Saturday, November 9, 2019; Rome in a Day
Breakfast at the Savoy was a fairly standard buffet with steam table trays of scrambled eggs, hot dogs (sausage) and bacon, in addition to a fruit salad made with apples, grapes and mandarin oranges. The grapes were seeded, but sweet and ripe. There was a wide assortment of baked goods, and rice with two varieties of beans for the Asians and Brits. We discovered that the majority of people staying at the Savoy are associated with Princess cruises, but many are on other ships staying in the Mediterranean or eventually crossing the Atlantic. One couple said they were headed to Fort Lauderdale eventually.
The morning brought a reprieve from the rains of last night. We could actually see some blue sky with sunlight slanting off the tops of the buildings. From the street level, it can be confusing to get your bearings in Rome because none of the streets runs in a straight line, and there is little direct sunlight at street level because the buildings are all so tall. Thank goodness for Google Offline Maps and the iPhone’s built in compass and GPS. Since we got to the Trevi Fountain and Spanish Steps last night, we set our sights on the Colosseum this morning. The concierge said it would take a half hour to walk there. Janet, unfortunately has developed some blisters on her toes from all the cobblestones, so it was more like a forced Roman Deathmarch, but we did make it. We walked by the National Art Gallery and the Basilica de Sant Maria Maggiore en route. The city has an entirely different character in the light of day and without the rainfall.
There are bits of ancient ruins scattered about throughout the city. Many have fencing surrounding them. We walked through a park with a number of homeless who had their laundry hanging up to dry on a fence around a bit of Roman ruin. Modern day social ruins propped up by ancient ruins.
Random Ruins in Rome
Picturesque Umbrella Pines of Rome with the Colosseum just visible.
The area around the Colosseum was packed with tourists. In addition to European and American tourists, there are lots of Asian tourists, including groups of Muslim Asians- Indonesian or Malaysian. There were plenty of aggressive hawkers around the Colosseum selling selfie sticks, tours, or pictures to be taken with the ones dressed up as Gladiators. We were trying to find the stairs down to the Colosseum, and eventually found it to be well guarded by the Gladiators. You had to be clever and persistent to dodge them and get to the stairs.
We made it!
There is a lot of the Colosseum enshrouded with scaffolding and netting, but you can still make out the different styles of columns supporting the different levels of the structure. One interesting find was a family of bright green parakeets who were nesting in cavities on the outside of the top level. The line to buy tickets to tour the inside would have taken at least a half hour to get through. We’re hoping we’ll get a glimpse inside on our nighttime tour with Princess, but we did get a nice tour of a Roman Colosseum in France when we went with our then High School aged kids chaperoning their French Club sponsored trip.
We then walked around the ruins of the Forum and Palatino, which also required admission tickets. We were content to peek through the fences at the tumble-down ruins inside.
We walked up the Altar of the Fatherland, a WWI memorial with everlasting flames and honor guard protecting what looks like a tomb of an unknown soldier near the top.
From the Altar of the Fatherland, we zig zagged our way back to the Savoy to complete a 5 mile loop. We took a well deserved tea break and rested up for our afternoon excursions.
Ben was relieved to see the same woman, who said she was the Princess Concierge back at the desk at 1pm when we were supposed to show up in the lobby for our excursions. She had a handwritten name tag with the Princess logo on it, and all our transactions with her were in cash. Our receipt for the excursions was handwritten on a yellow Post-It Note, so she could very well have been a Gypsy scam artist, but it turns out she was legitimate after all. She lead us along with 5 other guests around the corner to the Westin Hotel, where another 6 Princess guests were boarding. There was no parking in front of the Savoy, so we had to walk the short distance around the corner to the Westin. We were luck our airport transfer was able to double park and get our luggage to the bellman on our initial arrival.
Our tour started with a tour of Rome area hotels as the bus stopped by 3 more hotels gathering Princess guests for the Vatican tour. We ultimately ended up with about 29 guests for the tour. The Vatican wasn’t too far from the last Hotel pick up.
From where the bus dropped us off, it was a few hundred feet up a slight hill to the entry plaza for the Vatican. Our guide pointed out the line for ticket purchasing, which was well past the point where our bus had dropped us off. He said it was usually at least an hour wait to purchase tickets to visit the Vatican Museums. Our group tour had a special entrance, bypassing the enormous lines and crowds. We did end up going through a security check point, not unlike at an airport, to cross the border from Italy into the Vatican, which is an enclaved country, complete with it’s own army and government. The Pope is the absolute Monarch and dictator of the Holy See, with the Vatican being it’s capital. We did learn that for the last several hundreds of years, the Vatican has outsourced it’s army to the Swiss Army, who exclusively provide guards for the Vatican and to the Pope.
