A week in the life of a Tourist - I should write a book titled this

Word of the Post: touristo/a (Tourist)

I want to write one of those silly tourist books after this week...

When you read about big cities, and tell people you are heading to a huge city they suggest many sites to go out and see. If you tell people that you are heading to New York City, they tell you that you should check out Times Square or the Empire State building. If you tell people that you are heading to Paris, they tell you to check Eiffel Tower. Boston, go check out Fenway Park. Prague, check out the castle. Dublin, make sure you kiss the blarney stone. Florence, go see the David. And Rome- Make sure that you go see everything, so one week I took the time to go out and see many things that I hadn't had the opportunity to see yet.

The first stop on the tourist train was the Colosseum. Some people may want to punch me for saying this, but the Colosseum is not all that cool. The Colosseum is more amazing to see from the outside, and at night, rather than the inside in my opinion, and if you are going to go inside make sure you have a knowledgeable tour guide. Our teacher took us, so it was nice to have a guide, but if you go inside without anyone, its just a lot of pieces of stone put together, but you can't really figure out the meaning of any of it without a guide. For a little background information: The Colosseum was built by Vespacion who was the emperor following Nero. Nero was hated by the Romans, because he built a bunch of palaces by the Roman Forum, and since the Forum is the place for the public, the public hated it. Vespacion knocked down these palaces and built the Colosseum as a place of entertainment for the people (propaganda). Here the people could go (for free) and watch the gladiator battles. The stadium held between 50,000-80,000 people and the best seats were given to the people in the top class, but as started shortly ago, no one had to pay. Also, after all voting moved to the Senate building and away from the public area near where the Pantheon is, people would come to the Colosseum to hold protests, because here the people had a voice. Facts courtesty of my Rome Through the Ages class.

The next place on my tourist stop was the Callista Catacombs. In order to get here our group of people who decided to go had to walk along the Appian Way, which is pretty neat, but also feels like it is almost out in the middle of nowhere. When we got to the Catacombs eventually, we bought our tickets and went on a tour. Our tourguide brought us into a little room, and gave us a short lesson on the Catacombs and who was kept there which was many different people, from kids to Popes. We walked down into the Catacombs which served/still serve as tombs. Basically the Catacombs are just a maze of corpses. However, the floor we were on didn't house any corpses anymore, but down on the lower floors where the public can't go there are still full tombs. In one of the rooms we entered, we saw a preserved skeleton of a boy. It was pretty interesting, but creepy at the same time. No pictures were allowed here, but our tourguide walked away and said "If I don't see it, then they won't know you took the pictures."

Several days later, I took an afternoon to go visit several churches. I visited three. The three that I saw were: The Santa Maria in Piazza Minerva, St. Ignazius, and the Basilica Dei SS Ambrogio E Carlo. My favorite by far was St. I, but I liked each of the three for different reasons. I loved one section of the S. Maria that was done completely by Michaelangelo. The artwork was just amazing. St. I was great because it was just this giant church that you almost don't know what to do with yourself when you walk in. The altars were also just beautiful to put it simply. And the last one I enjoyed because I stumbled upon it accidentally while I was walking along Via Del Corso. I thought that I was done with my church tour for the day after those first two churches, but when I found this one I decided to pop in. It reminded me more of a reserved church, and it's location is just in the middle of Via Del Corso--the famed shopping street in Rome.

On the same day that i saw these churches, I finally saw the inside of the Pantheon. I went inside with my class. It is free, so I could have gone in many times before this, but I waited so that I could understand the ideas of the Pantheon, even though the inside is different now, from when it was first built. The Pantheon is my favorite place in Rome, so it is actually deserving of its own post, but a brief is that: It is incredible.

The last stop during my tourist week was the Vatican. My class was not scheduled to go see the Vatican Museum or St. Peter's Basillica or the Sistine Chapel, but another class was so I made sure that I could hop on to their tour. Besides, you can't come to Rome and NOT go see the Vatican. Sure, I had been in St. Peter's Square many times, but I hadn't taken the time to go inside anything quite yet. The class met at 9:00 AM sharp, and the tour began at 9:30. As we were walking in, the teacher told us that in order to see every room and go through everything that they have in the Vatican it would take 14 days and 14 nights. That is how big the Vatican and the museum is. Our teacher also told us how hard it is to become a tour guide. In order to become one, you have to take a 500 question MC test as well as do an essay about any art piece in ROME that they ask you about. You really gotta be on your game.

We started to head through the museum and we saw art by many artists.. We saw a huge marble statue of Hercules, and then the sculpture of the body of a man that had the definition of every muscle in the body. We saw a view of the Vatican Gardens, and we checked out a gorgeous piece of art by Caravaggio. We saw Davinci's unfinished painting, and then we checked out the Sistine Chapel. The Sistine Chapel is astonishing when you first walk in. The most interesting thing that I learned while going through here was about a painting on the ceiling. Our teacher pointed out a certain woman. The woman in the painting was almost beastly looking. She was big, had huge muscles on her arms, and not really and breasts painted into her. This painting was done by Michaelangelo. Michaelangelo was so interested in painting and sculpting guys, that he had no idea what a female body looked like, so when he painted one for the Chapel he gave her a guy's body and a woman's face. Following our tour of the Sistine chapel, we headed out of the Vatican and into St. Peter's Basillica. I had thought that St. I, was huge, but this really took the cake. Your breath is almost taken away when you walk into it. It doesn't matter what religion you are, what faith you believe in, or if you don't believe in anything at all, the place is just astonishing. There is artwork, sculpture, and many many altars. We saw Bernini's angels, and we even saw a mass going on. It was awesome. The only thing that we didn't get to do was climb to the top of the duomo, but that can be saved for another day.

So what do you think...should I spend my next two years of college writing a tourist book--Libs in Rome?

Ciao