Day 3 - Exploring day!

5-16
We didn’t meet until 930 today so we got to sleep in. We went to the place where Caesar was killed, the Area Sacra, which is where Rome’s cats live. That was cool. There were a handful of ruins in there and some paving. We couldn’t go down because they are still excavating but it was fun to see none-the-less.  Then we walked to the Piazza de Novena and looked at the architecture style of one of the buildings: it had a lot of different styles in it.


Then we went and saw the Santa Maria Sopra Minerva which from the outside looks like this sort of big, boring church but when you walk in all the sudden there are huge domes and arches and it’s enormous! It was so cool. I was running around looking at stuff, taking pictures when I just stopped and decided to drink it in. Oh my goodness! It was so big and beautiful and I thought about trying to build it and paint the ceilings way back when and I was just in awe. And God and I just had a moment that was too great. Just me being amazed at what He’d created us to be able to do. Soon our time here was done, though, and we were all getting hungry so we stopped at a bar (a pizza bar, of course) and got some lunch. Yum! We ate in front of the Pantheon and there was this accordion player playing all these classical songs I recognized! It was a little bit awesome, let me tell you.

Then, some of the people in our group wanted to spend some time at the Spanish steps and in that area so we hiked up there and climbed the steps (all 132 of them) and looked around up there. After that we got the rest of the day to ourselves. Instead of being lazy and going back to the hotel or to the city center a group of us decided to go exploring.

We got to a lot so this is going to be long and I apologize in advance!

We went to the Campo de Fiore (both this and the Piazza de Novena are like little plaza square things that have restaurants and shops with a fountain or statue in the center) and there was like this farmers market type thing set up with bags and food and spices and all sorts of things. At one point I walked up to some of the girls who were drinking a free sample of this stuff and one of them handed me the cup and said, “Here, try this, but don’t take too much”. So I looked in the cup (it was a little one) and there was barely any in it so I just drank it. Apparently, that is kind of what whiskey tastes like. It was alcoholic and it tasted disgusting. Maybe if I had had one of the fruitier ones it would have tasted better but what an awful first taste of alcohol. I won’t have any trouble waiting 2 years to give that a go again. I did find some cool stuff to get for gifts in the Campo so it was overall pretty good. Then one of the girls wanted gelato from a specific place so we ran around trying to find exactly where it was and found it and got some amazing gelato there.

From here we didn’t really know what we wanted to do so we started to head toward the Tiber River just to see stuff. We stopped at this place called the Archivio di Stato and looked inside. It had the coolest courtyard and we would have liked to run around but we were worried we might bother anyone who might be in there working or something. Apparently, at least according to the sign out front, it was like the university church or something at one point, which is pretty sweet. Then we went made it to the river finally and got some of the pictures of the Castel Sant’ Angelo and St Peter’s Basilica with the river and one of its bridges in it, which seem to be popular on the postcards here. We crossed the river and went to the Palazzo di Giustizia which is this ENORMOUS white building which is of course decked out in pillars and sculptures and such. We were all excited because we wanted to explore the inside of a building but apparently that is the current courthouse here. So when we saw the metal detectors at the entrance we rethought going in. We headed on to this giant piazza that was even further away. There was an event that they were getting ready for so it was not really very exciting, though. We saw this little building thing at the top of the hill behind this, however, and decided to go there. So we hiked up the hill, dodging traffic (most fun, real-life version of Frogger ever!) to this overlook building-thing. We get there and the view is AMAZING! There is also this huge park at the top which is gorgeous and just lovely.

Unfortunately we were all exhausted, having wandered and explored for close to 5 hours now, so we didn’t linger too long but went back down the hill in hopes of finding the subway stop that was nearby on our map. After crossing traffic on the “street of death” as I thought of it, we made it to the station and hopped on the subway taking a 20 minute ride back down to the stop in front of our hotel. (Let me note that the fact it took 20 minutes to get back is a testament to how far we really went from our little home-base as we traveled in the opposite direction of the places we go a lot, i.e. the coliseum, roman forum, etc.) Needless-to-say, we were exhausted and came up and flopped onto our beds to give our poor feet a break.

Half an hour later we were out again in search or sustenance. And after some indecision we ate at a place 10 minutes’ walk from the hotel. It was delicious, pasta and potatoes and chicken, yum. Now I have the evening off and I took it loading pictures onto my computer, writing this, and basking in the air-conditioned coolness of my room. We have an early morning tomorrow so this is all!