Rome: Third Time Lucky

This is my third time in Rome, and I've never seen the Sistine Chapel!

Six years ago, atop St Peter's Basilica

I was 19 the first time I visited. But somehow my brother and I managed to visit the Vatican on the one day that Michelangelo’s labour of love was closed to the public. An avid Art History student a few years earlier, I kept myself from wallowing in self-pity at the failure by swearing to come.

And I did. Almost a year ago. But, this time Rome was simply a quick stop on a much bigger Italian roadtrip. The aim of the trip was to take our car into the smaller Italian coastal towns, so we deliberately spent just a single day in Rome before driving on to somewhere harder to reach – again swearing we’d be back in the city for a weekender before long.

The crowd...

So this time, my third time lucky, a weekend is all I need. Because there’s just one thing I’ve come for: Michelangelo’s exquisite ceiling. Thank God we booked in advance! We skip the several thousand punters who didn't, and waltz inside. 

The Vatican Museums are cleverly designed with crowd control in mind. You have to walk the entire length of the museum in order to get to the Sistine Chapel. Think Disneyland, except the reward is a 500 year old ceiling. Which in my book is better.

My favourite part of the journey is easily the Gallery of Maps. It’s still the world’s largest pictorial geographical study, and it covers the whole of Italy. I’m not quite sure how I was unaware it existed before visiting... but as an explorer I found it mesmerising.

The Gallery of Maps

But nothing can compare with the splendour of the Sistine ceiling itself. I’m not the only tourist staring up open mouthed, trying to take in the whole thing. I position myself under my favourite part – the Creation of Adam – and stare for ages, trying to imagine Michelangelo standing atop wooden scaffolding with his neck craned back, squinting as paint drips on his face from the ceiling above him.

We celebrate our successful visit, six years late, with the best pizza in Rome. Or at least that's what we've been told it is. Pizzarium, away from the crowds down the non-descript looking Via della Meloria, serves pizza by weight – slicing off the amount you want from enormous sheets.

Unable to narrow down our selection from the array of mouthwatering options, Paul and I end up spending nearly €20 on five different pieces. My favourite looks like a garlic pizza but actually turns out to be potato... and it’s perfection.

Afterwards, our attempt to visit St Peter’s Basilica is thwarted by weather and a four hour queue. Thankfully, I was able to visit six years ago. None of the others have been lucky enough to come here before, so it seems that I’ve passed on the baton of swearing to return to the Vatican!

We console ourselves by crossing the Tiber and walking through the winding cobbled streets around Piazza Navona, where I’ve always thought the best cafés were, stopping for a delicious dessert featuring cherries, vanilla gelato, and a shot of espresso.

One of my favourite things about Rome is the way you can stumble across something wonderful, and that’s exactly what happened to us when we got caught in the rain and stumbled in to the nearest building – Santa Maria in Vallicella:

 
We walk home past some of the quintessential features of any Roman city tour – the Pantheon, the Trevi Fountain and the Spanish Steps.

At the Pantheon, I’m able to fulfil a lifelong dream of seeing rain fall through the hole in the middle of the ceiling. It’s not falling heavily enough to appear like a column, but I’m still excited by it. I love the Pantheon because it’s still the largest unreinforced concrete dome in the world. St Peter’s Basilica is exactly 5cm smaller in diameter – something Michelangelo did on purpose to thwart the catholic church. Good thing they didn't realise until after his death or I daresay his life would have ended differently!

The Pantheon

The next day, we repeat the Colosseum guided tour that I did six years earlier. It’s not cheap, but I find the commentary helpful in trying to imagine this (literally) colossal building as it once was.

The Palatine Hill tour afterwards was a fascinating insight to the way the emperors of Rome lived.

Marble from the palace of Tiberius in the foreground, with the [slightly less ancient] palace of Mussolini behind.

In the afternoon, we caught the metro to the Piazza del Popolo, which was historically the point of entry for tourists visiting Rome. And boy is it grand!

The Piazza del Popolo

We walk through the Villa Borghese to the Modern Art Gallery, which is full of fantastic exhibitions that take my fancy much more than I expected in this ancient city.

