Rome 2023 - Magnet Addition

This post is a bit late since our Rome trip was last September but I am a bit behind in scanning our travel magnets.  Hopefully I will catch up over the next few weeks.

Our trip was a week long but we still managed to return with nineteen magnets.  Here are a few of my favorites:

Seen on many public infrastructure.

A nice stained glass like magnet.

Everyone needs a Pope magnet.

We have run out of space to display our magnets.  We are currently brainstorming ideas for expanding our display capacity.  If you have any ideas, please leave a comment.

You can check out the magnets I've posted either by clicking on the Travel Magnets tab at the top of the blog or by clicking on my 2006-2023 Travel Magnets Google Photos album link.

Rome 2023 - Days Six, Seven, Eight, And A Brief Epilogue

Day Six (Thursday)

This was the day we came to Rome for. Today was the day of the Wife's student's ordination into the Diaconate. We put on our best clothes (first time I've traveled with a suit and a second pair of shoes) and entered into St Peters through a side entrance and celebrated the ordination of several seminary students from all over the United States. As the Wife said, I've never seen so many priests in one place before.  ou couldn't ask for a better location.

After the ceremony we dressed down and tried to get to the Pantheon again. This time we tried to hail a cab. The cab hailing apps in Rome are a joke. Over two days trying we never successfully hailed a taxi - we just got a "the Taxis are very busy" message. All the taxis we took were pure luck like when we caught one dropping someone off. We caught one this way and went to the Pantheon.

The unreinforced concrete dome of the Pantheon.

The Pantheon was interesting as was just about everywhere we went in Rome. The former Roman temple, converted into a Catholic church, has the largest unreinforced concrete dome in the world.  It's kind of amazing how a two thousand year old building can look almost new.  We tried to catch another taxi at a taxi stand next to the Pantheon but the line was long and taxis were dropping people and leaving without picking up another fare. We decided to walk a couple blocks away and the Wife finally was able to wave a taxi down.

That night we were invited to a restaurant by the new Deacon's family. We dressed up again and spent an hour trying our best to get a taxi to stop. There was a line a block long at a taxi stand and as we waited we saw zero taxis stop to pick up people. We finally gave up and had dinner at a bistro not far from the taxi stand. I think, while our hotel was in a great location for walking, it was a terrible location for hailing a ride.  It was just too busy with all the tourists.

Day Seven (Friday)

Our last day in Rome turned out to be one of the best. We got up early to attend the Wife's student's first Mass. We needed to take a taxi and we were not taking no for an answer. We reserved a taxi the night before ... which didn't show up. Fortunately a taxi dropped someone off right in front of us and we jumped in.  (I had a bus route in my back pocket as a backup plan.)

Santa Cecilia entombed under the Basilica altar.

We arrived at the Basilica of Santa Cecilia (the patron saint of music and of Omaha). Out of an abundance of caution and paranoia we got there an hour early. As we waited, about a dozen nuns gathered to sing their morning prayers. It was an unexpected pleasure to witness.

The beautiful chapel to Saint Cecilia in the crypts under the basilica.

Others from Omaha began arriving and Mass was celebrated. The new Deacon said a good first homily. After Mass we all went down in the crypts below the church. There is a beautiful chapel dedicated to St Cecilia there.

We left the church and walked towards the main street that ran along the Tiber river. We would either find a taxi or eat lunch whichever came first. We passed a taxi backing out of a very narrow passage and we asked if he was available and he was. These two easy taxis didn't make up for not getting one the night before and missing dinner but it was a start.

We stopped for lunch before going to our room and napping a little. We had one more planned event for the day and we wanted to be rested up.

The last planned event was a Scavi tour. The Scavi is a group of underground crypts including the remains of Saint Peter. We met a group from Oklahoma and a friend from Omaha (a Deacon who participated in the ordination) with his mother and had a very interesting tour of the Scavi.  The story about the discovery of Saint Peter's remains is practically a thriller.  Unfortunately ... no photos allowed.

After the tour the friend from Omaha and his mother joined us for dinner in a cafe just outside St Peter's Square. We were eating our food when the Wife, in a raised voice, not a yell, said "Father, we're TWiT fans!"

Note: For those who do not know, TWiT is This Week in Tech, a video podcast hosted by Leo Laporte. Leo hosted a tech show called the Screen Savers back when TechTV was a thing on cable. When TechTV was bought and eventually shut down, Leo started his podcast network and has been doing it for over eighteen years (the longest continuous tech podcast in the world). The Father the Wife called out to is a regular guest on TWiT. Father B is one of the Vatican's IT guys and a self proclaimed grey hat hacker.

