Italy: Intro and Rome

I am back from my trip to Italy, and there’s so much to tell, that I think I’m going to have to do it in stages, so this might take some time. Let me just say, first, that it was an amazing trip. There were good things and there were not so good things, but it all added up to a truly memorable experience.

To start let me list the top 5, and the worst 5, things about the trip.

TOP FIVE:

1. Venice – You know how people talk and talk about how great things are, and you anticipate them, and then they never live up to the hype. Well, Venice lives up to it completely. The whole time I was in Venice was magical, even if I was alone, which was less than ideal. I can’t wait to go back.

2. The Roman Ruins – Amazing! I could have spent a whole week wandering around. More on that later.

3. My hotel choices. I finally chose great hotels. I am incredibly bad at picking hotels, and for once, ever hotel was great. Some were better than others, of course, but I batted 100% on these.

4. The best vegetarian meal I’ve ever had, in Rome, of all places.

5. Sitting at a café in Florence, on the Arno, and in Venice, on a canal, having coffee, gelati, and watching the people.

LOW FIVE:

1. Missing my plane in Venice!!!! I haven’t done that since I was 18.

2. Waiting 90 minutes to get into the Uffizi. And listening to 5 Spanish people talk non-stop for those 90 minutes. (Waiting for 60 minutes at the Vatican didn’t seem as bad for some reason).

3. Eating so much on my first night in Rome that I thought I was going to throw up; I learned my lesson, by the way.

4. 7 McDonald’s in Bologna’s center city: the most I’ve seen anywhere in the cities I’ve been to in Europe, and Bologna is supposed to be Italy’s food capital! Ugh. (I also saw the fattest people in Bologna, and I wonder if McDonald’s has anything to do with that).

5. The 60 minute traffic jam on the way to the Venice airport, which made me feel like I was back in LA, and which explains my missed plane.

Anyway, to focus on Rome for a bit. I really liked Rome; it’s a really beautiful city with horrible mass transit. It took forever to get my hotel, but my hotel was amazing. It’s called Hotel Scalinata di Spagna, and it’s literally right on the top of the Spanish steps, which, by the by, is the best place to stay, in my opinion. The room was fantastic, and it was so quiet both because it had double-paned windows, but also all the rooms in the hotel except for two don’t open out onto the street. I slept like a baby. They also had a bitchin’ bathtub (I took a lot of baths on this trip).

The first mistake that I made in Italy, which, unfortunately, I didn’t figure out until I was in Bologna, was trying to find restaurants on my own without consulting a guide or anything. This became a disaster in Florence (more on that later), but the first night in Rome was also a disaster. It’s weird how you have to get used to food cultures. I had heard that Italians eat a menu del día type meal at night, and I foolishly ordered one, so by the end of it, I felt really sick. So that night, I walked around, trying not to throw up, and then climbed the long Spanish steps before collapsing on my bed.

The next day, I went to the Vatican. I’m glad I started with that because interestingly, I found myself not that excited. I’ve been seeing so many churches, and St. Peter’s just seemed like another one, and actually not as beautiful as some of the ones I’ve seen in Spain and Switzerland, and definitely not as nice as some of them in Florence and Venice. I have a picture or two to the right, especially one of Michelangelo’s Pieta; the picture didn’t come out so well, but you get the point.

Then I waited for a frickin’ hour to get into the Vatican Museum, and here is where I have to say something about something I didn’t expect at all in early May. Rome and Florence are already completely overcome with tourists. Even the Romans and Florentines I talked to were amazed. I have a picture to the right of the crowd in front of the Trevi Fountain. It was an absolute zoo. And so all those people trying to get themselves through the Vatican museum was a bit much, and by the time I got the Sistine Chapel, I was like, “Okay, I’m over it. Get me out of here.”

I was a little worried about my attitude at this point, but that night I had an absolutely fabulous vegetarian meal at an organic restaurant near the Spanish Steps called La Margutta. It was incredible. I decided, after the meal from the night before, to have a completely vegan meal. After a free appetizer of vegetables in a carrot dip, I had an amazing cheeseless risotto with asparagus, and then I had seitan milanesa. Okay, what’s that you may ask. Well, it’s seitan (the absolute worse meat substitute) breaded and then sauted in some olive oil, and it was served with some carrots and some mashed potatoes. Yum! Then for dessert, a big plate of fruit with a little sorbet. The amazing things about this meal, besides the fact that everything was delicious, is that they didn’t rush me, so the whole thing took 2.5 hours, and when it was all over, I wasn’t stuffed. I was in a better mood already.

Which was perfect because the next day, I spent the entire day until catching the train for Florence in the Roman ruin section. These were simply incredible, and like I said about Venice, they completely lived up to the hype. I opted for the audioguides for the Capitoline Museum and the Colosseum, and I’m now completely hooked on them, if I wasn’t already. I learned so much listening to them. I spent hours and hours walking around, had a quick lunch on this quiet side street that inexplicably overlooked the Colosseum, and then went and spent even more time on the Palatine Hill.

I have some explanations under some of the pictures, but seriously, Rome is amazing, and I can’t wait to go back, but this is getting too long. So I'll have to end it, but I'll come back to the ruins and Rome in general in my next post.

Also, I should point out that I couldn’t have picked my trip better because starting on Saturday, May 12, almost every museum in Italy was free for the entire week. It was some special Family Week in Italy (I think the Pope had declared it), so I spent probably 80% less on museums than I would have otherwise. Perhaps that’s why all the cities were so crowded.

Anyway, in my next post, I’ll write a little more about Rome, and then about Florence and Bologna.