Swiss Guard- The Pope’s Personal Mercenary Army
The crowds inside the Vatican Museums were unbelievable. Imagine being cattle herded through a chute to the slaughter house. That’s what it felt like being inside the Vatican Museums. People were packed so tightly that you were rubbing against people in front, behind, and either sides of you, and you kind of just shuffled along in the flow of humanity. Our guide did an excellent job of letting us know what was worth seeing and helped us maneuver into position in time to see all the most important works of art as the solid mass of humanity oozed past the exhibits.
If it weren’t for our guide’s careful curation, we would have gotten absolutely nothing from our trip through the Vatican Museums. The price of our guided tour was absolutely worth it. We were able to get a good look at the Spiral Staircase, or Scala Elicoidale, the bust of Menander, who served as Michelangelo’s model for his David on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, the Apollo Belvedere, the Resurrection of Christ tapestry, the bronze St. Peter and Pieta. We also got a detailed and insightful interpretation of the paintings on the ceiling and walls of the Sistine Chapel, which would have been incomprehensible and overwhelming without advance interpretation.
Jesus is watching! His eyes follow you as you walk across the room.
St. Paul’s toe was out of reach today.
The Roof of the Hall of Cartography was amazing- stole the show from the Cartography.
Michelangelo’s Apollo Belvedere
Michelangelo’s Pieta
The Bust of Menander
Our guided group tour was also given exclusive access to shortcuts through the Vatican complex, saving us hours of time that would otherwise have been necessary to get from the Vatican Museums to the Sistine Chapel and to the Basilica of St. Paul. To anyone contemplating attacking the Vatican on their own to save money, I’d say don’t even try. You might save a little money, but would end up with an entirely unsatisfactory experience of spending the better part of two or three days standing in lines, getting shoved through exhibition halls like human tooth paste, and not getting to see the most important works of art, because once the crowd has oozed past something, there was no going back upstream. Unfortunately for one gal in our group, she got lost and ended up going out the wrong exit and could not be reunited with the group. She ended up having to take a cab back to her hotel.
St. Paul’s Basilica- highest Christian dome in the world.
As we finished up our tour, we were a little concerned because we were signed up for a second excursion through Princess that evening called “Rome at Night, with Dinner”. Our guide reassured us that our driver would be the driver for that excursion as well. It took quite a bit of time to get everyone back to their hotels because of traffic, and the fact that the sky had opened up with a torrential rain. We had been superbly lucky that the rain did not start until after we had reboarded the bus at the end of our Vatican excursion.
Janet and I opted to stay on the bus, rather than get off and then have to reboard in a short while as the bus circled around all the hotels to pick up passengers for the Rome at Night excursion. We ended up with about the same number of people for the Rome at Night excursion as had gone on the Vatican tour. About 4 couples had signed up for both tours like we did.
There wasn’t anything that could be seen out the bus windows that night as it was raining very hard as the bus circled the city picking up passengers. We were let off at a venue called the Tanagra, where we were treated to a dinner show featured live singers, a pianist, and popular opera librettos and arias. The Carmen songs were hilarious as the Soprano who sang them would wander through the audience and flirt with all the men. The Baritone picked someone from the audience to pretend shave as he sang something from the Barber of Seville. There was wine and a 5 course meal that left us all fat and happy.
The Demon Barber of Seville
After the dinner and show, we boarded the buses and saw that the rain had stopped and the sky had cleared, revealing a nearly full moon. We then drove to Navone Plaza where we got out and walked around the Fountain of Four Rivers, which is perhaps the best example of a Baroque fountain in Rome. It features 4 figures representing 4 mighty or important rivers (Danube, Ganges, Nile and Rio de la Plata). It was featured in movies including Dan Brown’s Angels and Demons, National Lampoon’s European Vacation and others.
Navone Plaza’s Fountain of Four Rivers
We got back to our hotel room feeling like we really made the most of our full day in Rome. Tomorrow, we pack up and board the Sapphire Princess. We are really looking forward to being back on a cruise ship, which feels so much more like home than these hotels can.
