All of Rome in a Day (And a Half)

Rome was yet another whirlwind tour, a two day long trek around the city, but I feel as if we saw just about everything there was to see: we saw St. Peter’s and the Vatican museums, the Sistine Chapel, the Pantheon, the Colosseum and Roman forum, the Trevi Fountain, and the Ossuary of the Capuchin Monks. St. Peter’s was surprisingly easy to get in to, despite the mile-long line and estimated 3-hour wait we encountered when we first arrived. We decided to come back later, in hopes the line would shorten a bit in the evening- in the meantime we walked a loop from the castle, to the Pantheon, the Trevi fountain, and back to the Vatican museum, where the line had already dissipated (presumably to go to dinner). After following a never-ending maze of gallery upon gallery of religious and renaissance art, we finally came to the grand finale- the Sistine Chapel. Perhaps I was inundated by Renaissance art at that point, or perhaps it just took too long to get there, but I was not left in awe or at a loss for words by Michelangelo’s ceiling. It was beautiful, yes, and the colors were incredibly vibrant, probably kept that way with meticulous restorations and climate control, but it simply wasn’t more amazing than many other painted cathedral ceilings I’ve seen- perhaps less so, even, as the scale was much larger than most, and so it took fewer winged angels and muscular partially-robed people to fill the vast space. Overall, as one of my teachers would say, the Time was not equal to the Awesome. (This equation, which transcends both grammatical and mathematical logic, is usually applied to long-winded jokes with poor punchlines.) After standing in awe of the fact that this was the Sistine Chapel, we moved on, only to find that the way out was the same long, winding way we took in. This time we made no attempt to meander or enjoy the museum like good art connoisseurs, but made directly for the exit. Once we had made it back out of the museum, we found our way around to St. Peter’s, and got in with only a five minute wait in line and a quick metal detector/x-ray check of ourselves and our belongings- When I gave the guard my pocketknife, I was chided half-jokingly, half-mockingly for having such a dangerous weapon, and the knife was wrapped in a plastic bag and stowed for me to pick up on the way out. St. Peter’s was most impressive of all the cathedrals I’ve seen, but only in sheer size and richness: the pomp and decoration of the church itself seemed less tasteful and thought-out than many others I had been to.

Our last day in Rome, we rode the metro out to it’s furthest stop, then walked along roads for perhaps a mile or more, simply to see and walk on another particular road: Via Appia, or the Appian Way. This road leads from Rome to Brindisi, a town in the south-east of Italy near Otranto, and is one of the oldest roads still in existence (and use) today. It was built in 312 BC, as a supply route to Rome, mainly for military advantage but also for general accessibility of Rome to the world’s riches and imports. Now, the Rome-end of it is simply a well used suburban road, paved with square-cut black stones and several layers of worn blacktop. As it heads out of the city, it is flanked by a park, a small church, a restaurant, and a few brown signs for historical sights further down the road. Nothing unusual, nothing actually saying “here lies the very beginning of the oldest road in the world”. It doesn’t seem to get any recognition whatsoever. I was disappointed. It’s still just a road, I told myself, used for smooth and easy transport of goods and people: it has been a wholly pragmatic object for over 2,300 years, so why change it now? Besides, this stretch of the road isn’t even original, but has obviously been paved over time and time again.

…Still, it somehow felt special to walk down it.