Rome

The flight to Newark went smoothly. The flight to Rome was long. We had exit-row seats, so basically all the legroom, but we were near the bathrooms and got interrupted about every fifteen minutes. Jordyn’s screen didn’t work, so we swapped. Then the window seat froze her out, so we swapped back.

Customs was easy—no EES or anything there. We picked up the checked bag, bought bus tickets, and got onto a very crowded bus. I knocked into a few people along the way. Once we made it into Rome, we walked past our hotel at first and then found the set of marble stairs leading up to it on the second floor. The room was cozy and, importantly, air-conditioned.

After resting and unpacking for about an hour, we went exploring. The Pantheon was on the agenda, but the long line was not, so we looked at the outside and kept moving toward the food tour.

We started with hotel coffee, then walked to a café where we were the only tourists for a cornetto and cappuccino. Both were very good. After that, we waited forever in the Vatican line.

The guide explained that the women in the statues were clothed while the men were not. We also saw a statue that was saved from being melted down because it had been struck by lightning. There was a lot of beautiful art, especially on the ceilings. The Gallery of Maps and the Sistine Chapel stood out; plenty of the other rooms started running together.

We walked down the very long ramp to the exit, then headed to St. Peter’s Basilica. The line was about three hours long, so no. Instead, we went to Castel Sant’Angelo. The trapdoors were interesting, I don’t remember much after those, but the view of the city was great.

The day ended with much-deserved gelato after roughly 30,000 steps. The cashier recognized Jordyn from the night before.

I started my birthday inside the Pantheon, right at opening, and took pictures of nearly everything. It somehow feels huge and compact at the same time. I loved how much detail had survived, plus the fact that rain comes through the oculus and the floor was designed to drain it.

I also accidentally walked into a section that was supposed to be roped off. The rope had been forgotten, but I was still quickly shooed back out. Queen Margherita, the namesake of pizza Margherita, is buried there too.

A few hours before the Colosseum tour, we went to Circus Maximus and found a nearby nasoni. I loved how cold the fountains in Rome were compared with the other cities. Circus Maximus is mostly a huge, broken field now, but the size is still impressive.

Then we finally got to the Colosseum. We saw the arena floor, the senate box, Commodus’s passage, the underground structures, and the first floor. All of it worked for me—the history, the guide, the scale, and getting to stand where we did. It ended up being my favorite experience of the trip.

The catacombs were cool, literally and figuratively, but a little disappointing. The bones are gone and there were not even replicas. It was also hard to imagine bodies fitting into all the tiny-looking slots. They paled in comparison with the Capuchin bone chapel.

The museum before the chapel was boring, but it did introduce me to Caravaggio through Saint Francis in Meditation. I liked the skull, the lighting, the detail, and how human Francis looked. I bought a miniature there, then liked Caravaggio enough to buy a book of his work after the Uffizi.

The cooking class had asked us to switch to an earlier time, but that would have interfered with the crypt tour. It ended up being a class just for us, which was cool and awkward at the same time.

We made cacio e pepe, amatriciana, and carbonara using different pasta shapes and techniques. The instructor showed us the sauces, but they were not the hands-on focus. We learned a lot, even if the private-class part felt a little strange.

We also saw Piazza Navona near nightfall, when it was beautiful and much less crowded than the Pantheon-to-Trevi route. It was easily my favorite of Rome’s free landmarks. We saw Trevi Fountain from a distance and skipped the Spanish Steps.