Italia Part I

Finally back home after 2 weeks in Europe. The weather there is hot, hot and hot! I have always dreamed of Italy as a perfect holiday destination, with delicious Italian pasta, romantic streets and not to mention charming Italian men. But reality does bite, sometimes. I spent my time mainly in Rome and Naples. I am not the typical Singaporean traveller wanting a 'touch and go' kind of trip. I love to immerse myself in the culture and life of the city itself.

Attractions and Sites

There is so much to see in Rome. Even after 7 days there, I have not seen everything! But one word of advice. One really need good and comfortable walking shoes to explore Rome. Although the metro and bus network is fantastic, you need to really walk in order to know the city better.

1. The Colosseum and Forum
Needless to say, our first stop is the ever famous Roman Colosseum. Unlike what most guidebooks and websites tell us, you really do not need to waste your morning queueing at the colosseum for entrance tickets. That was the advice dished out to me by the hotel host. Besides, once you get there, you will notice that there are many people trying to sell you a tour of the colosseum, promising you to jump the queue complete with a English speaking guide. The price of the tour would have been similar to what you would have paid, queueing up religiously and paying for an audio guide. The colosseum is amazing. It is one of my favourite place to visit in this trip. You feel so puny wherever you choose to stand and the technology the ancient Romans came up with to release the animals for duel is simply intelligent. At the same time, you see the ugly, brutal and cruel side of the Romans as well.

The ticket to the Colosseum includes the visit to the Forum and Palatine Hills as well. And it is these 2 places where you can spend an entire place at. The place is huge and you need to walk a lot. It would be good if you have a guide, be it a audio, book or a person, to help you make sense of what you are looking at. The forum reminds me of Ephesus in Turkey. The ruins are relatively well preserved but many of the ancient basilicas are not open for visits. The place is well-planned and for those who do not know, whatever urban planning we know today came from the Roman era and whatever laws and legislations we study and abide by today, originated from the Romans as well. They were a great civilisation and you can definitely identify the different aspects of their life when you visit the ruins. Another example, the forum is the place for the ancient romans to meet and gossip about their neighbours. They sit there in the day, engaged in small talk with one another while drinking their tea and buying their groceries. Doesn't that remind you of the market or plaza located in our town centre of any neighbourhood in Singapore?

2. Churches

Churches is a must-see for any trip to Europe. And this is even more so in Rome when it is a popular pilgrimage destination for many Catholics. The architecture and interior decor of the churches here often astound me. The name to look out here is Bernini. He is a renaissance sculptor who was responsible for many of the beautiful sculptures we see all over Rome. Not just in the churches, but the fountains at the roadside as well. Obviously, I can't remember all the churches I visited and after a while, you stop 'wowing' and know that it is just another church.

3. Vatican

The Vatican is a day trip by itself and getting there is really easy. Anyway, once you get out of the metro station, you will see hoards of tourists there. Just follow them and you will never get lost. For the Vatican, it is highly recommended that you book the tickets online. It will really save you lots of time queueing under the hot sun. Armed with an audio guide and you are all ready to go. The Vatican museum is huge. You will start with the Egyptian collection and end somewhere near the Sistine Chapel. Why the papacy collects some of these items simply eludes me. Somehow, the explanation of collecting these items in the name of respecting all other pre-christianity culture and arts sounds overly simplistic and suspicious. In the Vatican museum, I love the Raphael Rooms the most and especially the piece on the School of Athens. Apparently, many tourists thought the same too since the prints for this particular piece was sold out. The Sistine Chapel is simply overcrowded all the time. We are not supposed to use flash in this room and many tourists were doing it but the authorities simply have no way of catching the culprits in the crowd.

Our host at the hotel told us of a short cut to the St. Peter's Basilica after visiting the museums. We tried that and on the way to the Sistine Chapel, we were stopped by a guard, but somehow he allowed us to retrace our routes even though it is supposed to be one-way traffic. St. Peter's Basilica is magnificent. I love the time spent here. It is not quiet but at least there was much more space for me to move around as compared to the museums. From the balcony of the Basilica, you get a good view of the square and it is a good picture op.

4. Villa Borghese

This must be the only muesum in the world that requires reservation. Although troublesome (they only admit 30 visitors at each time slot; 4 slots a day), it is a must-see in Rome. Again in this museum, you can see many of Bernini's work as the then owner, Cardinal Scipione was a patron and lover of Bernini's work. He noticed his talents from a young age and commissioned him to do many pieces of work. Another artist to look out for in Villa Borghese is Caravaggio. His talent was not appreciated by many during his lifetime, but I like the way he interpreted 'The Last Supper'. As opposed to Michaelangelo's bleak and pessimistic interpretation, Caravaggio showed the more light-hearted and optimistic side of it, which was brilliant.

Everyone should visit the Villa Borghese, whether or not you are an art lover. The villa itself is located within a park and we had a mini picnic before our scheduled visit. If you have time, you can also rent a little boat and row in the lake. It would be such a romantic moment to share. Unfortunately, we didn't have the luxury of time to that this time round.

