Day 45

Monday September 10

7:10am - woke up

7:45am - had breakfast

8:15amish - went to the bus to go to the Vatican, which was a few blocks away, not too bad. It is the "big bad bus 64" where all the pick-pocketers allegedly are. Two buses were there at the same time so I got on the (much emptier) second one. Nice.

8:45am - got off at the St. Peter's stop and went into the church for a few before my tour of the excavations underneath the church. Wow. It is huge. And beautiful.

9:10am - found the Excavations office, after being let in by the amusingly-dressed Spanish Guard. Went in to get my ticket and he said, the tour will leave at 9:15 not 9:30. I wonder what would've happened if I had shown up a few minutes later LOL Anyway. There was a nice American couple who hadn't gotten the tour like I did but just showed up. Proof positive that can work.

The tour was amazing. A little over an hour and led by a very knowledgeable guide, she explained the whole excavation and that it happened from about 1939 to 1949, when they uncovered this whole Roman Necropolis underneath the Cathedral. So you got to see all these mausoleums, which had been really well-preserved because when they built the first St. Peter's in the 4th century, they just leveled the hill and filed it in with dirt, so it was all preserved. They had to work in secret at night during the war and everything. Pretty neat. So this thing used to be on street level, so the paths we walked on were the same roman streets, and the vast majority of the bricks and constructions and paintings and statues and urns and tombs and all were all in great condition. What's too bad is that because it's all under the church, which is obviously crazy heavy, and if they kept going it would be dangerous structurally. So that's too bad. But we did get to see what it looked like before they cleaned it out and it was basically a ton of stuff in dirt. So anyway it was really cool and even though it was really humid down there, it was totally fascinating.

10:30am - hung a turn after the tour and went back in the Cathedral to look at it more closely.

11:00am - found the 62 bus and took it to Largo Argentina and found the Jewish ghetto. I didn't realize how close it actually was to where I'm staying. But it's not that far from Campo de Fiori, etc. There's a kind of main street where there were jewish and kosher bakeries and some really nice shops that had all kinds of silver stuff, and lots of restaurants (even Mk Kosher LOLLLL). Of course, the restaurant I wanted to try was closed on Monday so I went to the one next to it.

1:15pm - found the Synagogue and Hebrew museum right around the corner and went in and explored. Had some nice exhibits from things that had been rescued from when the original ghetto's 5 synagogues were demolished for the new one.

2:15pm - guided tour of the synagogues (the major one and the Spanish little one) led by this girl who was really cool. She is from the area and her grandmother hid as a nun during WWII to avoid deportation. The synagogue is beautiful, only about 100 years old and kind of built like a church because the architects weren't Christian.

3pmish - walked across the bridge to Trastevere and did a Frommers walking tour through the neighborhood. Definitely has a grittier and more raw feel to it. Went into the big 4th century church there, very beautiiful

4:45pm - found a gelato place Rick Steves's book mentions and had a duo of chocolate and cinnamon. Tastyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy.

5:00pm - took tram 8 to Largo Argentina and decided to visit a bunch of the churches around the Pantheon. Very pretty.

7:00pm - walked around and sat in piazza navona for a while just people-watching.

7:45pm or so - went to Piazza Pasquino, a little square right next to Navona, and ate at Ristorante Terra di Siena - it was actually Tuscan food, but the more important thing was… A WHOLE DAY WITHOUT PIZZA LOL!!! Had some extra euros that I figured I should get rid of so I had salad, chicken, and chocolate cake. Yum. Total was 25 euros. Not so bad for a nice place. Realized that if I don't want bread I have to tell them no or you pay 2 euros for it, but oh well lol. Sat next to an American couple from Syracuse. They were nice, we chatted for a while.

Took the bus back to piazza venezia and walked back to the hotel. A bit of a walk from the bus but nice to see the ancient stuff lit up at night again.

10:30pmish - got back to the hotel.