Travel Tips

Happy Birthday USA !!! I will celebrate by heading to Rome, Italy with a friend from Detroit.

I wake up later than I wanted to, the result of having to many weisen biers the night before. Check my email and make a few calls for work (great start to a vacation day). Take a shower, finish packing and off I go to Stuttgart to pick up my friend. Everything goes as scheduled at Stuttgart airport and after plugging in Munich Flughafen in, we head out on our way. Things start to go bad here. We hit torrential downpours that make travel almost impossible. Luckily we have plenty of time. Out of the rain, we approach Munich and follow the directions my navigation system gives me. One problem. It has sent me to the wrong airport. After a few frantic phone calls to my German friend, we are able to reprogram to the correct airport. Luckily, we still have plenty of time ?? Oh boy, a major traffic jam. Luckily, we still have time. Finally, we get to the airport, check in, and settle down for a relaxing beer - only to be disrupted by the loudest snoring I have ever heard. I'm surprised the earthquake alarms didn't go off. The man pictured, sleeps through calls for three nearby planes. I think everyone was afraid to get close to him for fear of losing their hearing. Finally on the plane, I close my eyes and get a quick nap. We land in Rome Fiumicino Airport, gather our bags and head out to the hotel shuttle. After a 30 minute drive in a huge bus (just us two passengers), we arrive at the Sheraton Roma. We check in (no upgrade this visit), and head down to the bar for a drink. It's quite a relaxing outdoor bar, placed right next to the outdoor restaurant and the pool. Over a drink, we decide to eat dinner at the restaurant as it is already 9PM. The waiter brings a complimentary champagne and a small apartif of cavier over shrimp (1st clue that this is going to be an expensive dinner). We order a Chianti Classico. I choose Priscuitto with Melon and Figs, followed by a grilled seafood platter (scampi, shrimp, 4 types of fish, eggplant). My friend has pumpkin soup and ribeye steak. All the grilling is done on an outdoor wood fire grill. For desert, we both chose a sorbet mixture (lemon, strawberry, kiwi, orange) which is an incredible explosion of flavor. After an espresso, we head back to the room and I am asleep before the 1st song ends on my mp3 player.

Originally wake up at 7AM, finally get out of bed at 830AM. Quick shower and down for awesome breakfast: fresh fruit, meat, cheese...Get our tickets and head to the free shuttle. The bus takes us to the Termini (central station). From there we get subway tickets and head to the Vatican City. I don't see any of the evil children pickpockets that are often warned about. The subway is crowded and quite warm. The driver seems to be a Detroit Freeway driver. Speeding up to full speed within 30 feet and then slamming on the brakes at the last minute at every stop. I manage to keep my balance. We arrive at the Vatican City and make our way to the museum. 10 euro gets you in and from there my friend takes a turn for the worse. He had been complaining about an upset stomach since before breakfast, but in the heat and crowd of the museum it begins to get worse. Before long he is insisting that we get to a bathroom as soon as possible. I imagine an international incident as ugly american loses his stomach all over the Vatican Museum floor. I continue to take pictures as we scurry down the hall. I turn around to find my friend half out a window looking white as a ghost. I hope the Pope isn't going for a walk in the courtyard. We press on, with amazing detail after amazing detail. Words or pictures can't describe the fantastic images. We make it to a bathroom and my friend begins to feel better. Finally we arrive in the Sistine Chapel which is more crowded than the subway. You are not allowed to take pictures here, even though many people are. We make our way out of the museum, stunned by both the beauty of the contents and also by the closeness that my friend came to tossing his cookies in the center of Christianity. From here, we walk around to the Piazza San Pietro and admire the amazing architecture and scale of the Piazza. We walk up to St. Peter's Basilica only to find out that we aren't allowed to enter due to the fact we are wearing shorts. Looking around we see a lot of people who have stashed a pair of pants in their backpack, or are wearing the zipper pants. Oh well...time to continue the adventure.From Piazza San Pietro we walk up the road to Castel Sant' Angelo. The road heads toward the Tiber and leads us through the gauntlet of the everpresent street merchants trying to sell Gucci or Prada purses for 25 euro (think they are real ???). After being nice enough to take pictures of a couple of couples, we enter the castle. It costs 5 euro to enter. Turns out that this castle was originally a mausoleum for Hadrian. We wander up to the top which provides some fantastic views of the Vatican area as well as the rest of Rome. After taking some pictures and burning the images into our brains, we wander back down.