5. Pinchio

From the Villa Borghese, we headed to the Pinchio for a bird's eye view of the city. From here, Via del Corso (the main shopping belt of Rome) is just a stone's throw away. In the guidebook, it says that many tourists come here for the spectacular sunset. But since it's summertime now, the sun doesn't set until 9pm. And if not for the extreme heat, I would have lingered for a little longer.
6. Porta Portese

Initially, I planned the trip around Porta Portese because we wanted to get to the flea market to try our luck on getting some good antiques, like what we did in London. We went there by bus and within an hour from the gate, we were done. It is not an antiques market like Portobello. They sell all sorts of things here, but mainly clothes and household items. It reminds me of the pasar malam back home and the locals were buying the clothes, choosing and tossing them in the piles of clothes as if they were free. To be fair, there were a few stalls selling antiques but not just the kind we were looking for. So we went home empty handed. But in my opinion, Porta Portese is still worth visiting. It gives you a good insight to the lives of the locals. It also gave us a chance to visit Trastevere (the name means "beyond the Tiber"). Trastevere is a very quaint part of Rome. With many restaurants and quiant shops lining the cobbled stone paths, it is a nice way to spend a slow and leisurely Sunday with brunch at one of its many great trattorias.
7. Trevi Fountain

The Trevi Fountain is the most well-known fountain in Rome, if not in Europe. Legend has it that if you wish to return to Rome, you should throw a coin into the fountain. But we did not do it. There were simply too many people at the fountain, both locals and tourists. It is true that is is the most beautiful fountain I have seen, but I still feel that it is over-rated. Perhaps it is also the time of the day. We were there around evening and by then, I was already dead-beat. There are many gelaterias lining the streets near the Trevi and it is in one of these many old gelaterias that I tasted my first gelato in Rome.

8. Piazza Navona

As compared to the Trevi, I actually like the fountains at Piazza Navona better, so much so that I went back twice. The main reason of it being there is significantly less tourists here and I can soak my tired soles in the cool fountain water. The fountains here, like the Trevi was designed by Bernini as well, with the main fountain representing the 4 main rivers at that time: The Nile, the Danube, the Ganges and Rio de la Plata. Around the Piazza, there are many street artists and sometimes it can be quite entertaining looking at them.

9. Castel St. Angelo

This property belongs to the papacy as well. It was originally created by Emperor Hadrian as his tomb but eventually became a fortress instead. This fortress is joined to the Vatican a famous passage way, a corridor that runs atop the wall that encircles the Vatican. This is to allow the pope to walk safely across to the castle from the vatican grounds. Frankly, we were quite disappointed with the visit to the castle as there was nothing much for us to explore. Most of the rooms were closed and there was no audio guides to rent as well. To make matters worse, there was some kind of congressional meeting the day we visited and the area where they were having the meeting was cordoned off. If you ask me, it is not the worth the 8 euros entrance fee and personally, I feel that it is good enough to just stand at the bridge and take a photo with the castle at the background.

10. Man of Veritable Truth

We walked all the way to see this manhole which has always attracted tourists from all over the world. It was rumoured that if you were to put your hand into the mouth of the manhole and told a lie, your hand would be bitten off. Now, all tourists are only allowed one photograph per person and even then, you have queue up a long way for it. Obviously, I am an honest person. Hehe

11. Pantheon

Another feature of many European cities. They love to build pantheons to house the graves of the great men. And it is no exception for Italy. The facade of the building looks old and poorly maintained. However, the interior is beautiful. The hole you see at the top of the building is actually a hollow one and is not covered by glass. So when it rains, rain will come into the building (obviously...duh) and the small holes located in some of the marble tiles on the floor will help to drain off the water from the building. What an interesting and ingenious idea. Few buildings in the world has such architectural features.

Shopping

Walking around Rome, you will not see many of the locals carrying the branded designer bags that Italy is famed for. It is the tourists who go buying them like bees are attracted to honey. The place to look for them is not Via del Corso, but Via del Condotti instead. This particular Via is a mecca of luxury designer brands. The prices here are also extremely attractive. I bought a Miu Miu bag at a 40% discount off the prices sold in Singapore. The sales assistance here are generally nice and polite and wouldn't mind you asking to see the pieces. I didn't buy any clothes from the high street brands as I feel that the prices and quality isn't that great as compared to clothes sold in Singapore. So you really have to do your marketing while still in Singapore to know if you have really bag a bargain. I wanted to buy some items that are not available in Singapore but the sales person at Gucci told me that they (the sales person) would not be told which are the items available only in Europe. So tant pis!

Eating

In Rome, every corner you turn, you see a restaurant. The only question is price and quality. Unlike in Paris, where bread is served free of charge, here you are charged for the hard and bad tasting bread whether you like it or not. We ate a variety of pasta, pizza, meat dishes, vegetables soup and risotto. The pasta in Italy doesn't really taste like what we are used to back home, but some restaurants do serve really awesome pasta, like the Seafood Pasta I had in Trastevere. There is no lack of meat and seafood in Rome, but it's hard to get sufficient serving of vegetables. There are also many Chinese, Philippino, and African restaurants around town and one night we decided to go Chinese and the fried rice and fried noodles tasted decently delicious, much better than many Chinese food I have tasted in Europe.

Accommodation

Following TripAdvisor's recommendation, I booked 7 nights at Welrome Hotel. Although this is only a 2 star hotel, it is highly recommended by many. In fact, if you ask me, it is more like a B&B. There were only about 7 rooms in the hotel and everything has to be booked and confirmed via email. The hotel owners, Mary de Rosa and her husband were really hospitable. Every night, they would spend time with us telling us what is worth visiting the next day and even lend us books to read up on before we proceed with the visit. Without their help in booking us for Villa Borghese, we might not have been able to visit this wonderful museum. And although they say that breakfast is not provided, they gave us croissants and juices every morning and we can make coffee and tea in our room. The water and drinks they placed in the mini bar is also complimentary, which is a nice gesture, if you ask me. The room is not fantastic but it is decent and clean and comfortable enough. The most surprising move was when we checked out, Mary presented us with a nice little souvenir. It was a silver model of St. Peter's. That is what I call value added service and it is things like that that adds makes the whole trip more memorable.