Ruins and ruined appetites

On Thursday and Friday we went to the Colosseum, the Roman Forum and the surrounding area with many other ancient ruins. The ticketing is one for both locations, ticket good for two days, and that's how we did it. We're getting better -- but not great -- at moderating how much we do in a day. We tend to say, "Let's just take a look at that over there and then find lunch." As a result we keep ending up hungry for the first thing we can find, which is often not very good tourist restaurants.

We have ended up at a few good family places, including one in our neighborhood a couple nights ago known for its seafood. Longtime readers will remember that language confusion in Asia often resulted in way too much food being brought to my table, and that happened again here. In most places, the rhythm of when and how you order and get the next course and pay the bill is a mystery to me, though we usually get through it without incident. This time -- I guess it was family style and we ordered for two families? -- our table was groaning with plates. At what turned out to be the antipasti with several plates of cold meats and seafood, we were stuffed and said, "Surely there's not more. It's some weird thing were they bring all the courses at once." But, no, that was the antipasti and next was primi (pasta) and then, a new one for me, a primi part B (gnocci) before the main courses, which in my cases was a quarter chicken, a steak and a big piece of pork. Then came soda, a tower of fruit to pick from, lemon tortes and, finally, coffee. 

The lines and crowds weren't bad at all in the ruins, and it was a lot of fun to see the Colosseum at fairly early in the morning. The views from the Palatine Hill over the Forum are beautiful, and it was fun to come across the Circus Maximus, which was much bigger than we imagined. You can walk down in the track there.

The last day and a half we've shifted from destinations and tickets to wandering neighborhoods. Today was Preti and window shopping at the department stores, longing for the nice clothes.

Working and touring routines

We've been trying to get a rhythm going with our working and sight-seeing, and it hasn't been perfectly smooth. We've had a lot of frustration with internet access and wasted time. And it's been much colder than we expected.

On Monday we visited the Capitoline Museums, which features mostly sculpture and archaeological finds. One of the cool things about it is an underground passage between buildings that exits out onto a veranda above the Forum. And it was a delight to see some famous sculpture familiar to us, such as the bronze bull and horse fragments. We walked around a lot of the rest of the ancient city during the afternoon.

On Tuesday, we tackled the big one -- the Vatican Museums, including the Sistine Chapel. We did our best to plan but miscalculated somehow and, wow, what a line we waited in. Two-and-a-half solid hours in the cold, plus the walk there. Once inside the building, visitors are herded into cattle chutes up and down stairs, through anonymous corridors, etc. It's insanely crowded, shoving and shuffling for another solid hour before reaching the chapel.

The Sistine Chapel is amazing. A memory I'll treasure forever and a privilege. But not one I think I'll try for again unless I can cut a couple hours out of the journey. And it makes me gunshy about some of the other sites we have planned including even more popular museums in Florence. Twice we've walked past the entrance to St. Peter's Basilica and seen lines I couldn't imagine ever waiting in, but I think we're going to have to get used to the idea.

Other parts of the Vatican Museums were less crowded, including Pinocoteca, which has been the highlight so far for me.

Along with seeking out meals, shopping, inevitably getting lost several times, and the uphill climb to our apartment building, that was two long days on our feet, so we took today off to stay close to the apartment and get work done on our computers. Tomorrow we take our chances with the line at the Colosseum and explore more of the ancient city.

Commencing the cappuccino tour

It's been 5 years since I've posted here and a lot has changed -- mainly that no one uses Blogger anymore. But setting up something else that everyone who is interested can see (e.g. the Facebook refugees) would take bandwidth I don't have.

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.

Cafe con leche edition

Welcome back to weaselcoffeelover.com. This is the cafe con leche edition. You can see photo highlights of our trip here.

Ilene and I traveled to Barcelona for seven nights in the first week of 2012, starting with our usual money-saving New Year's Even red eye strategy. We got to stay in the apartment of a friend of a friend not far from Sans Estacio train station, about a thirty-minute hike from downtown.

Placeholder for journal on Spain trip I never got around to

We went to Barcelona for a week in the winter of 2012. We drank a lot of espresso and never had access to the internet.