Father came over, said hello. He recognized the Wife through her tweets (Xits). She followed him as he tweeted about feeding the Vaticats, stray cats who roam the Jesuit compound. He offered to take us to the Vatican store to buy some Grappa. Only our friend from Omaha took him up on that.

Some of the Vaticats.

When they got back from the store Father invited us to the Jesuit compound where he took us up on the roof. The Jesuits have awesome views from the top of their building with views of St Peters and most of Rome. We even saw some Vaticats waiting for their evening meal. While on the roof another Father that the Wife follows on Twitter came by and she had a huge fangirl moment.

Father B was so kind to give of his time. His stories were, frankly, more interesting than the stories of most of the tour guides. Meeting him and seeing where he hangs out made the Wife's and my day. What a great ending to our stay in Rome.

Saint Peters at night.

Due to the unexpected Father encounter we managed to see St Peters all lit up. The Wife and I rarely go out at night so we miss these sights. We'll have to keep that in mind going forward.

Day Eight (Saturday)

Our hotel shuttle took us to the airport.  We hoped for as smooth of a return as our arrival had been but it was not to be.  Our flight to Washington D.C. was fine but out flight to Chicago was delayed by over an hour.  We arrived in Chicago roughly ten minutes before our connecting flight to Omaha was to depart.  We fran from concourse C to concourse E as fast as we could.  We arrived and the door to our plane was closed and there were no airline reps anywhere.  We both kinda freaked out a bit until an airline rep came out of the jetway.  We asked if we could get on and were allowed in.  There were several empty seats on the plane and someone said they were waiting for over eighteen passengers to check in.  This was probably the closest I've come to missing a flight without actually missing a flight.

Epilogue

A week is a long time to spend in a single city but there are a few that have more than enough to see and do. Rome is one of the few. This trip was one of the first pseudo-spontaneous ones we've done. Except for the thieving of my phone, my intermittent navigation skills, and the difficulty catching taxis in a timely fashion, our visit to Rome was an incredible success.

Rome is a beautiful city full of thousands of years of history.  You probably could spend a lifetime exploring its nooks and crannies.  Having said this it is unlikely we will ever return to Rome.  There is so much more to see in Italy outside of Rome.  We saw everything we wanted to see (except for the statue of Romulus and Remus ... that is a long story) in the city.  It is time to move on to the next place on our list.

Next ... Thailand, Vietnam, and Cambodia next week.

Photographs can be found in my 2023 Rome Google Photo's album.

Rome 2023 - Days Three, Four, and Five

Day Three (Monday)

On our third day we visited the Vatican museum.  For the past couple days we'd watched the huge lines going into the museum from our hotel window.  We decided to do a skip-the-line tour to save us four to six hours of waiting in line.  There was a lot of cool stuff to see once you got used to the herd of people you were a part of.  The tour ends in the Sistine Chapel.  Photos are not allowed in the chapel since Nippon TV helped restore the chapel for exclusive rights to the image and videos of Michelangelo's frescoes.  Capitalism ... Such a humanitarian system.

The very cool spiral stairs near the entrance of the Vatican museum.

Since our tour didn't cover the Borgia apartments we separated from our tour guide after the Sistine Chapel and, after eating some lunch, went through the whole museum again. This mostly meant finding holes in the crowd we could move through quickly. We left through the Sistine Chapel again not even stopping to look again. I'm sure people who saw us wondered why we didn't care about all the beauty around us as we rushed through the chapel for our second time.

Stature of Pope Pius IX in Basilica Santa Maria Maggiore.

In the afternoon we took the metro to Basilica Santa Maria Maggiore.  The Wife has decreed that Italian churches are too flat and that she prefers Spanish churches that have more texture.  I have to say I see where she's coming from.  The churches are beautiful but they lack something.  Next to the Basilica is a gelato vendor that sells only one flavor.  The flavor was specially made for the basilica to commemorate a time when it snowed in Rome.  It is a lemon gelato with crunchy meringue bits.  It was refreshing.

The slightly overhyped Trevi Fountain.

We then walked to the Trevi fountain.  While it is beautiful and all it is just a pretty fountain surrounded by a crowd of people.  We did not throw the three coins into the fountain. I'm happy I got to see it though.

Day Four (Tuesday)

Inside of Saint Peter's dome.

Today was an early day.  We took a tour up to the Saint Peter's Basilica Dome.  By law no building can be taller than this dome so the view from up there is pretty magnificent.  The dome climb is around five hundred and fifty steps but we took the elevator that skips three hundred and thirty steps. The remaining two hundred and twenty are a mix of ramps, narrow slanting stairs and winding spiral staircases. Besides the views of Rome you also get an up close view of the mosaics on the inside of the dome.

