Day 5 - Rome, Naples, Sorrento

            We had a goal to get to the Vatican very early this morning, but our goal was modified when we had to get our tired bodies out of bed and pack up to leave Rome.  Since we hadn’t experience a Roman bus ride yet, I thought this might be the best way to travel.  It probably was longer than necessary, but provided some good entertainment as one bus rider yelled at the bus driver after he neglected to stop at his stop.  The rider complained and yelled that he was going to be late for work because of the negligent driver.

From the Dome of St. Peter's

            I couldn’t believe the line that had already formed to get into St. Peter’s, lucky for us it moved quickly.  Just like everything else in the world, times have changed over the last 20 years.  I remember just walking into St. Peter’s with no security check, now it’s like going through the airport security.  Once inside St. Peter’s the crowds were immense.  We skipped the pieta’ which is right at the entrance in hopes that later we’d be able to get closer.  I had to chuckle at a mass that was being held in one of the side chapel. Despite the constant hum of people talking they wanted reverence and told us to be quiet several times.  We were able to go into the crypt under the church to see some of the burials of the popes, but we didn’t get to see St. Peter’s bones, or at least bones from a 1^st century gravesite that could have been near where St. Peter was buried.

            After 45 minutes or so in the basilica and finally caught a quick glimpse at the Pieta’ and then we headed to the entrance of the cupola so we could climb the dome.  We left Jeff below as we learned he does not do heights.  Gratefully this part of our day was not crowded, I suppose it was not on the old-people tour itinerary -  too strenuous.  First we took the elevator to the level of the base of the interior dome and saw the artwork up close and all the little people down below in the basilica.  Afterwards, we climbed the narrow, curving, claustrophobic steps up to the dome.  The view from the top is amazing.  You can see all of Rome and beyond.  It was fun to sit and identify the neighborhoods and sites.  On our decent we were able to stop at the roof level and see the huge statues of the apostles that look life size when viewed from the piazza, but like giants when viewed up close.

            Our final stop at the Vatican complex was the Vatican Museum and although we had a timed reservation, I couldn’t believe how many people they had squeezed into the museum.  At one point we found ourselves body to body in the long hallway on our way to the Sistine Chapel moving like a school of fish traveling down a very crowded stream.  It was enjoyable to see the culmination of our efforts, Raphael’s School of Athens and Michelangelo’s Last Judgment and Sistine Chapel ceiling.  We laughed at the irony as people asked us to be quiet in the Sistine Chapel – it was their fault in the first place for over booking the museum.

            We took the metro back to our apartment where we had 30 minutes to eat a lunch and wait to get our luggage.  After a short 10 minute walk to Termini train station we were on our way to Sorrento, via Naples.  We arrive in Naples with just enough time to eat dinner and leave.  Gratefully we were directed, albeit after having to ask a bunch people where we were going, to a great, locals only pizza shop.  It was by far one of the best meals we had our entire trip.  The pizza was true Napolitano as were the people, the trashy neighborhood, the smells – everything!  After dinner we got ourselves a pastry, sofgliatelle, which is a Naples favorite. 

Our evening continued on a “locals only” theme as we took the local circumvesuviana train to Sorrento.  It was a local experience as I think we were the only tourists on the train.  In fact, the next day our tour guide chastised me for not taking “my guest” on a more comfortable train.  We arrived late at our hotel, Del Corso Hotel, but not so late we couldn’t walk around a get a gelato.  Lucky for us there was a really good gelateria just outside our hotel door and another one just a bit down the street.  I was impressed that Sorrento had a night life.  Many of the stores were open well past 10:00 p.m.

Day 4 - Rome

            This morning after grabbing breakfast at the grocery story on the street corner by our apartment, we walked to the church Saint Peter in Chains to see the Moses. 

We got a bit confused as the streets twisted and turned and nearly went in circles, but thanks to the GPS in the iphone, we made it.  I still prefer to look at the paper map, but sometimes it fails me.  I can’t decide if the Moses or the Pieta is my favorite Michelangelo statue in Rome.  I love Moses’ intense look.  We enjoyed the quiet of the church with very few early morning visitors.  We were suppose to meet our tour guide for the Coliseum at 9:00 outside the church, but at 9:15 she wasn’t there.  When I called to see if something had happened, it was clear she had forgotten our appointment (a theme that continued later in the trip).  I strained to hear and understand the directions she gave me for the new meeting place.  Something like, down the hill, over the bridge, find the piazza and she would meet us there.  Blindly we headed down the hill not evening knowing what our tour guide looked like.  Amazingly enough we eventually found her 30 minutes later!  So goes Italy time. 

