Rome

Sam and I got into Rome late because of the aforementioned little trip we'd taken to get there. After checking into the hostel and all we decided we were hungry and that we wanted to see the Coloseum at night. Since I'd been to Rome before, I had already seen most of the sights we visited. Such as the Coloseum. I hadn't seen it at night, though, and it was pretty. For some reason, the Coloseum just doesn't interest me that much. For example, it was built around 80 ad. It seems to get a lot of hype about being old and impressive - and it is - but it has never lived up to that hype for me. The interesting things I learned about it when we went there on a Sunday (palm Sunday) was that not only did that have gladitorial matches there but they also used it to slaughter huge numbers of interesting animals like peackocks or hippos. I guess it would be something to see all those creatures taken down, but it seems really dumb to do that. Are those types of displays supposed to demostrate the power of the Emperor? They were normally put on after a victory of some sort to celebrate it. The Flavian ampitheater (the real name of the Coloseum) was used for about 400 years before it fell out of commission. It went unused and uncared for for, well, I don't really know, but it was a long time. The reason half of it's missing is because it's stones were used in constructing other building around it, most notably St. Peter's Cathedral.

Sam and I went to the Vatican on Saturday. There were some pros and cons to this. The pros were that we probably wouldn't have been able to see the Cathedral in the detail that we did, and I don't know if the museum would have been open, either, on Sunday because that Sunday was Palm Sunday. The cons were that we missed seeing the Pope and his Pope mobile. I'm still a little bummed I didn't get to see that, but we went to Tivoli instead and that was pretty nice (but that's a different city). When I say we saw the Cathedral in detail, I mean we saw the inside of it, and that thing is HUGE. I believe it's the largest Cathedral in the world, though I'm not sure. And even if it isn't, that doesn't make it any smaller. I'd been inside it before (I snuck it wearing shorts, too) and didn't really care too much. We then proceeded to climb the dome. From the inside of the dome you can walk around and look down on everyone of the ground floor. It's then you realize how big the Cathedral actually is. Then you climb up the inside of the dome to the observation area. On the way up on the inside of the dome the stairs keep getting more and more slanted because you're climbing between two separate domes. It's pretty interesting, actually. The day Sam and I went, it was supposed to rain. It didn't actually rain on us but when we got to the top we saw a number of different storms and there was lightning occasionally. It was so cool. We saw something similar in Tuscany (in Siena). After you leave the dome, you have to walk accross the roof (second time we did that on a Cathedral but I just realized that I forgot to write about Milan). On the roof of St. Peter's there is a gift shop, a refreshment stand, and a post office. Everytime I see a gift shop in a church (and it seems to be mandatory for the larger ones), I think of the story where Jesus sees the people buying and selling in the temple and gets royally pissed. He starts turning over tables and says, "Is is not written, 'My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations'? But you have made it a den of robbers." (Mark 11.17 NRSV). I'm always amazed at how the Catholic church seems to ignore this story. It's one that made a lasting impression on me, so it must be at least somewhat important, right? And the same thing goes for having to pay to enter a Cathedral. So what if I'm not going there to worship? They should still welcome everyone - for free. Anyways, after the roof, we went to the crypts, which had Pope John Paul II's tomb. By coincidence, we came near the anniversary of his death, which explains why there were a ton of people around his grave, praying. One last thing in the Vatican that's mandatory to see is the Sisteen Chapel. I'd already seen it before, but it's worth seeing as many times as possible. I even got the obligatory illegal photo. We also saw "The School of Athens" (that's what I'm pretty sure it's called) by Raphael. Both very good works.

After that, we walked around historic Rome. We saw the Trevi fountain, the Spanish steps (which apparently you aren't allowed to defecate on - who would've thought?), the Pantheon, and that sort of thing. We ate a nice italian dinner - though they make their lasagna different than I'm used to. It'd not bad, just different.

Now the only thing left to talk about is the Roman Forums. I wish I had known about these earlier. We went here on Sunday after the Coloseum just trying to kill time before our train to Tivoli left. The Roman Forums are on Palatine Hill and this is where Rome was founded. This site has the oldest structures in Rome and is a wonderful way to learn how those people really lived back then. Romulus and Remus were said to be nursed by the she wolf in a den on that hill. It's just an incredible place to be because you can learn so much about the structure of the early Roman society.

Now, all that being said, I don't really like Rome as a city. I've never been able to pin point why this is, but it just lacks a certain cohesion that seems necessary for a city to be appealing to me. Florence has it, London has it, Vienna has it, New York has it. Hell, even Cincy has it. Rome does not. I wish I could explain it better but I can't.