From the castle, it's on our way to Piazza Navona with a stop at Piazza Dei Tribunali. We decide to continue on along the river and then cross the Tiber at one of the many bridges. Before entering the Piazza Navona we stop and have an ice cream which is a must in Rome. The Piazza Navona holds many restuarants and cafes, artists selling their drawings & paintings, and of course the famous Fontan dei Quattro Fiumi (Fountain of the Four Rivers). This is another beautiful piece of architecture. After a while, the beauty contained within Rome becomes overwhelming. From the Piazza Navona, we wander through the streets to Piazza Rotunda and the Pantheon. The original Pantheon was built in 27BC! After looking inside, and up through the hole in the ceiling, we stop for some lunch in the shadows of the Pantheon at Ristorante Dirienzo. Great service. I have a beer (of course) and a bottle of water. Along with bread and tortellini. After about a 45 minute break, it is time to get up and head towards the Trevi Fountain. Wandering along the roads in a stair like fashion, we pass several piazzas, and stumble across the most amusing scene. There, in the middle of a piazza sits a lone man on a chair. With an umbrella to shield him from the hot sun, he sat silently, with a sign around his neck protesting some injustice. He was facing some justice building with two armed soldiers standing guard at the entrance. A picture can be found in my tips under the local customs. It was quite a humorous scene, but the man appeared to be dead serious. This piazza also had another obelisk and the location of the sun made for some nice picture opportunities. We then continued to walk towards the Trevi Fountain, finally arriving with about 2000 other people. The small Piazza is completely crowded with people. The fountain is - you guessed it - amazing. The details on the sculptures are fantastic. I could really sit here for ours listening to the people and the water - and examining the details of the sculptures. We sit here for quite a while soaking in the atmosphere. On to the Trinita dei Monti and to the fabulous park in the vicinity. We walk around the park, and find the an overlook on top of Pincio Hill. This overlook is directly above the Piazza del Popolo and gives you a fantastic view of Rome. It would be a great place to watch the sunset. After a while of looking at recognizable landmarks and trying to figure out where we had been today, we decide to relax at a cafe in the park and have a couple of beers.

From the park, we wander down to the Piazza del Popolo and begin to wander down the streets over to the Spanish Steps. We pass a nice shopping area and also the Munchen Hofbrauhaus (I come all the way from Germany and run into a German bar)...Finally we arrive at the Spanish Steps, which are...well... steps. It appears that every other tourist has converged at the same spot. I don't see much exciting about the steps although the sunken ship fountain is interesting. It is a good spot to sit and people watch. We sit behind seven Italian police officers hard at work posing with pretty ladies for pictures - it's a rough life. After a while we decide to grab some dinner in the area. We choose Otello alla Concordia on Via della Croce for our dining pleasure. It appears busy, and as the group in front of us is told the wait is 30 minutes, we prepare ourselves for a wait thinking that we will pop across to the Hofbrauhaus for a beer. To our surprise, we are seated immediately. We ask the waiter to bring us a decent red wine. I order Parma Ham with Melon, A chicken broth soup with tortellini, and Veal Scallopine. All is good, and the atmosphere is great with a lot of Italian being spoken. This changes when the ugly Americans arrive. Three ladies carting seven children sit down next to us and immediately the children become unruly. The Italian couple next to us is aghast and biting their tongue not to say anything. The children are obnoxiously loud and running all over. Even more incredibly, the parents are doing nothing to control this behaviour. No wonder the Europeans think we are uncivilized. In Germany, you will see more dogs at a restaurant than children - because they are better behaved and tolerated. Sorry for my rant, but nothing spoils a good dinner more than obnoxious people seated next to you (this means you cell phone talking guy and too drunk guy also)... After dinner, we try to make our way back to the Termini, but realize that we are in danger of missing the 11PM bus back to the hotel. We decide to catch a subway, which only delays us further. After travelling through the bowels of the Termini and across the dimly lit lots, we arrive at the bus parking area only to find our bus has left. Oh well, another will be by at midnight. We head across the street to a cafe for a nightcap and a much needed trip to the bathroom (all that drinking has to go somewhere). 40 minutes later the next bus arrives and we step on. We stop at Piazza Venezia and pick up a couple of Mexican tourists who can't seem to remember if they are staying at the Sheraton Roma or not. And I thought we had a lot of drink !!! We finally arrive back at about 1230A and fall soundly asleep very quickly.

