IKKE I RUTE: Italy Trip - Part III

We reached Rome Tiburtini railway station at 6am in the morning, and the main railway station Roma Termini was few kilometers away from there. One good thing about Rome is that the city is well connected by metro trains. We bought daily metro pass and a city map from the station and caught the next train to Roma Termini.

Our hotel was few minutes walk from the railway station. We checked in and within another hour we got ready to explore this fascinating city of Rome. According to our plan, we had two days to visit Rome and Vatican. A tourist whom we met in the hotel advised us to go for Vatican on the first day in order to avoid huge crowd on next day (16th April) as Pope addressing the public. Plan was set to visit Vatican on the first day and Rome on the second day.

We soon caught a metro train going to Vatican and within another 15 minutes, we reached in Vatican City, the smallest state in the world, a state that occupies only 108 acres. The Vatican is an independent state since 1929. Every year millions of Catholics visit the home of Catholic Church here. There was huge crowd of tourists everywhere and we soon found ourselves attached to a queue heading to the Vatican museum. The queue moved on and it took more than an hour till we paid 12€ to enter this amazing museum.

Vatican Museum

This museum is home to century’s worth of treasures that collected by and gifted to the papacy. Some of the famous exhibits of this museum are : The Egyptian Museum - with one of the biggest Egyptian collections, the Pio Clementine Museum - dedicated to the Roman and Greek works, The Gregorian Museum - with Etruscan works, The Raphael Rooms - with beautiful frescoes. There was so much to see in this museum and I don’t think even one day is enough just to see all of these. Then we visited the famous Sistine Chapel, Pope’s official private chapel and the place where cardinals around the world meet to elect a new Pope.

It was half past 1pm when we quit from the museum and after having lunch we walked down to the St Peter’s square – the famous elliptical shaped town square of Vatican City, created by artist Bernini during 1650s. A large obelisk surrounded by fountains sits in the middle of the square and an enormous marble platform leads from the square to St. Peter’s Basilica from which the Pope delivers his weekly blessing.

St Peter's Square

There was yet another queue to enter St. Peter’s Basilica. This Basilica, one of the largest in the world, and is considered as the spiritual centre of the Roman Catholic Church. The construction of the Dome and the art works and sculptures inside were just amazing. One of the best among this is Pietà of Michelangelo. It says that he carved this sculpture when he was only 25

There was some confession session going on one part of the Church. It seems it is also possible to go to the top of the Dome, but we couldn’t do so as it was closed because of some reasons. We spent few more hours enjoying the Basilica and the crowed St Peter’s square before calling for the day and returning back to the Hotel

St Peter's Basilica - inside

The next day, we began our site seeing from the most famous monuments in Rome – the Colosseum. This vast elliptical huge theatre was built in 80AD and was used for gladiator and wild animal fights. Many part of this building is broken and is ruined by now. There is an entrance fee of 12€ to enter into the colosseum, and inside you can have an amazing view of the colosseum (like what we see in film Gladiator). Also there is a small museum inside showing the history and construction details of the Colosseum.

Colosseum

Near to the Colosseum, there is Roman Forum, the biggest collection of Roman ruins in the world and contains constructions in the times of Julius Cesar, Augustus, Traian, Nerva and Vespusian. Some of the most famous buildings here are Senate house, The Comitium or assembly place, The Temple of Saturn, the Temple of Castor and Polux etc.

Roman Forum

The next place we visited was The Pantheon. This building dates from 118-128, its dome’s architecture was too good. We then walked to The Fontana di Trevi where there is this beautiful sculpture and a small fountain and a huge crowd busy in throwing coins into water. This place is famous because the legend says that if you throw a coin you will come back to Rome some day :-). I too did the same. Not far from here there was one of the most famous squares in Rome - the 'Piazza di Spagna' – with the famous Spanish square steps.

One of the beautiful buildings we have seen next was the Vittorio Emanuele II Monument Sculpture, which is dedicated to Emanuelle II, the father of Italian unity and was constructed at the end of the 19th century. Then we visited The Campidoglio, where there are sculptures of Castor and Polux with their horses. The 'Piazza' where these sculptures sit was also designed by Michaelangelo.