The Modern Art Gallery, on the edge of the Villa Borghese

Then, it’s time to head back to the airport. Unfortunately, we’ve been saving one of the best parts of the trip for last: a visit to the oldest gelateria in Rome. It’s enormous, immensely popular, and right next to where we’ve been staying. But our bus takes so long winding around the city that we have to skip the gelato and head straight to the airport!

Hopefully I’ll be back in another six years, to make up for it.

Venice

Jammed into a tiny cabin with six people, I woke at 5am on Boxing Day en route to Venice. The sun was rising somewhere over the Italian countryside.

Venice welcomed us with a crisp winter sky. As we walked to our hostel, we barely saw a soul.

Crossing the Grand Canal at about 7:30am after the train arrived.

After dropping our bags off, we headed straight to Piazza San Marco. Last time I was here there was a festival on and it was buzzing with life. This time, it was comparatively deserted. It felt like a whole other, sleepier, side to Venice. It's probably because Christmas is a time traditionally spent at home, and Venice normally has more tourists than residents.

Piazza San Marco and St Mark's Campanile

We appreciated the lack of crowds when we were able to go up St Mark's Campanile without the normal snaking queue.

The Basilica di San Marco and Venice as seen from the top of St Mark's Campanile.

Doge's Palace, with Venice behind it and the shadow of St Mark's Campanile.

Inside the Basilica di San Marco

From there, we walked through the old town, navigating the canals to the Rialto Bridge.

 

The Grand Canal as seen from the Rialto Bridge.

One of the smaller canals.

The next day, we purchased a day pass for the Waterbus system, and started by going almost all the way around Venice to the island of Murano and its famed glasswork. We saw a free demonstration of glass blowing and glass moulding. I'd guess that sculpting a rearing horse from molten glass is probably harder than this guy made it look!

A glass sculpture in Murano.

We also checked out the glass museum before heading back to Venice. It wasn't as exciting as I was hoping - more an exhibition of things made from glass rather than the scientific/engineering side of how they actually do it, which I'd have been more interested in.

From a bridge in Murano.

We got off the waterbus at the Bridge of Sighs. It connects the old prisons to the interrogation chambers, and is so named because of the suggestion that prisoners would sigh at their final view of beautiful Venice as they crossed to be executed.

We got lost on our way to the next Waterbus stop, and stumbled across a secondhand bookshop that stored books in a whole gondola in the centre of the shop!

The sun was starting to go down by the time we headed to the Guggenheim art museum.

The Rialto bridge just before sunset.

The Guggenheim collection was fascinating, because it's in the house that Peggy Guggenheim actually used to live in. Before coming here I didn't even know that there was more than one Guggenheim Museum! By the time we left, it was dark and time to say goodbye to Venice on our way to the airport.

The Rialto Bridge a few hours later, as we travelled up the Grand Canal one last time before heading home.

Venice isn't traditionally seen as a winter destination. But the crisp blue sky, the lack of tourists, and the Grand Canal not emitting odd odours make it a great option that I'd definitely consider again!

Night Ferry Across the Adriatic

I've crossed borders all sorts of ways, but never by boat. I've never slept on one either. So I'm really looking forward to the overinght ferry from Bari, Italy to the last (and most hotly anticipated) stop on our trip Dubrovnik, Croatia.

I think I would have more to say about the trip if I'd got seasick or something. But honestly, it was fine! Sea was calm, we slept well, and there was breakfast provided in the morning! Can't ask for more than that.

Pompeii

I've wanted to visit the buried Roman town of Pompeii ever since studying it as a kid. While Rome itself should hold more attraction, there's something eerily engaging about the idea of a whole town frozen in time, where life just stopped in an instant and no development has occurred for nearly 2,000 years.

There's something ominous about those clouds above Mt Vesuvius.

I was surprised that I didn't really feel anything for the bodies we saw. It was nothing like visiting Auschwitz, or Pearl Harbor, where there was a grief in the air. I guess it's because they would have been dead for thousands of years by now anyway. Still, it was fascinating to try and imagine the lives that they lived on the ground I was walking, and how the eruption would have felt to someone caught up in it.

I was quite taken by both the sheer size of the town, and the level of sophistication contained within it. As I'd heard from other visitors to the site, the architecture, town planning, statues and frescoes are mind blowing considering their age.

