Rome in 48 hours

As I already mentioned in some previous posts, I spent a great weekend in Rome, as my early birthday present. I know that it was more than a week ago, and I know it is gonna be a post about Italy, which at first glance has nothing in common with Romania, which was suppose to be the primary subject of the posts on this blog. But let’s not be too focused on that small inconsistency. And our short trip was so enjoyable that it really deserves a post here. Plus there are a lot of Romanians who emigrated to Italy and work there. And we had a questionable pleasure to discover that Romanians that travels in low cost flights top even the Polish ones when it comes to strange behavious at the airport and on the board (and I thought that we Poles are the unique).

Our trip adventure began already on the Baneasa Airport in Bucharest (one of the smallest airport I’ve been at, even for low-cost airlines standards, I guess only the one in Bydgoszcz is smaller). Our flight was delayed by an hour (I see some pattern, cause every time, well those 2 times, that I go to Rome my flight is delayed, this time only by one hour, but two years ago I spent 5 hours on the airport waiting for the departure. And they made the announcement only in Romanian, and we couldn’t read any information regarding our flight on the screen in the waiting lounge cause they were unreadable.

And we had some strong emotions while passing through the custom control on the airport. It seemed that Nuno was travelling by plane for the first time in his life, cause he had taken two shampoos, my shower gel (500 ml !!!) and had put it in our hand luggage. I reacted a little bit too emotionally and I was harsh on Nuno... I still don’t know how, but we passed the control on Romanian border but of course in Rome, we had to throw them away. Well, that happens, next time we know what not to take.

Rome greeted us with rain, and it didn’t stop raining , not even for a short moment, on Friday evening. On Saturday we enjoyed some brief moments of sun, but generally we were all soaked on that day, and it was despite big umbrella Sirio gave us. But Rome is Rome, and even in the rain it is a very beautiful city. And I could took different shots of the places I visited two years ago, cause then it was extremely hot and now extremely wet. But as in nature, the balance must be maintained.

Trying to see Rome in 48 hours is impossible, even with very tight schedule, even with previous plan and selection of the must-see and must-do in the Eternal City. It is impossible to see all the places one wants to see, even for a brief moment. And to see everything worth seeing is the question of visiting Rome for many weeks or even months.

Since I was already in Rome two years aho I couldn’t escape the comparison between my two visits, the one with Magda when we had one week to „squeeze” all the monuments, interesting places and museums in that relatively short period. This time we had only weekend, so we were aware there is no chance to see Rome and totally appreciate its beauty, but it was enough time to feel an amazing atmosphere of the city and develop the willingness to come back here. Well, I always wanted to return to the Eternal City, which is one of my favourite places that I’ve seen.
This time, since we had very limited time to spend, we decided to cross out museums from our what-to-see list (Nuno just wanted to see the Sistine Chapel and really insisted on going to the Vatican Museum, so I finally agreed, but when we managed to pass through a crowd of tourists moving towards the St. Marks Square, it turned out that on this Sunday the museum was closed. Next time we have to make up. )

Although it was a night of the museums (meaning all the museum were open till 1am and were free of charge), we didn’t take advantage of its benefits. Partly because we were quite tired after walking during the entire day in the rain, partly because we finished eating dinner shortly before 11 pm, and finally because our host, Sirio, didn’t share our enthusiasm to go to the Capitol Museum and see if we managed to enter.

This time, apart from great food experience and seeing great monuments, there were some unexpected attractions.
The first one was "meeting" with world know celebrity, Russell Crowe. Well, meeting probably isn’t the best word, but we took pictures, so it counts. We have his pictures only thanks to Nuno, cause I’d probably just ignore the overexcited crowd outside the hotel and would passed by, not giving the second thought to why all those people were so excited. So, thanks to Portuguese curiosity, I could proudly put Russell’s photos on Facebook, but neither my sister nor my mum wanted to believe that was really Russell himself on those pics. Luckily, we have Google, so I just typed „Russell Crowe in Rome” and voila, I had my proof, he even had the same hat on this article.

Another attraction, one appreciated more by Nuno, was the exposition celebrating the anniversary of Rome police department. You could see police cars from different times, you could get into expensive and luxurious Lamborghini or jump into an helicopter, a life raft.

In brief, those are the places we saw:

Coliseum, is a place where normally you can find quite a few soldiers from Roman Empire and take a photo with them for a small fee. This time there was just one of them and he was more interested in hiding from rain than to gain some money.
We saw Forum Romanum only from outside, as the rain wasn’t inviting us to explore it, and besides there was a long queue of tourists so we decided that a walk in the rain is still a better option than to stand in the rain.


We had the opportunity to admire the Spanish Square in two sceneries: in rain and bathed in a Sunday May timid sun. Each time, however, was it was flooded by tourists. From the Spanish Steps you can descend and fin yourself on the street full of the top-brand shops, Gucci, YSL, Vuitton, Chanel, and many, many more. The price for a leather bag in one of them amounted to 16,000 euros (no, I didn’t accidently add any 0, and yes, for the price of that bag you could buy a car.) But there are people who were buying those incredibly over expensive clothes and accessories, mainly Japanese and Russians, but on our way back to Bucharest, we met some Romanians with bags from these stores. (another Romanian contrast, to buy expensive brand clothes, but still to travel low cost).