            Laura was her name and she was a very knowledgeable guide.  We started at the Coliseum and thanks to our guide and our Roma Pass, we went to the front of the line, thank heavens.  It’s amazing that this gigantic arena still stands 2000 years later.  It’s amazing that millions of Romans drive past this structure every day and just think of it as part of the landscape, like our Mountains or something.  This structure is portrayed in almost every Rome postcard. 

            After the Coliseum we viewed Constantine’s Arch and then walked to Palatine Hill, the Hill where the Emperor’s lived.  I never realized how big Palatine Hill was.  It was fun to imagine the elaborate palaces and buildings and what things must have looked like at the height of the Roman Empire. 

Over looking Palatine Hill (Rich, Jeff, Lara, John Katie)

After 3 hours with Laura, we dashed through the Forum, unfortunately with very little info.  But our legs were tired and our stomachs were hungry.  We found an excellent Tavola calda with sliced pizza and a nice neighborhood piazza nearby to sit down and eat.  We looked like quintessential Americans on a European vacation.

            We decided we could walk to San Giovanni in Laterano via the church San Clemente.  San Clemente is a unique church that is built upon 2 other churches, the first being a Roman House that could have also been a pagan worship site, then an early Christen church from the 4^th century, followed by the current worship site of the 12^th century. We made our way to the huge San Giovanni church that preceded St. Peter’s in importance for the Popes.  It’s impressive, huge interior has statues of each of the apostles. 

San Giovanni in Laterano

But as we would see on Tuesday, in no way compares to St. Peter’s. After San Giovanni we went across the street to the Santa Scala.  It is said that Helana, Constantine’s mother, brought back these stairs that belonged to Pilate from the Jerusalem.  Today in reverence, people climb the stairs on their knees while they prayer.  It’s quite the site. We were able to climb the stairs on our feet, on the outside staircase.

            At this point we couldn’t believe that we had gone this long without a gelato.  John quickly found out that a premier Gelato shop was just outside the walls only a short walk away.  The gelato was the best we’d had yet.  So good in fact, that some went back for seconds while others where still finishing up their first scoops.  Lucky for us the metro stop was just across the street and we were able to jump on and head back to the center of town and the Pantheon.

            The Pantheon neighborhood is one of my favorite; there’s a surprise around every corner and the Pantheon is no exception, it just appears as you curve around what looks like another ordinary Roman street.  The piazza out front is always humming and has a great water fountain.  The Pantheon is amazing, really the best preserved Roman structure and still in very active use today.  The dome and oculus are incredible to look at and study.  It’s amazing the engineering talent that could  have built this 2000 years ago.  After the Pantheon we wandered into a church with a couple Caravaggio paintings and then tried to find a place to eat. 

In front of the Pantheon (Jeff, Sara, Katie, John, Jodi, Rich, Eric, Lara)

The weather was so pleasant we were able to eat outside in a small, nearby piazza where a couple of restaurants were entertained by a musician and people trying to sell roses.  Of course no meal would be complete without dessert and nearby we found a bakery which professed to be gluten free, but who knows.  We walked back to our apartment to crash.  Who knows how many miles we must have walked today! 

Day 3 - Rome

           On our way to church this morning we stopped to get breakfast from the fruit stand on the street corner and detoured into Santa Maria degli Angeli on Piazza Repubblica to see the amazing sundial.

            We took a taxi out to the Nomentano suburb for church.  Lara didn’t fully realize it was the same branch she first served in until we were almost there.  Not much had changed physically about the church, it was still a small converted building in a quiet middle class neighborhood, but instead of the Nomentano and International branches meeting there, there were 2 wards from the Rome Stake that met there. 

Nomentano Branch 20 years later

Lara didn’t recognize a soul, but learned that a member of the bishopric was the son of the Salerno family, a couple she remembers from her first area, they even had hosted her for dinner.  The meeting was nice and meaningful.  The congregation was young and had many more families than were there 20 years ago.  The bishopric was young as was the High Counselor speaker.  We saw pictures of the Rome Temple and were grateful that these faithful saints would soon have the blessings of a temple within close proximity. 

            After several directions from the missionaries and a few people walking on the street, we found the new metro stop in the neighborhood and hurried back to Piazza del Popolo where we found pizza by the slice and a cannoli and raced up to the Museo Borghese to make our 1:00 appointment.  It was a much longer walk than we had anticipated and we were huffing and sweating when we finally arrived.  The Museo Borghese was one of 3 museums we needed advanced reservations for, and despite it’s priceless collection, the temperature control was terrible.  It was muggy and warm inside the museum.  We enjoyed some of the most exquisite statues of anywhere, Bernini’s David, Daphne, and others.We also enjoyed some paintings by Caravaggio and Titian.

