A Weekend in Rome - Day #1

On Friday, Jenny and I got up at 4:30 a.m. and were headed for the Santa Maria Novella train station by 5:45 a.m. At the station, we met up with Pat and Eric (friends from Washington State) and hopped on a 6:45 a.m. slow-train to Rome.

There are several different train lines that operate throughout Italy including Eurostar and TrenItalia. The main difference is speed and therefore, price. We took a regional train from Florence to Rome which is the slowest and cheapest option. One-way tickets were 16 Euro each and the ride was about four hours. It's comfortable enough and there's quality scenery all the way there. The train stops at over a dozen small towns along the way, including Figline, Arezzo, Castiglione del Lago, Orvieto, Orte, and Monteretondo. Those are just a few, but they are listed in order from Florence (Firenze) to Rome (Roma) if you are interested in checking out the route on Google Maps.

We arrived in Rome around 11 a.m. and dropped our bags off at the hostel, which was a five minute walk from the train station. Our hostel operated out of a few apartments within one apartment building, so we checked in on the fifth floor and were given keys to an apartment on the first. The four of us shared a room with two bunk beds and shared a kitchen and bathroom with the backpackers staying in the other three rooms of that same apartment. Breakfast was "served" from 8 a.m to 10 a.m. By served, I mean that the pre-packaged croissants and tea were pulled out of a kitchen cupboard and displayed on the table at 8 and put back in the cupboard at 10. It was a good deal considering we didn't know that any form of breakfast was included when we booked.

After dropping off our things we headed for St. Peter's Basilica, which is across town from the Termini train station. We kind of wandered our way over there and stopped for lunch along the way. We needed to get to the Vatican by 1:45 p.m. for our tour of Le Scavi (The Excavations beneath the Basilica)which Eric had booked about a month ago. I'm not entirely sure what we were thinking or why we were moseying, but when we found ourselves waiting in a long-ish security line at 1:15 p.m., we were probably all thinking that speed-walking directly to St. Peter's and the line would've been...more intelligent? Let's just say, there's nothing quite like the helpless feeling of watching the time tick by while stuck in a line that's moving painfully slow, especially when you NEED to be somewhere in a few minutes. Twenty minutes left, fifteen, ten...five. I'll save you the suspense. We did make it to the tour, but it involved the four of us sprinting across the steps of St. Peter's, me with one hand clutching my bag, belt, and coat (which I had removed at security)and the other hand clutching (even more desperately) the top of my unbelted pants...but we made it and the tour was wonderful :)

Briefly, there are at least three layers of structures on the top of Vatican hill, St. Peter's being the top layer. Below St. Peter's Basilica is some of what remains of the old basilica which was built in the 4th Century during Constantine's time. Below THAT, is an old necropolis from the 2nd and 3rd centuries - a necropolis being, essentially, a cemetery. So the tour of Le Scavi is a tour through the excavations of the bottom two layers. The important history to know - that relates to why St. Peter's is where it is - is that the tomb of St. Peter sat upon this hill and later, when Constantine's Basilica was built, they built its altar above St. Peter's tomb. THEN the altar of the new (relatively - construction began in the 1500s) St. Peter's Basilica was, quite literally, stacked on top of the old one. It's difficult to explain without a visual (it was difficult enough to understand WITH a visual) but it was all extremely interesting. They discovered the bottom layer, the necropolis, when they went to bury Pope Pius XI and the pope that succeeded him, Pope Pius XII, approved the excavation of the area (I'm about 80% sure that those are the correct Pope names and numbers). Most of the excavating was done during the 1940s and the project was stopped when they began to worry about the stability of the existing St. Peter's Basilica. It would be most unfortunate if some part of the current basilica were to collapse...

So that's all that I will say of the history. It is possible that I might not have gotten it all COMPLETELY right, but that was how I understood it. As far as descriptions, walking through the necropolis is similar to walking down one street of an old village, but you look up at a big, flat ceiling. Families have their own rooms/tombs that are positioned somewhat like shops along the street. Like I said, it was all very interesting.

When the tour finished, we stopped by Pope John Paul II's final resting place before climbing a flight of stairs that led us right up out of the floor of the basilica. The interior of the Basilica provides visitors with a lot to look at (the two pictures above are taken inside), so we walked around there for about an hour before leaving to find some food. We jumped on the Metro, which took us back across town and we stopped at a kebab place for dinner. Side note: Kebab places are everywhere. That evening was relatively not busy. We stopped by an internet place and walked to an Irish pub (a quiet, not overcrowded Irish pub) before getting some groceries and walking back to the hostel. We met some of the people also staying in our same apartment (two from Vancouver B.C. and one from Brisbane, Australia). They were all very nice and shared their recommendations for Rome and travel in general.

After that, we headed for bed. It took me about two seconds to fall asleep and I didn't wake up until I heard Jenny getting up the next morning. Here's to being a heavy sleeper :)

Lauryn