Rome, Italy (Planes, Trains, and Automobiles)

To sum up the trip to Rome I'd say Rome was great, the trip was too short, and the travel days were way too long.  Our flight didn't leave for Rome until Sunday, so we were planning on packing on Friday night.  After school I took the kids out for a bike ride and we ended up outside our German neighbors house just before we were about to head home for dinner.  The neighbor girls heard us and came out, which resulted in us having a dinner of snacks, beer, wine and apfelschorle and a fire.  We had a great time getting to know our new neighbors and stayed until 10pm I think.

Saturday morning we got up to clean and pack and get ready for our trip.  The kids took a nap and then we drove down to a little town near the airport (3 hours away) called Altenberg.  Our flight left at 9 am on Sunday so we though a cheap hotel stay was preferable to a 4am wakeup call.  Sunday morning we got up and went to the airport.  There was a heavy fog and once we made it through checking in and security it still hadn't lifted and we were beginning to realize our plane wasn't going to get out on time.  Sure enough, at roughly the time our flight was supposed to leave we were told that the plane was unable to land at our airport and had to be redirected to another.  Instead of waiting at the airport we were at, they loaded everyone on a bus and drove us to the other airport which was an hour away.  At the new airport we had to check in and go through security again and then waited for probably another 45 minutes until we boarded the plane.  The flight was fine and we made it to Pisa in about and hour and half.  Prior to the trip, one of Carissa's coworkers had flown to Pisa and then taken a "short train ride" to Rome and said it worked great.  The trains apparently run every hour to Rome so we thought it would be a piece of cake.  Turns out the "short train ride" was 4 hours, which we had to experience to find out because the tickets we got at the airport had no departure or arrival times.  Once we got to Rome we walked for what seemed like forever through the Termini (the main train / metro / bus station) to get to the metro train we needed to get across town to our hotel.  After a 20 minute walk and another 20 minute metro ride we came up from the subway still an unwalkable distance from our hotel.  We proceded to wander down the street to the nearest roundabout to find a taxi and finally made it to our hotel a good 10 hours after we began our trip.

On the airport bus

That night we ate dinner at a nice restaurant right outside our hotel.  Carissa and Elise were in heaven with lots of fresh tomatoes, basil and mozzarella, Lydia and I split a pizza and Haaken ate off of everyone's plate.  I also ordered a half liter of vino to take the edge off.

First Dinner in Italy

Monday morning we got up and had breakfast at the hotel and then discovered with the help of the hotel staff that there was a train stop we could've used the night before instead of the taxi.  We hopped on the train, transfered on to the metro and made our way to the Colosseum.  We wandered around the Colosseum and then  over to Palatine Hill.  I'm not sure if it was really that hot out or if we have just been conditioned to cooler weather living in Germany, but Carissa and I were sweating and ornery, and for the first time in Europe the kids weren't interested in the 2000 year old ruins at all despite me excitedly explaining to them all about the Gladiators.  They were probably tired from the day before as well.  After walking through the Forum, up Capitol Hill and a picnic lunch we decided to get back to the hotel to let the kids rest and hopefully have a 'do over' that night.

Colloseum

Palatine Hill

View from the hill

Elise wondered why this guy was checking his cell phone (on top of Capitol Hill)

The kids and Mom recharged the batteries (I went grocery shopping and read) for a couple hours and then we decided to do a night walk through the heart of Rome.  We started at the Spanish Steps and lingered at the Sinking Boat fountain for a while just taking in the scene.  Following a stop for some candy from a street vendor we made our way to the Trevi Fountain.  Both fountains are powered by the Roman aqueducts, although the Trevi is much more powerful, with over 24 spouts gushing water in and around the sculptures of Nicola Salvi.  Weaving our way through the streets we managed to find a recommended gelato shop near the Piazza Colonna for a little more dessert before dinner.  We have a lot of gelato in Germany, but this place had far more flavours to choose from  - probably 50 different kinds - like Nelson's in Stillwater.  What we missed from Nelson's portion size was more than made up for in quality though.