I wake up at 7AM, which I decide is too early, so I close my eyes and wake up again at....1030A a new record, time to get up and get moving in a hurry !!! No time for breakfast, as we catch the noon bus to town. First order of the day is to grab some lunch, which we do at a small cafe off the Piazza Venezia. I chose insalate caprese followed by spaghetti carbonara along with a beer and an espresso. We are now ready to attack the day. Of we head to the forums, which we reach by wandering through the courtyard of the Palazzo di Venezia. There is a museum here that is supposed to be quite nice. We chose not to partake due to our excitement for the Forums and also due to the fact that there was quite a line. We headed into what I think is the highlight of the trip - The Roman Forums. A completely amazing (there's that word again) archeological area with so many highlights it beyond belief.
Every where you turn, there is something that will take your breath away. Walk around and take it all in, then take a few minutes, close your eyes, and imagine what it was like in ancient Roman times. We walked in through the Via di Monte Tarpeo Entrance past the Tempio di Saturno through the Arco di Settimio Severo along Via Sacra to the Colosseum. We passed through the Arch di Costantino and made a pass around the Colosseum to absorb the sheer size of it. It is as larger or larger than the football stadiums in the US today. We paid our 10 euro and entered. Walking around, one gets chills thinking of the carnage that was seen in this stadium. That aside, the architecture and engineering that went into such a place is phenomenal. After about 1 hour in the Colosseum, we decided to walk back through the Forums walking up t o the Basilica di SS Cosma e Damiano. It is here that I purchased a cheezy "marble" statue as my souvenier. At least I bartered down from the 115 euro sticker price to 35 euro. I still overpaid, but was not in a mood to haggle any more. The stall owner told me in Italian that I was Neopolitan not American for the way I haggled. We wandered back down into the Forums and headed back up the Via della Salaria. As we walked up the pleasant smell of cannabis wafted by - what a way to visit the Forums for somebody nearby. We decided it was time for a beer.

Walking past the Vittoriano and across the Piazza Venezia, we descended on a streetside cafe and enjoyed a cold beer. It also gave me time to call my wife and let her know that I was alive and well. After a beer, we wandered back over to the Piazza Navona so that my friend could purchase a drawing for his wall. More haggling, and one picture later, we wandered over to the Trastevere area of town for dinner. We wandered around for a while walking up and down alleys exploring the area completely. We came across a fantastic wine bar called Enoteca Trastevere where we decided to kill a couple of hours and a bottle of wine while people watching. I chose a Capezzana Barco Reale di Carmignano 2001 which was served with a platter of cheese, salami, and olives. Sitting there, jazz music wafting out from inside the building, people sauntering by, the house dog skittering about, I found myself in a supreme state of relaxation. I am really at my happiest when I am in this situation. Beautiful weather, good friend or family, a nice bottle of wine, and not a care in the world.

After the bottle was empty, we reluctantly got up and continued to explore this area of Rome. We continued to walk the alleys and looped around along the Tiber, we headed back through the alleys to find a place for dinner. We settled on a tiny little place called Hostaria La Botticella. We were the first people to sit, and thought we had found a little secluded place to enjoy a quiet dinner. It was a perfect location, a little alley with laundry hanging overhead. Lovely Italian music accompanied by a dog crying along. A man shouting down his order to the owner of the restaurant. We decided on a bottle of Villa Palestro Merlot 2001. I had prusciutto and melon for an appetizer, followed by Gnocchi al Gorgonzola. By the time our meals arrived the restaurant filled up, and we found ourselves sitting next to an airline employed couple from Southern California - so much for a secluded place. I ended the evening with a limoncello and an espresso. It was then time to pay the bill and wander back to our scheduled bus stop. We took our time walking back through the narrow streets, squeezing every last minute of enjoyment out of the weekend. We made it back to the bus stop with plenty of time to spare and to admire the Teatro di Marcello. It also gave us the pleasure to talk to my friends from Germany who were at a BBQ on their 3rd bottle of Ouzo. On the bus, we headed back to the hotel where, after packing, we once again we fell soundly asleep rather quickly

I wake up at 5AM and try unsuccessfully to get some more sleep before I have to get up at 6AM. I get up shower and head down for a quick breakfast and to check out. We jump on the bus and head to the airport. Along the way, I have the sinking feeling that I didn't pack my car/house keys last night. I know they were in the safe, but I now don't recall packing them. I check through my carry on and they aren't there. Once at the airport, I go to the bathroom to rifle through my suitcase. No keys....I go out and inform my friend of the issue, call the Sheraton lost and found to search my room. In the meantime, my friend decides to search his bag. Sure enough, he had grabbed the keys out of the safe last night thinking they were his. He felt about 6 inches high, and I breathed a great sigh of relief. I also made it clear that he owed me several beers. On the plane, I reviewed in my mind what had been an absolutely fantastic weekend to a place that I can't wait to visit again.