A close up of one of the mosaics on the inside of the dome.

After the dome we explored the rest of St Peters.  It is very big and all the mosaic tile work is incredible (all 'paintings' in Saint Peters are actually mosaics made of small tiles).  Still, it too was a bit flat.

Inside Saint Peters - it is definitely a big place.

We exited through the crypts and, of course, the gift shop where we found the best prices so we loaded up with Pope blessed souvenirs, gifts, and magnets.

View of the Tiber river from the top of castel Sant'Angelo.

After leaving St Peters we walked to the castel Sant'Angelo also known as Hadrian's Mausoleum.  It was hot and there were more stairs.  Today definitely was stairs day.  At the top we had more great views including views of the Tiber river. 

Day Five (Wednesday)

This morning we attended an audience with the Pope.  We were seated in St Peter's Square with at least eighteen thousand other people or at least that was the number on our ticket.  The Pope entered in his Pope mobile and drove around the crowd a few times before driving up the stairs of St Peters and getting out.  Since there were people from several countries everything he said and mother representatives said was repeated in several languages including Italian, English, German, Spanish, Polish, Czech, and French.  This lengthened out the proceedings a bit.

Pope Francis driving through the crowd in the popemobile.

In the afternoon we took the metro to the Basilica of Saint John Lateran. Another big, beautiful but flat church.  This was the seat for the Pope before Vatican city was built. We ate lunch in a nice bistro nearby. 

A carving in Saint John Lateran Basilica presaging how
I would feel when we got lost on the way to the Pantheon.

We got back on the metro and headed to the Pantheon.  At least we tried.  After leaving the metro station and following Google maps directions we ended up going in nearly the opposite direction than we should.  It is disconcerting, when you are following a map closely, that the ETA gets longer and longer.  We eventually gave up, got on at another metro station, and went back to our hotel hot, sweaty, tired, and disappointed.

Saint Agnes.

After resting in our room we tried again, this time walking to the Piazza Navona. We made it there without incident and enjoyed the fountains and explored churches dedicated to St Agnes and St Mary before walking back past St Peters on the way back to our hotel.

Photographs can be found in my 2023 Rome Google Photo's album.

Rome 2023 - Days Zero, One, And Two

Days Zero and One (Friday and Saturday)

Our flights to Rome couldn't have gone smoother. We were on time to the airport, all our planes left on time, and we arrived in Rome ten minutes early. Our checked bags arrived and we breezed through passport control. The driver provided by our hotel was waiting for us and we arrived at our apartment/hotel before 9:30am. I then made the mistake of telling the Wife that I'd never had a smoother trip. That statement would jinx the heck out of me later that day.

Saint Peter's from the square.

We walked around the area. The hotel was in a great location near the Vatican museum and within walking distance to attractions, the metro, and restaurants. We visited Saint Peter's square - the first of many visits to the square. After getting our bearings we went back to our room and rested up. Our first tour was later in the afternoon and neither of us had slept very well on the plane.

We walked the four blocks to the metro station and headed to our first tour, the Golden House of Nero. Sometime around the Termini station my phone decided to take a walk. Rome is notorious for pickpocketing and I was careless and apparently had a target on my back. The phone was both our hotel key and my two factor authentication device so this would give us headaches the rest of our stay in Rome. Fortunately the Wife kept control of her phone.

Inside Nero's Golden Home (Golden because of the amount of light ... not actual gold)
(Photo taken by the Wife)

Nero's Golden House was interesting but fairly modest as it isn't a high priority for archeological exploration. There is so much history in Rome everything competes for time and money and Nero isn't a high priority (yet).

We returned to our hotel and I ran Find-My-Phone on my tablet. It seems the phone ended up in a place you could buy phones so I assume the SIM card was swapped out as soon as they could. I remotely logged the phone out of all accounts just in case. I was pretty much in an anxious mood all night. To be safe I called our investment account and had the account locked.

The View from our room.  The people are in line to get into the Vatican museum.
(Photo taken by the Wife)

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Day Two (Sunday)

We had two tours booked for the second day. The first was a catacombs tour including the Capuchin church. The highlight of the Capuchin church are alcoves decorated with the bones of former monks. The intricate patterns of skulls, pelvises, and other bones nailed to the whitewashed walls were oddly beautiful, strange, and disturbing all at the same time. I learned quite a bit here including the origin of the name, capuchin, which is derived from the fact they wore hooded robes ... a cap as it were. Photos, naturally, were not allowed.

