Purni and I thoroughly enjoyed our time with each other as well as the view from the top, and after a nice breakfast at an American style breakfast cafe, returned back to the hotel.

Some packing later, Suba, Mahesh, Purni and I took a nice walk to a cafe for some Coffee, before coming back to the hotel, and packing up the kids and making multiple walking trips with luggage to the Train station, that was annoyingly too close to take a taxi, but far enough with luggage to be a hassle. Sigh.

We got lunch at the station, and took a nice business class express train to Florence.