Bernini's David

 

            By now the jet lag combined with church and the long walk through the Villa Borghese had caught up with us and we all needed a rest.  Thankfully the park was shaded with many trees and quiet grassy areas to sit.  We found a nice fountain surrounded by stone benches where no one else was and we sat, or laid, down on the stone in our Sunday clothes.  Most of us closed our eyes for several minutes trying to ward off the jet lag headache.  After our nap we knew a good gelato would solve everything.  We meandered through the park retracing our steps to Piazza Del Popolo. 

Overlooking Piazza Del Popolo

We found a nice gelato and took some pictures overlooking the Piazza and all of Rome.  It was a marvelous view of the Eternal City.

            On our way back to the metro we stopped at the Piazza Del Popolo and viewed the giant Egyptian Obelisk, one of many in Rome.  We also went inside Santa Maria Del Popolo and saw more Caravaggio paintings: the Crucifixion of Peter and the Conversion of Paul.

            After a quick wardrobe change out of Sunday clothes, or at least out of ties for the men, we visited a nearby church where the statue Saint Teresa in Ecstasy by Bernini is housed.  John had a friend that did a paper all about this statue and so we learned more than we would have by just looking at it.  The motion and feeling in Bernini’s statues are captivating.  After the statue we headed to a The National Museum of the History of Rome and the Galleria Nazionale D’arte Antica.  It was an enjoyable museum full of busts of ancient rulers and mosaics from Roman homes – that was Lara’s favorite part  It was quiet and not crowded.

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            For dinner tonight we decided to dine in the trendy neighborhood of Trastevere on the other side of the Tiber.  After walking around a bit and going in circles we found a nice little place.  We had no idea that finding a restaurant would be so difficult.  Our first attempt was laughable; we walked into a recommended restaurant and it was completely empty.  I asked for a table for 8 and he told me they were all full.  Not seeing anyone in the restaurant I asked him “if they were all full, where were all the people?”.  He straighted-faced looked at me and told me that every table had a reservation.  In Italy, a table reservation is for the entire evening as restaurants do not try and turn the tables every hour like in America.  Our final night cap after dinner was a stroll with gelato over looking the Tiber river. 

To tame the river the Romans built high retaining walls along the river throughout the city.  You hardly know the river is there until you’ve stumbled upon it.  After a short taxi ride home we collapsed into bed again, only to suffer from a second night a jet lag at 3:00 a.m.

Day 2 - Rome

             We landed in Rome today around noon.  At least at the airport, not much had changed in the last 20 year.  Our plane taxied and we exited right onto the tarmac where a shuttled took us to the terminal.  We had no problem navigating the terminal and exited right to the taxi queue.  Thanks to our Rick Steve’s guide book we knew exactly what to expect for our taxi cost to the center of Rome.  Lara got the front seat with the taxi drive as she tried to have a simple conversations with him as we took the 40 minute ride to our hotel.  It was amazing, her brain understood everything, as if she had never left.  It was a bit surreal hearing all that Italian and comprehending.  We had landed right during lunch and had forgotten that all the stores close for their afternoon break.  The streets felt a bit bare with the shops closed and people inside eating lunch.

            The taxi driver had no problem finding our apartment on Via Napoli just off of Piazza Republica and a 10 minute walk from Rome’s main train station Termini.  We were the last couple to arrive so gratefully the others had figured out how to get into our 4 bedroom, 2 bathroom apartment before we arrived.  This was by far the most economical and coziest accommodation we found for our entire trip.  It was a fun idea - instead of getting a hotel, we found an apartment we could share with a small family room, kitchenette and small washing machine.  It was white, cute, clean and comfortable.  It was on a quiet street with a convenient grocery store on one corner and a fruit stand on the other.  The Grahams and the Brunkens shared one bathroom and we share the other one with the Ludlows.  Eric and I slept in a small room on 2 roll-away beds and walked through the Ludlow’s room to get to the bathroom.  Since we were dealing with jet lag while in Rome, our sleeping patterns were off which meant there was lots of night time traffic though the Ludlow’s room to get to the bathroom. Good thing we are great friends.  It was nice that we would be here for 3 days and 3 nights.

