We'd be using public transportation for the day, and Jen issued us day passes for Rome's public transportation system. We walked a short way together to a bus stop down the street that took us to the Metro station. We took one subway train to the Termini station, where we were to change lines and take Rome's other line (there are only two in the city).
The platform was super crowded when our train arrived, but we all jammed into it when it arrived anyway. Jen even almost lost one of her shoes in the squeeze for the train. I was pushed right up against some guy I didn't even know. We were crammed in so hard that, when the train stopped, you didn't even need to hold onto anything to avoid falling over because there was nowhere to fall!
Coming from a country where we are so used to enjoying a lot of personal space, it was incredibly awkward to be squashed in so tightly. Jen had told us to be wary of anyone who gets inappropriately close to us because they may be trying to pickpocket us. In the train, Nicole jokingly asked how we could distinguish inappropriately close pickpocketers in that situation!
Luckily, the train emptied a little bit more at each station, so we weren't too crowded for too long. However, when we finally arrived at the Vatican, it became evident that we'd have more crowds to contend with, if the queue of people along the wall of the country that forms the boundary between Italy and the Vatican was anything to go by.
Luckily, because we had a guide and pre-booked tickets, we got to skip the crowds. We were each given radios and an earphone (only for one ear) so that we'd be able to hear our guide without him having to shout over the crowds. He had a little yellow rag on a stick so we'd be able to spot him from a distance if we got distracted while taking photos and whatnot.
There were LOTS of things to take photos of. The Vatican is gorgeous. Everywhere you look, there are stunning statues and pictures and columns and things that look super pretty in photographs. Goodness, but it was crowded in there. It was hard to maneuver beyond the other groups that were there. The staircase leading down to the Sixtine Chapel was especially crowded. To ensure that we kept following him, our guide kept saying to us, "Contiki! Follow the right guide! Not the left guide!"
The Sixtine Chapel is phenomenal, despite being smaller than I remember. Our guide explained to us that the size of the figures in the painting grow from one end of the fresco to the other so that if you are standing at the entrance, the figures at the end appear to be the same size as those closest to you, "and that is the genius of Michelangelo." At one place, one of the figures has a missing face where some of the paint dropped off during an earthquake, smashing into dust.
It seems that if nature isn't destroying great works of art, crazy people are. The statue of David was moved indoors because he had been vandalised. Similarly, in St Peter's, Michelangelo's statue of Mary cradling the body of Jesus is now behind glass because someone had attacked it with a hammer. The church is the largest Christian church in the world. It's so big that you can't even comprehend its size even when you are in it. Everything in Rome is larger than life, and that clearly includes the crowds.
I was somewhat relieved when we finally made our way to the colonnade, where we finally had room to breath. On the way, we saw the Swiss guards that protect the Pope. He'd be presenting a church service the next day in celebration of Christmas, which is what the crowds were in town for. I bought and posted a souvenir postcard with special Vatican stamps before we left to commemorate my visit.
It was about lunch time by the time we were finally finished, so Jen took us to a place where we could get takeaway pizza, which was the best fast food pizza I've ever had. The base was super crispy, just the way I like it. It was really cheap, too, which was even better. We sat on the steps outside the shop to enjoy it and give our feet a much needed break while we planned the rest of our day.
We decided to check out the Spanish Stairs, which were quite easy to find after a much less crowded Metro ride. The steps look amazing in the Roman postcard I'd bought saying "Kisses from Rome," but they are far less impressive in real life. We walked up them, anyway, and headed to find the bones of the Capuchin Monks that have apparently been decorated in a more interesting manner than those in the catacombs of France.
It was quite an uphill walk to get there, and then we got a little lost because the streets aren't marked exceptionally well. They actully carve the street names into the buildings, so they can't just change the names of streets the way we do in our country. Nicole and Bianca, one of the other South Africans (the one who bought an incredibly hot pair of Gucci heels in Florence) had very tired feet.
