Roman Cliches

When in Rome. Rome was not built in a day. All roads lead to Rome. Roman candle. Roman numerals. Ramen noodles.
None of these phrases or idioms have anything to do with this post about Rome, but it seemed important to lead-off with them anyway.

On Tuesday, we were very eager to start our day touring The Eternal City. (Which is Rome. Seriously, are you paying ANY attention?)
We started off by going to the Colosseum and the Forum, where Rick Steves' audio guide explained everything we were seeing.
The Colosseum is fairly large, about the size of a basketball stadium, and once could hold up to 50,000 people, all of whom could enter and exit in a matter of 15 minutes. The majority of the original building is still intact, which is not too shabby for almost 2,000 years. Also, it took 10 years to build, which as Chaya pointed out, is only like 2 years longer than it took to build the Light Rail in Jerusalem.

Ancient wonders of engineering

From the Colosseum we went to the Forum, with the biggest highlight being the Arch of Titus.

The arch famously depicts the Romans bringing back the spoils of war with Judea, carrying the Menorah and some trumpets with them. It's actually quite chilling to see one of the worst times in our history commemorated as a victory by the Romans. We later learned that in 1948, after the creation of the State of Israel, the Jews of Rome marched through the Forum and celebrated under Titus's Arch.

From there we went to the Pantheon, a 1,900 year old temple to the gods of Rome (Pan -Many, Theon - Gods) which incredibly is still completely standing.
The Pantheon has a huge dome with a hole in the middle, and we both wondered what happens when it rains. (We found out the next day when we walked past the Pantheon in the rain.)

The Pantheon is also the burial place of Raphael, one of the greatest artists of all time.

Not to mention, a hero.

Rest In Peace

Whilst admiring the Pantheon's exterior we heard a little boy crying and his mother yelling at him in Hebrew to shut up. Amazingly, this was the 3rd group of Israelis we'd encountered so far that day.

I now know that 100% of the women here aren't Israeli, which would be ridiculous. I think it's closer to 75%.

From the Pantheon, we headed to the Trevi Fountain. This seems as good a time as any to explain what makes Rome so amazing. Walking through Rome is sort of like walking through the Rova (Jewish Quarter in the Old City of Jerusalem) but on a much much larger scale. There is history everywhere. And with a few exceptions, nothing is behind closed doors. Just walking around we found amazing works of art and architecture just sitting in the middle of a piazza. Tiny passageways with 2 lanes of traffic open up to large, beautiful squares, often with incredible sculptures and/or fountains. 

That's another thing: The fountains. Yes, there are beautifully sculpted fountains, but there are also literally thousands of drinking fountains that provide a constant source of (free) cold water and hydration. 

Of the non-drinking fountains, the Trevi Fountain is probably the most famous and magnificent of all.  

I could describe it, but I think i'll just show ya: 

I left my dignity back home...

but somehow couldn't escape Manot Krav

Besides for Fountains and men who try selling you umbrellas or hats on the street, the most popular items we saw were pizza and gelato. There are blocks with 4 or 5 pizza and/or gelato shops on them, and it really made us wonder how they all stay in business. 

It all looks and smells amazing, which is a huge bummer, because none of it is Kosher.
Which brings us to the Jewish Ghetto.

Spoiler alert: It was delicious.

The Jewish Ghetto, while only consisting of a few streets, is rich in history. More importantly, it's rich in Kosher food. While my mushroom pizza was pretty good, Chaya's authentic Pizza Napoli was superb. No sauce, 2 kinds of mozzarella, fresh tomatoes and basil. Yowza.
No trip to the Ghetto would be complete without a visit to the Jewish Museum/Great Synagogue. I wasn't really expecting much going into the Shul, but inside I was completely blown away. Unfortunately, due to security reasons, they don't allow photography inside.(A rule that one woman in our tour group was foolish enough to ignore. The silence in the room that followed the guide yelling and going through the woman's phone to delete any pictures, was that of the super-awkward variety.)
But summing up, the interior is really amazing. Unbeknownst to many outsiders, in Rome, they daven their own Nusach, which is neither Ashkenazi or Sephardi. The guide told us that if we came on Shabbat, we probably wouldn't recognize any tune used.
We headed home, burnt and tired, having seen a lot for one day.
If reading about our 1st day in Rome was long and exhausting, just imagine how we felt at the end of it.

Wednesday was a little less packed, but still pretty special. We started off early by heading to the Vatican.
Although the Museums only open to individual tourists at 10, by 8:45 there was already a 2 hour wait. This was in addition to the hour and 15 minutes until they let people in. Needless to say, we fast-passsed the heck outta that.
We decided to take an English guided tour, which included immediate entry at 9:15, and thus didn't ruin our whole day. Pretty fascinating stuff. Won't get into too much detail, but the huge, former professional rugby player that was our tour guide mentioned that he was a huge New England Patriots fan, and visibly scowled at my Giants Super bowl XLVI Champions hat.
Definite highlight.
He also had a lot of nice things to say about Dan Brown, and by that I mean he bashed him repeatedly. Apparently the Browns are banned for life from the Vatican, which led him to set his most recent novel, Inferno, in Florence.
The 16th Chapel was pretty spectacular, but it was packed, and we couldn't stand inside for too long. Pictures were strictly forbidden, and guards were patrolling to enforce the rule, but I managed to sneak this one past 'em.

Fierce. 

St. Peter's Sq. 

After spending a few hours in Vatican City, we walked to Piazza Navona, another square with 3 beautiful fountains, where Cardinal Braggia was once weighted down and drowned. Oh, not in real life.

Tom Hanks probably posted the same picture on his blog

From there, we continued on to the Spanish Steps. On the way it started raining, although really not too hard. But from people's reactions, you'd think there was a Sharknado coming. People ran for cover from the "intense" drizzle, which made walking much easier, as the sidewalks emptied out. When we got to the Spanish Steps, there were very few people standing in the open area, and we were able to spend the necessary time to experience the steps without being disturbed.

Oh, were you expecting something other than steps?

After  about 40 or so seconds we left, and started walking back to the Jewish quarter.

The main reason we went back to the Jewish Quarter was for the Kosher Gelato that we’d found the day before, but only sampled. (We’d already had some Kosher Gelato that day, which unfortunately was over-priced and not very good.) The Gelato in the Jewish Quarter was, excuse my Latin, So Damn Good.

We enjoyed our Gelato and headed back home for another sumptuous feast of rice and lentils, this time with some fresh fruits and vegetables we bought to shake things up.

Overall, a pretty successful day, especially when you factor in the “Ray Bans” Chaya bought for a little over $10. The guy wanted 30 Euro, but then proceeded to gradually bargain himself down while we just stood there and shook our heads a few times. I’m not even sure we spoke.

It was some pretty glorious bargaining

Ciao for now,

Chaya and Zvi