            To ward off any temptation to take a nap Sara had booked us a bike tour of historical downtown Rome.  The thought of riding a bike anywhere in Rome was intimidating at first; although the center of town is small, the traffic is insane and it’s not a biker friendly city.  The traffic is erratic, there aren’t bike lanes, the streets are cobble stone, and the crowds are so thick sometimes that riding is impossible.  However, we were pleasantly surprised by this convenient and fun overview of the city.  Our English speaking guide was from Belgium and did a great job showing us the sights and explaining the history.  We even had time to stop and get our first gelato at Gelato de Teatro, which proved to be one of our favorite gelatos.

Lara biking in Rome

           We biked past the presidential palace, down the alleys to the Trevi Fountain (which unfortunately was closed for renovations), then to the Spanish Steps where we wandered up the steps and sat down like all the other hundreds of tourists there that day (we had to walk our bike through this area).  

Spanish Steps
Rich, Jodi, Lara, Eric, John, Katie, Sara, Jeff

We crossed the large Via Del Corso to Piazza del Colonna and the other governmental offices of the area.  We visited Piazza Navone and marveled at Bernini’s statues representing the 4 known continents of the time.  This fountain, along with the Trevi fountain, and many others are still powered by the aqueducts built by the ancient Romans.  We took a drink out of the public drinking fountain in the piazza.  We soon learned how wonderfully fresh, cool, and available Roman water is.  No wonder they ruled the modern world for hundreds of years.  

Lara drinking for the awesome Rome water

After Navone we went to the Pantheon, but because of Mass we were unable to enter the ancient church.  Then we biked passed a few ancient areas of Rome including the Torre Argentina, also called the cat cemetery, where it is now believed Julius Caesar was murdered rather on the steps of the Senate at the Forum.  We saw the staircase Michelangelo designed leading up to the Piazza del Michelangelo.  We paused in Piazza Venezia and enjoyed the fact that the piazza was closed to traffic because of a protest that was just getting organized.  We saw the monument to Victor Emmanuel and the eternal flame and looked at Mussolini’s porch.  After a short ride up the street past Hadrian's Market, the Forum, and The Coliseum in the distance we headed into the trendy Monte neighborhood and back to the bike shop which gratefully was only a couple of blocks from our Apartment.  Luckily, we had all stayed on our bikes and no one was hit by a car, although a taxi came pretty close to Lara.

            That night we enjoyed dinner on Via Urbino in the Monte neighborhood as suggested by our bike tour guide.  It was our first experience dining Italian style which included the customary, “no one at this table drinks wine, or coffee” followed by an incredulous look.  The 2 hour meal was a welcome, relaxing break from the heat, crowds, and exhaustion of the day.  We quickly learned who likes their water “al naturale” or “gassato” and we developed the expectation that dessert must either be ordered at the restaurant or a gelato ordered at a nearby gelatoria every night, or on some nights both.  We learned that sharing a meal with our spouses and friends was a better way to taste several dishes and not spend hundreds of dollars at every meal; although it didn’t always prevent us from over eating.  Several times we confused the waiter by our random ordering as he didn’t know in which order to bring out our plates.  A few time some of our group got their entire meals before others had even been served their appetizer.

            After an exhausting day we collapsed in our beds, only to be woken up by jet lag at 3:00 a.m.

Day 1 - The Trip Begins

SLC – NYC - Rome

            Today marks the beginning of the trip we’ve been dreaming of now for 5 + years, ever since President Monson announced the Rome, Italy temple.  However, we been and actively planning only for the last year.  Lara’s been hoping to return for 20 years now, ever since 1992 when she returned from her mission.  We managed to farm out our 4 children living at home, Emma and Sydney will be at Grandma Fraziers, Charlie will be at Bonnie Burtons, and Maren will be with her friend Jane Coates.  Stewart is in Spain on his mission.  All the schedules have been organized, all the hotels reserved, all the wills and legal documents updated, and so we are off.

            We will be traveling with 3 other couples; Jeff and Sara Brunken, Jodi and Rich Ludlow, John and Katie Graham.  Although everyone has given their input into the trip, the bulk of the logistics, itinerary, tours, reservations, etc have been planned by us.  It’s been a fun part of the trip experience.  However, there’s a bit of pressure hoping that everything will turn out and that everyone will enjoy 17 days of togetherness.  Lara is also hoping that her Italian will all come back, she’s been practicing now for several weeks with CDs in her car and by reading the Book of Mormon in Italian.

            We are all arriving in Rome on Saturday on 3 separate flights.  After seeing everyone at the SLC airport we hopped on a plane with the Ludlows and Grahams while the Brunkens jumped on a different flight.  For some reason, our layover in NYC ended up longer than the Grahams and we waited for our Alitalia flight – which for Lara was the beginning of our Italian experience since everything was in Italian.