The City Tour

6 April, 2008: Rome, Day Two

Another city, another hop-on, hop-off tour bus. Having been on three now (London, Paris, and Rome), my opinion is that London is by far the best, offering local guides with sometimes colorful commentary that is far more insightful than the typical recorded lecture. On the other hand, for anyone with kids, the hop-on, hop-off style tour is greatly appealing: saves feet (and thus whining), and is an easy way to keep the kids placated while you see the city.

So, anyway, the tours take you round the city to most of the tourist spots, and we rode all the way through the tour before getting off for lunch and a visit to Santa Maria Maggiore, but one of the many Santa Marias in Rome. The story goes that one of the Popes (Pope Liberius, to be precise) had a dream in which the Virgin Mary told him to build a church where he found snow. When it fell on August 5th (yes, August) he obeyed, and the result was the Santa Maria Maggiore. The church ended up being completed about 440. Throughout the years, as with many of the more famous buildings, people have added to the original building so that you now have mosaics from the 13th century, chapels from the 17th century, and the ceiling from the 15th century. It is, however, safe to say that it is one of the most amazing churches I have ever been inside. Ornate hardly begins to describe it.

After the Santa Maria Maggiore, the day was cooler than anticipated, so we made a quick swing around to the apartment for some warmer clothes, and a stop at the Gelateria del Teatro, about a block away. Afterwards, we went back up, caught the bus again, and rode around to the Spanish Steps and the Piazza di Spagna. Maybe I’m just jaded, but I wasn’t impressed. I mean, there are tons of cool places in Rome, and if you just came round the corner and found the Spanish Steps, you might think, “Hey, that’s kind of cool,” but with hundreds of tourists hanging out on the steps, I thought something much more like, “Let’s get out of here as soon as we can.” We did take the obligatory picture or two, but then we followed my instincts and left.

We headed for the Trevi Fountain, which is immense and beautiful. There were tons of tourists there, too, but the fact that the fountain was so nice made it a bit more bearable. The story goes that if you toss a coin over your shoulder into the fountain, you will one day return to Rome. We’ll let you know if it works.

Afterwards, we continued our trek back towards the Piazza Navona and our apartment, pausing to enter Sant’Ignazio di Loyola, another exquisitely decorated church, probably best known for its illusionistic ceiling. A cupola was planned for the church, but never built, so the space that it would have filled was covered with a painting (on a flat surface). When entering the church, the illusion is so complete that at best you think someone just painted a dome. Even when underneath it, it took several minutes before Michelle agreed that it was actually flat. Leaving there, we finally made our way back to the apartment, where Michelle proceeded to thoroughly clean our clothes in preparation for another day in Rome. (It wasn’t her fault, she was doing a load of laundry, and accidentally washed it twice.) We dined on fine ham, mozzarella, and tomato sandwiches (panini) from a little place down the street, and called it a day.