A rather interesting illustration on the wall of one of the 24 bordellos.

The highlight was visiting the amphitheatre, the first known one of its kind in the world. The space still feels so grand that I could almost imagine watching a concert there now.

After we left the excavation site, we did one last cross-country drive before returning the rental car (without even a scratch!) in Bari, on the Adriatic Coast.

Positano

Positano is a former fishing town built on the side of a steep cliff on the Amalfi Coast near Naples. It has one, one-way road that snakes its way 4.5km down from the main highway and back up again, with drivers (mainly on scooters and tiny three wheeled trucks) racing round the hairpin bends like slot cars. No matter where you're stayin in Positano, you'll take this road to get there. At some point, you'll leave the road and continue on foot through the labyrinthine pathways and tracks that make this area so quirky (and getting lost so easy!).

We like the place we're staying in. I was determined not to book just-another-hostel, and tried to google for a nice Pensione instead. I was switched onto the idea from a book I'd read set in Italy in Summer. So, home is now the Pensione Maria Luisa, run by a smiley old guy named Carlo who says good morning no matter what time it is.

The Pensione Maria Luisa as seen from the one road.

Everything in town is expensive, so we've been skipping meals to keep costs down. But it's been worth it. We also got a €39 parking ticket for paying the wrong rate. Apparently only residents are allowed to pay the €8 per day rate on the signs. We're meant to pay €3 per hour. After getting the ticket, once we realised we couldn't afford the real rate, we decided parked the car way up along the main road and walk the very, very, very, very long way back into town. We're still not sure how to actually pay the ticket... the whole thing's in Italian and there's no web addres... hmmm.

I splashed out on a room with a view for our last night. Check out how much you can get for €15 extra!

(Side note: the room with a view had a broken shower, so it wasn't all flash. Sponge baths are so in right now.)

Capri

Today I discovered that Capri is the kind of place 60 year old men take their 30 year old lovers to the beach in matching Prada jandals. And turquoise Capri pants, naturally.

Despite feeling like the lower class all day, Capri really is a magnificent place.

We were blessed with flawless weather, which we only cursed when climbing umpteen stairs.

We swam at the crowded beach by the Marina Grande at the beginning and end of our day, and in-between caught the cable car up the hill to the Piazzata, which you are breathlessly reminded several times is a celebrity hangout.

We didn't see any celebrities. But we saw loads of places they'd love to shop!

The highlight of the day didn't start very well. We walked down a kajillion steps to the most beautiful part of the island to be sneered at by a maitre'd who informed us that there were no public beaches on this side of the island. Only private ones for rich people, like his, with a €16 per hour pricetag.

"Never fear", we said to each other, "private beaches are for sissies anyway!" and we marched away to the rocks in a huff, where I spent forever finding the perfect grotto to illegally swim between beaches.

My definition of perfect is "you can get out again after you jump in". Luckily, I found such a place just a short walk on jagged rocks away.

We had a quick swim and Paul cut his toe almost immediately. It didn't keep me out for long though!

Though my other half may disagree, I though it was bliss.

And we were even treated to beautiful views of Positano on the ferry back in.

Life Lesson #31 - Tolls Aren't So Bad

When we first got stuck in Naples I could feel today would teach me a Life Lesson.

Though I'd already been driving for five hours since leaving Rome, there was a grit to Naples that I appreciated having the chance to see. I planned to call the Life Lesson "Always Set Your GPS to Avoid Tolls".

How wrong I was! Avoiding tolls meant we had to drive from one end of Naples to the other (and it's huge!) in standstill traffic. On the motorway we would have paid maybe €3 in tolls and it would have taken half an hour. Instead, it took two and a half hours, and cost untold in petrol!

Though it was nice to see Mt Vesuvius up close, this is the main thing I will remember about Naples:

So many photos like this to choose from...

As some redemption, the last half hour of our drive to Positano took us further around the coast to Sorrento right on sunset:

Then, after winding our way around hairpin bends on impossibly thin roads next to sheer cliffs dropping straight down to the rocks, we were greeted with this view as the last of the sunset streaked across the horizon:

Yes, that is the road.

A great end to a hopelessly over-complicated drive!