Sightseeing Rome

The Vatican City

The Vatican was one of the places that were not pleased of the twisting nature of the fiction movie (Da Vinci Code)….. People were confused and it drove them nuts. Their audio guides for the Vatican museums would have small references to the movie as a post note from now and then debunking the myths and ushering the people into the light. The little boy in me of course heard only what I wanted to hear …. Whatever you say …… I was going to look anyway.*grin*

As I made my way through the crazy vast and huge museum (Vatican) trying to absorb as much art and inspiration I could gather it was overwhelming indeed so much so it became dull. That’s when I decided never to enter more than one museum a day in Rome because you loose the ability to focus. It drains the energy just trying to absorb everything at the same time and reading and looking and listening to the explanations …. PHAW …

Don’t get me wrong, I love the arts, and as much as I love em, I never understand them. Some people would tell me stories of a piece of why it’s a masterpiece but I wouldn’t listen anyway. If I see a piece and it draws me in I could look at it for hours but even if it’s a masterpiece and I dun get drawn to it then I guess I just dun like it. I treat art like a delicate taste of food, but too much spicy food and you’ll loose your taste.

Hence the no more than one museum a day policy

ROMA PASS

There were so many things to do in Rome but I decided to stick to the cheapest and value for money as much as possible. I bought the ROMA pass … which was a mistake since a lot of the good stuff is not included in the pass and the price doesn’t give you good discount unless you go into more than three museums. You still have to pay but at a discounted rate. Yet knowing how massive these museums are they only give you three days validity for the pass.

One upside was the unlimited ride you could take on the metro in Rome. But with all the ruins running around the city, the new engineers could only make two lines which run outside the city center making the lines practically mostly useless. So much for the ROMA pass

Borghese Gallery



Appolo & Daphne



Borghese Gallery was one of my targets to see. I heard from a fellow traveler back in Naples that it takes a booking + money to get into the museum. I had to see what was so special about this one museum which seamed so exclusive. I got my ticket, paid the fee of 13 euro and had to wait three days for the slot, plus there was a time stamp. You can only go in during your allocated time indicated on the ticket and you only have 2 hours in the museum before they kick you out and another group goes in. Oh and they dun allow cameras and had so many post station people making sure no one sneaks a shot.

This had better be worth it !!

 The Borghese Gallery features mainly Bernini’s work which is of exquisite taste in my point of view. The artwork was definitely more dynamic and well worth the hefty fee to see. Pictures would not do it justice I realized and it didn’t matter once I was in there just being stunned by the works. My fav was Apollo and Daphne …

Coliseum & Roman Forums

The largest Roman Coliseum in rome and I was not going to miss this regardless of the price. Lucky thing thou it was included in the ROMA pass that I have bought earlier. It was a sight to behold once you got out of the subway and saw the magnificent structure which was built so long ago.

I got in saw the big huge ass structure which was nearly three storeys tall and could not help but wonder how the heck they built this back then without modern technology. Then again the amount of time they took wasn’t short either. One of my bad habits I guess was always trying to find the old vs the newly reinstate or reconstructed to preserve the monument. Its almost unavoidable to not disturb such an old structure but to do it with skill and hide all the new marks and trick people into thinking its was from back then was a marvel. Cosmetic at it best.

Let Your Legs Leed The Way

I was developing this culture for every place that I venture into now. Close the map and just walk around for the day. Sometimes it was a good and interesting walk and others times it could be the bore and monotonous view of building after buildings, especially when your legs bring you into the industrialized area and not the touristy part of town.

I found the Spanish steps, Fontana di Trevi and the Pantheon this way. Walked by and didn’t stay long.

Part of the walk was always to find local food and snacks and hopefully find something outside the lonely planet guidebook. Local buskers and entertainers was always a charm especially when I stopped and see a finger puppet show by an elderly cutely playing out a romance drama with his fingers. He gathered quite a crowd and a few *klings* in his tin.

Painters, magic tricks and all sort of street performance was sighted … I later found out it was in the lonely planet book for place to go to see odd local interesting things. Oh well … I did try …