Roman Holiday

May 16-19

Over the weekend of May 16^th, I travelled to Rome to visit my family, who had flown out from Boston to see me. I had always wanted to go to Rome and the chance to see it on someone else’s dime was too good to pass up!

After flying into Fumicino Airport, I took the train into Rome where I met up with my parents, brother and sister for the first time in three months. They had rented an apartment right in the middle of the old city, literally two blocks from the Coliseum. One thing that I really liked about Rome was how it seemed that whole sections of the city had been preserved overtime; in Istanbul it’s more like they have preserved historic building, but the neighborhoods around them have all changed with the times.  

Although we were only in Rome for three days, we still managed to cover all the must-see sites. Rome is a city with about one thousand churches, half of which are named Santa Maria Something or Other. If you are into seeing old, beautifully decorated churches (and you should be if you’re in Rome), then just pop your head in any that you pass on the street, they’re all free and mostly open to the public when mass is being held.

Trevi Fountain

We were within walking distance of the Coliseum, Pantheon, Spanish Steps, Trevi Fountain, and the Roman Forum; of course, we saw all of them. My personal favorite was the Pantheon, I guess I just have a weakness for really old churches with beautifully decorated interiors. The Trevi Fountain was also really cool to see. Honestly, the Coliseum was a bit boring, interesting, but seeing it from the outside honestly gives you a pretty good idea of what it was like. The Roman Forum also was interesting but a bit boring; my biggest problem with it was it was that the headphones you can buy to tell you what everything is will cover several different buildings at a time so it’s hard to keep track and impossible to summarize to other people.

One of my biggest gripes about Turkey is the lack of non-Turkish food available. While Turkish food is good, I’m used to having the choice of Vietnamese, Chinese, American, or of course, Italian food. It was lovely to be in a country with delicious pasta, coffee, wine, and gelato! My brother was pretty disappointed though, because the only Italian food that he wanted in Italy was chicken parmesan and one restaurant in Rome that we went to had it. He was very disappointed! I should warn you about one restaurant we went to. I can’t remember the name, but I do remember it was literally across the street from the Coliseum. We had read a few good things about it in a book or website so we went to it after the Coliseum. The food was good, but we wanted some appetizers and our waitress suggested this single plate that could feed the whole table. It was very good, however, when we got the final bill, they had charges us 25 euro per person (there was 5 of us) just for the appetizers. Yeah, rip-off.

On our final day in Rome, we saw what undoubtedly was my favorite site in Rome, the Vatican. Whether you are Catholic or not (and I am), you have to see the Vatican if you are in Rome. We arranged a small group tour with one of the many tour agencies that Rome has where we were with about fifteen other people and listened to our tour guide through headphones so she didn’t have to yell. Highly recommend you look into one of these groups to show you around the Vatican because the amount of art and history in the Vatican Museum is both beautiful and staggering. We saw various rooms and exhibits, the old private quarters of the Popes, the Sistine Chapel and St. Peters Basilica. You are technically not allowed to take pictures in the Sistine Chapel; though most tourists were ignoring that rule I chose to follow it out of respect and also to not damage the paintings with the flash. No matter how much you read about the Sistine Chapel or see pictures of it in books, online, or on film, nothing can compare to seeing it in person. This is where a tour guide becomes crucial because they are able to tell you the story of how it was made and also what each intricate detail means. St. Peters is also an amazing site to be held, by Church law, no Catholic church can be larger than St. Peters and our tour guide claimed that 50,000 people could fit inside the church! I have to admit, it sometimes makes me uneasy seeing so much wealth in the hands of men who have made a vow of poverty, however, I suppose it is okay so long as it is for the glorification of God and not man.



Altar at St. Peters