Her friend, Anandi, and I went ahead to see if we could find the place before sending everyone on a wild goose chase. We actually had to go into a hotel to get directions. It turned out that the church with the bones was right across the street, but it had already closed by the time we got there. Admitting defeat, we went to a coffee shop nearby where would appreciate the facade of the church (mostly, all we could see were steps leading up to it) and take advantage of their wifi.
Although we were close to the Metro, neither of the two lines in Rome head into central Rome, which is where we wanted to head to for dinner. None of us were keen on walking, so we needed to take a bus. The only tricky thing is that the bus stops aren't marked on the map, making it very difficult to tell which bus we would need to take to get there. I stopped a random guy that had just come out of the Metro for help, and he very kindly told me which bus we needed to take and where to get off.
In the bus, it is hard to tell what stop you are at or which one is coming up because it isn't displayed anywhere. Maybe the voice over the loudspeakers tells you, but we didn't understand anything she was saying. In order to ensure that we were headed in the right direction, I followed the bus' route through the streets on my map and actually checked the names of the stops as we passed them.
Eventually, Nicole and the other South Africans spotted the Pantheon, so we got off at the next stop and made our way towards it. There, another kind Italian lady explained to us how we could get back to our hotel later. Meanwhile, we enjoyed some more of the gelato that we'd had the night before with Jen and browsed the Christmas markets a little again as well.
We were getting pretty hungry at that point, though, so we headed towards the square that Jen had marked on our map with a heart and the words"Great Food!" for our Christmas Eve dinner. We pretty much stopped at the first restaurant we saw in the square because it boasted "free wifi" - that's a new selling point for me!
We had a very delicious, albeit unconventional, Christmas Eve dinner of porcini risotto and truffle, speck ham, and Brie pizza. The risotto was fantastic, but Nicole's is still better. The pizza, though, was incomparable. The staff were super friendly, even flirty. As we were leaving, Nicole said, "thank you, the food was lovely and amazing," which the manager interpreted as, "wow, we are lovely and amazing?"
On the way back to the confusing bus system, we picked up some more gelato. Then found a train that would take us to the enormous Termini station so that we could try to find our way home before everything closed down for Christmas. The station seemed deserted compared to the crowds that we'd had to contend with earlier that day. The train ride also seemed to take a lot longer than it had that morning, even though we were only doing half the trip we had to the Vatican.
When we finally arrived at our station, we bumped into some other Contiki people and went with them to try and find the bus stop that would take us to our hotel. We were a little disoriented and figured out where the bus stop was by watching the bus we needed driving away from us. We had to wait half an hour for the next one. As we were waiting, we were offered a chance to contribute to Christmas gifts for Jen and Joey. Nicole offered to design cards for each of them.
Meanwhile, shut down time for public transportation drew closer and closer, making us panic that the bus we'd seen drive away was the last one. Luckily, eventually, the bus we needed came along again. We found the hotel without too much trouble. Jen was in the lobby with wrapping paper, ribbons, and name tags for our Secret Santa gifts. Nicole sourced some paper for the cards she agreed to make, designing a pretty snow globe filled with the Colosseum, Eiffel Tower and Leaning Tower of Pisa.
Meanwhile, I tried battling with the wifi on my iPad again, eventually giving up with much frustration. It was working on my cellphone, though, so I spent time looking up the cost of the major tourist attractions in London so that Nicole and I could decide what to do there and budget accordingly. I told Nicole what the entrance to Westminster Abbey and St Paul's Cathedral costs, and she she decided against both.
"The Brits aren't known for their amazing art or architecture. What are they charging us for? We've seen better churches in Italy for free. Besides, everything is just going to be downhill after the Sixtine Chapel. And, to be honest, I'm becoming a little Cathedraled out at this point. We've seen a lot of churches," was her argument.
So we won't be paying to see anymore churches, basically. I think she's made some pretty good points. We left it at that after working out our budget for the remainder of the trip and had another early night. It seems like it doesn't manage how much sleep we get, since we still always wake up tired, but it doesn't hurt to keep trying!
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