Nuno wanted to see the Circus Maximus, the oldest and largest circus in ancient Rome, known from the movie Ben Hur. I was not impressed, because nowadays is nothing but a field, with no remains of its past glory.
A short walk from there (but through a muddy field and rain, and my shoes were not for such bad conditions) to the Church of Santa Maria in Cosmedin, where in the atrium you can find the Bocca della Verita '- the Mouth of Truth (there is also a famous scene from Roman Holiday, which takes place right here, but only in the movie the main characters were there alone, we had to queue quite a long moment and then we were allowed to take one picture only)

On Sunday, Nuno really insisted on going to see the Pope, cause as he was back from his pilgrimage to Portugal, he was giving the blessing . Nuno strongly believed that being in Rome and not seeing the Pope, was something unacceptable. I just wanted to mention that Nuno is far from being a religious person, he went to church only a few times (visiting churches doesn’t count. Sirio isn’t much different in that matter, he is openly against the Church and Vatican’s policy in particular. And me, well, I’m not an eager follower of Catholic Church. Well, we were probably the exceptions in the crowd of believers who eagerly and excitedly waited for the appearance of Pope Benedict XVI in the window. After 5 minutes of taking pictures and phone call Nuno made to parents to announce proudly where he was and who he was seeing , we went to St. Peter's Basilica. Peter. We correctly assumed that there wouldn’t be a big queue, because all the people that would like to enter where on the square listening to the Pope and only later would enter the Basilica. As Sirio had to pick up his younger brother from the swimming competition, we went alone to the crypt to see the tombs of the popes and later we climbed more than 500 steps to see the view from the dome. The phisical efford was totally worth the amazing view.


Of course, we couldn’t possibly miss Fontana di Trevi...Despite the weather there were too many tourists, and as everyone had an umbrella, we had to be aware not only of pickpocket, but also of not being hit by umbrella in the face. Then traditionally we threw a coin to the fountain (which is suppose to guarantee that you return to the Eternal City, I came back, so I guess it works). Apparently the city earns big money, but since we threw Romanian bani, they didn’t earn a cent on us (according to a guide I’d consulted, every morning urban services fish out the coins thrown by tourists and it is always quite a pile).


Italy is also a culinary paradise, especially for me, after being limited almost only to the Romanian cuisine during four months (not that it isn’t tasteful, but I find it quite monotonous after some time. And I have to get some rest from eating it, to appreciate it again). Getting back to the point, Italy being the kingdom of pasta, pizza, spaghetti, ravioli, wine, tiramisu and ice cream. Every Italian thinks that Italian cuisine is the best in the world. Well, they might be partially right. I think the pizza has completely different taste than the one you eat in any other European country. And it is despite the fact that now almost all pizza makers are non native Italians, but mostly Chinese immigrants. Italian pizza is still the sky better than others, and probably always will be, I am quite sure of that.

Gelati, Italian ice cream, yummy... We had to go to a gelateria, even though the rainy weather was more adequate for warm apple pie or something in that style. Sirio took us to the most popular gelaterias that were serving the best ice cream in Rome. Choosing the flavours was not an easy thing, we spent long moments trying to limit ourselves to only 3 or 4 flavours from thousands they were offering.


Several times we drank espresso, one of many things Italy is proud of, (yes, even I drank) in the traditional bars, where first you pay at the check, then you repeat your order to the bartender and give him the bill.
Sirio took us to a place where supposedly the best espresso in the whole Rome is served (the place is also recommended by guides). For those who are in Rome, like espresso and do not mind standing for half an hour in the queue, I give contact details for this place, a bar called the Sant'Eustachio Caffé, located at the square of the same name and halfway between the Pantheon and Piazza Navona. (Www.santeustachioilcaffe.it). Well, for me it can be only Italian or Portuguese that despise the coffee they drink outside of Italy and Portugal, to appreciate such a ritual and to have such patience.


The time passed too quickly and we had to get on the plane to Bucharest. And right after arriving we suffered a painful crash with the reality. We came back before midnight, so there were no buses to the city centre. In addition, there was a concert by AC / DC on that evening, so catching a taxi was almost impossible. Although apparently there were normal taxis from good corporation parked just outside of the airport, it turned out that taxi drivers wanted to take advantage of the situation. None taxi driver would turn the taxing machine, and were trying to charge us twice as much as we should pay. Well, the reality... But after such a great weekend even that incident couldn’t possibly ruin our moods.

We decided that after two very intense weekend, the last would be the lazy one, so we slept till noon and watched quite a few movies. One of them was "Roman Holiday" with Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn, black and white film from the 60s. I generally like watching movies which take places in the cities I’ve visited. There are few movies shouted in Rome, some of them really good and well-known (Dolce Vita being one of them, and it is really a shame I still haven’t seen it), so in the future we will try to see them.