Ilene and I are on a two-month trip to Italy and Greece. That's 4 weeks at an apartment in Rome, 2 weeks TBD elsewhere in Italy and 2 weeks in Athens or nearby.
We left New Haven 4/1 in the afternoon, had an uneventful flight on Alitalia, and arrived about 9 a.m. local time on 4/2.
The first couple days were a little stressful, because this is meant to be a working trip with a lot hinging on our internet and phone access, and that wasn't going well initially. We're set up now, and when the internet works, it's fine. But it doesn't always work.
The weather is much chillier than I expected, and we've been soaked with rain the last two days.
But apart from that, we're getting the hang of things and looking forward to a good mix of hitting the tourist sites, learning the local way and getting some work done.
So far, we've mostly wandered around and done some shopping to get our apartment set up. We spent a lot of time yesterday in the Trastevere neighborhood and popped into a couple museums -- the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte and the Museo di Roma -- both minor compared to major museums but interesting stops. (In both cases we were dodging the rain.) We were disappointed that a particular Caravaggio wasn't hanging at the National Gallery.
We are pretty close to the Vatican with a view of St. Peter's cathedral dome from our balcony (pix to come when the weather is warmer) and everything in this neighborhood is named after San Pietro. (There are also more than your average number of priests, seminary students, monseigneurs, nuns and novitiates walking around.) Our apartment building is on a hill overlooking the neighborhood, and next to us is St. Catherine's, the only Russian Orthodox church in Rome, constructed and consecrated just a few years ago.
On Friday -- Good Friday -- we walked around St. Peter's square, watching the crowds accumulate and getting oriented. The line for the Basilica tour was intimidating, so we'll have to figure out the best times to try that. This morning -- Easter morning -- it poured heavily during mass, which we watched on the local news.
It let up about noon, and we headed out for lunch. It's apparently Palm Sunday on the Russian Orthodox calendar, as mass was letting out next door just then and the worshipers were carrying palms. When we got down into the neighborhood, we ran into the waves of pilgrims radiating out from St. Peter's square looking for lunch like us.
