April 21, 2006 - April 23, 2006
This past weekend we had a Stanford trip to Rome. We left on an early morning (read 7:50) train to Rome from Florence. Once we had arrived we hopped on a bus to the Pantheon. There we began a "tour" from Professor Verdon, the art history instructor. After the Pantheon we moved to the Palazzo Farnese. Since it is now the French Embassy we were not able to go inside. We then walked across the Tiber to head to the Farnesino (little Farnese). Inside there is a museum and some frescoes by Rafael and his students. At this point we broke for lunch and met back up at the Vatican outside of St. Peter's. We then got to enter St. Peter's (without waiting in line) where we got shown to a private portion of the Church where the original wooden model of St. Peter's is kept. We stayed in the church for a little while and then continued on to the Vatican Museums. We were lucky enough to get a private tour of the museums after they had closed and we were the only ones inside. Our time was limited, however, so we only lingered at Rafael's frescoes and in the Sistine Chapel. It was pretty amazing to have the Sistine Chapel all to ourselves. That concluded the guided portion of the day with Professor Verdon, and we were then all sent off on our own.
We decided to go and check in to our hostel at that point. After checking in we went to find a place to eat dinner, and as usual dinner was excellent. After dinner we went to check out the Trevi Fountain and the Spanish Steps. Both are quite beautiful at night. At that point it was already getting somewhat late so we decided to head back to the hostel and call it a night.
We woke up somewhat late on Saturday, probably somewhere around 11. We decided that we wanted to see the Colosseum and the Forum. Since they're right next to each other that didn't prove to be too difficult. We then headed to the Circus Maximus, or rather the grassy field where the Circus Maximus used to be. We sat in the grass for awhile then decided to walk around the city for a bit. We explored a tad and then headed back toward the hostel and looked for dinner. I had veal at dinner, the first time since I got here, but it wasn't terribly impressive. I'll just have to find another place to get veal at. After dinner everyone wanted to go on a "Pub Crawl", and I went as well even though it isn't really my type of event. They lead you around to 5 different bars in the area so that you can see a few different ones during the night. I was amazed at how rude, loud, and obnoxious the other Americans were. I mean, I knew people were rude and loud and whatnot, but it was just plain embarassing how they acted. I did not want to be associated with them and I can understand where the "ugly American" stereotype comes from.
On Sunday we did not really do any sightseeing. The girls wanted to go shopping so we took the Metro to a spot north of the spanish steps and then walked in the direction of the station. We stopped at quite a few shops along the way. I also saw something curious on Sunday, a Corvette. I expected to see a few Ferraris before seeing a Corvette. Because I was so shocked I had to take a picture (below). We left Rome on a 4:30 train and made it back to Florence around 6:00.