Spanish Steps

Sinking Boat

Roman Street

Trevi Fountain

The  Pantheon was a short walk from there so we checked that out, but only from the outside since the interior had closed probably a half hour before.  Unfortunately they are doing some cleaning/restoring right now so half of the columns in the front were surrounded with scaffolding which kind of ruined our pictures.  From there we made our way over to the Piazza Novona which is a large oblong square filled with artists, musicians, cafes, various other street performers and a couple Bernini fountains.  I guess it used to be a racetrack back in the day (meaning 1st century AD).  It also has an Egyptian obelisk which you find in many of the Roman squares  (they brought them back from Egypt after conquering it.)  Finally we ended our walk at the Campo de' Fiori, which is another lively square and also the site where the Roman burned a famous heretic.  I really never studied (or maybe paid close attention to) Roman civilization in school, but they loved them some painful public executions.  Seems like everywhere you turn is another site of a famous person dying unpleasantly.  We had a very late dinner at a restaurant on the square, constantly getting harassed by street vendors selling junk and trying to take our picture for money with what looked like a Viewmaster.  It was a beautiful night though and the food was great.  We then hopped a bus back to the metro and attempted to transfer to the train that stopped near our hotel only to find out that it had stopped running for the day.  The map I had was more of a tourist map, which meant our hotel was not on it so we picked a direction and starting walking in hopes of finding a taxi and not getting mugged.  To top it off I only had about 8 euro on me so we had to find a cash machine as well.  We got lucky though as we ran into a cash machine relatively soon, and then at the first open restaurant we found the friendly bartender called us a cab.  We probably got back to the hotel at about 11:30.

Lydia at the Campo de' Fiori

Tuesday we got up, again had breakfast at the hotel and then took the metro to the Vatican.  We got to spend quite a bit of time checking out the Vatican museum which was packed (the kids were in a better mood) and then ended that tour at the Sistine Chapel.  After about 2 minutes in the Sistine Chapel Lydia started crying because she had to go to the bathroom so badly.  Dad wasn't happy because the bathroom was back at the beginning of the museum, which meant we had to fight the crowd a second time to get back to the chapel.  We made it back, however, and sat in the Chapel reading from our tour book and staring at the incredible paintings.  Next on the schedule was St. Peter's Basilica, which made every cathedral we've seen so far seem quaint.  I think you have to be there to believe it, the pictures just don't do it justice - the thing is huge.  Apparently from the floor to the top of the dome is 430 feet.  It also can hold 60,000 standing visitors!  Needless to say it took a while to get through the whole thing and try to get some pictures that somewhat captured the scope of it.  We followed this up by heading out to St. Peter's square.  Again showing my ignorance of Rome, I was surprised to learn that the Basilica is the site where Peter, Jesus' right hand man, came to spread the word and as a result was publicly executed for it.  They tried to crucify him like Jesus, but he convinced them he wasn't worthy and told them to crucify him upside down instead.  The altar marks the spot where they buried him.

Outside the Vatican garden

Basilica's Altar

400 ft dome

St. Peter's Square

After another nap back at the hotel, we took a bus back to the Pantheon or I should say near the Pantheon.  I guess it was rush hour in Rome because the streets were packed with crazy Italian drivers and we almost got hit twice.  This time though we were able to go inside the Pantheon which was awesome.  The Pantheon is the only building in Rome that is still pretty much as it was when it was originally built in 80 AD.  I wish we would've gone there before going to the Colosseum and the Forum because it really gives you more of a sense of what is now rubble in those places must've looked like before Rome fell.   Also, many famous buildings were modeled or inspired by the design of this building including St Peter's, the Florence Cathedral and even the US Capital.  We sat outside near the square's fountain for quite a while and Haaken started dancing with a street musician for some entertainment.  We ate dinner at a little place nearby and then walked back to the Spanish Steps metro stop, but not before buying the most expensive ice cream in the history of mankind.  We literally have asked what the price of Gelato is at every shop except this one, and man did we pay for it.  The kids were thrilled with the cones though, so I guess I was worth it....

Pantheon

Haaken being Haaken

Haaken loving some bread and olive oil

Wednesday was the day we were headed home, and it turned out to be even more of a fiasco than Sunday.  We packed up our stuff, checked out and then got on the train to the metro and took the metro to the train station.  Based on what Carissa's work friend had experienced (or I guess told us) and our experience on the way there, we were led to believe that getting a train back to Pisa was a piece of cake.  Once we got to the train station I went upstairs to the terminal to buy tickets.  I was shocked to find that the manned counters had a huge line that we didn't have time to wait in, so I opted for a self service ticket machine.  Relieved to find that the machine had an English option I proceeded to try and find tickets, but the English option was pretty much only half in English.  I wasn't sure what I was doing so I went to get Carissa and the kids for a second opinion.  Carissa and I proceeded to fumble our way through the screens until some random Italian guy leaned over and started punching buttons trying to help us.  There were basically 2 trains that would get us to Pisa in time for our plane.  First we tried for the Family discount tickets with no luck.  Then second class reserved tickets - no luck.  Actually both of these first told us we could get them until we tried to pay for them at which point it told us they weren't available.  By this time I'm freaking out and sweat is just dripping off of me from the thought of no tickets being available.  We kept trying different options and coming up with nothing.  Finally Carissa tried the "flexible" option, which meant we would have separate single seats all over the train.  The other catch was they were 1st class seats.  With no other option we  had to get them and ended up paying $400 for a one way trip to Pisa = Matt stressed, sweaty and not happy.  By this time the train we had just paid tickets for was leaving in 5-10 minutes and of course the printed tickets were completely in Italian.  With no clue where we were going we started rushing for the platforms and I asked some random guy for help.  He took one look at the tickets and took off, beckoning us to follow quickly, with our 3 kids and 5 bags, weaving in and out of the crowd.  Finally we got to the platform, which we prayed was the right one.  We jumped on the train, no idea what car our seats were on and too scared to jump off to find an employee to help us (the other guy had already left) in the event that the doors closed and the train left.  After a couple tense minutes some security guys got on and told me where we were sitting.  We found our seats but still weren't even sure if we were on the right train, but thankfully an English speaking Italian businessman saw the panicked looks on our faces and offered his help.  The guy was great - confirmed we were on the right train and then looked up the train schedule in Pisa to make sure we knew what train to take to the airport.  We finally dropped out bags and Carissa informed me that I needed to change my t-shirt, which was completely soaked with sweat.

First Class was great but unfortunately that only got us to Florence, where we had to jump on another train which was not nearly as nice.  We were lucky enough to sit next to a group of backpacking frat boys from Australia who were loudly discussing where they had been and what drugs they had taken the past weekend. Their accents were thick enough that the kids didn't catch too much of their conversation I hope.  Finally we made it to Pisa, transfered trains again to get to the airport and check it.  Our flight ended up being 45 minutes late, but they made up the time in the air getting us back to Germany in 1 hour.  We landed at about 6pm and still had a 3 hour drive home.  Par for the course, the weather was horrible - heavy rain mixed with swirling fog at night made for an extra half hour to the drive and sore hands for me from grabbing the steering wheel so tightly.  Time to get home was 12 hours.  

Carissa worked the next day and Elise and Lydia had school.  We got through the week and basically laid around the house all last weekend.  This week Haaken started German kindergarten.  The drop offs aren't great, but when I pick him up he's clearly had fun so hopefully the adjustment period won't be too long.  The weekend the girls have been invited to their German friend's birthday party and we are considering driving down to Munich for Oktoberfest on Saturday.  Carissa read recently it's the 200th anniversary so hopefully it's not too busy.