We got on a bus which took us outside the walls of the old city to one of several catacombs open to the public. There are miles of hand dug underground catacombs holding the remains of everyone from Popes to common laborers. Due to people stealing bones to sell back to the church for ransom and tourists taking souvenir bones, the level of catacombs you can visit has been emptied of all human remains. There is always some jerk that ruins it for everyone else.

We were dropped off near where the tour started and we took the metro to the colosseum. We were early so we found a cafe and ate some lunch to kill some time. We walked around the perimeter of the colosseum and found a shady spot where we could people watch.

The Colosseum.

Our guide showed up and we went into the colosseum and learned about the history of this structure built to entertain the common people. The tour continued into the Roman Forum and Palatine hill where some Roman rulers and the rich lived. The views from the hill were pretty awesome.

Ruins of the Roman forum seen from Palatine Hill.

The park was near closing when we saw where the cremated remains of Julius Caesar were buried so we made our way back to the metro and back to our hotel. It was a long day and we were both tired. Neither of us felt like going out to eat so we found a minimart and bought some food we could eat in our room (this would be our habit for most of the week - grocery shopping and meals in the room at night).

Photographs can be found in my 2023 Rome Google Photo's album.

Rome 2023 - Why We're Going ... What We Will Be Doing

Our next adventure, starting tomorrow, is a week in Rome, Italy.  This trip is a bit different for us in that it was not a long term planned event as most of our travel is.  This started in July (I think) when the Wife received an invitation to a former student's ordination as a deacon at the Vatican.  Within a month of receiving the invitation we'd decided to attend, booked flights and a hotel (a B&B actually), and put together an itinerary of things to do prior to attending the ordination.  We're both retired so why wouldn't we?

That is why we are going.  What will we be doing?  We have an itinerary which starts late in the afternoon on the day we arrive (we arrive in Rome at 8:00am) and continues all the way until it's time to go home.  We will see/do the following in roughly this order:

• Nero's Golden House
• The Catacombs 
  • Santa Maria della Concezione dei Cappuccini
  • Capuchin crypts
  • Christian catacombs
  • Catacombs of St. Callixtus
  • Ancient underground basilica
  • Loculi burial system
  • Walk a part of the Ancient Appian Way
• The Colosseum  
• Gladiator's Gate Access
• Colosseum Arena Floor
• 1st and 2nd tiers of the arena
• Roman Forum
• Arch of Constantine
• Arch of Titus
• Temple of Julius Caesar
• Basilica of Maxentius and Constantine
• Temple of Antoninus & Faustina
• Vestal Virgins
• Senate House
• Arch of Septimius Severus
• Palatine Hill
• The Vatican Museum
• The Sistine Chapel
• St Peter's Basilica
• Dome Climb
• Hadrian's Tomb
• The Trevi Fountain
• Basilica Santa Maria Maggiore
• The Piazza Navona
• The Pantheon
• Attend an Audience with the Pope (along with a thousand other people most likely)
• The Scavi (Saint Peter's Tomb)

The last two days will be ordination events, Mass, and dinner with the family.

We will be getting around on foot or mass transit (bus or train).  Our hotel is a block from the Vatican Museum, half a mile from the entrance of Saint Peter's Square, and a couple of blocks from train and bus stops.  Our hotel will provide travel to and from the airport.  This is the first time we are travelling internationally just for one city.  Hopefully navigating the rather compact area of central Rome will not be too difficult.

I'm not sure when I will post about this trip.  When we get back it will be less than two weeks before we go to southeast asia.  I will have everything I'll need to post while in Rome but experience has shown this to be a hard thing to do.  I hope I get something posted before November rolls around.

On an aside, I was hoping to meet with one of my gamer friends who lives in Italy but, unfortunately, real life got in the way and our meeting will have to be on some future trip.

Weekly Ephemera #64

There were a few big things this week ... 

• I finally got to my doctor's appointment.  He performed a Cystoscopy.  The results from that, along with all the other tests I had leading up to the doctor's appointment, ended up with the diagnosis that I had expected (though my brain often took me to the worse case scenario).  My issue is caused by my enlarged prostate that was diagnosed late last year.  The doctor  gave me three treatment options: drugs, surgery, or do nothing.  All three have issues and potential long term side effects but the surgery seems like the lesser of the evils.  I told him that I would do the surgery.  It's not an emergency so I asked to have it sometime in late November or December after our fall travels.   Still, I am going to request more information about the options from my doctor.  I doubt I will change my mind but it's probably a good thing to do my due diligence before saying "final answer".
  
  I need to have surgery anyway as I have a kidney stone that needs to be removed before it can become its own problem.  The stone removal and the prostate surgery can be done at the same time.
• I mentioned the fall travels.  Until Thursday this was referencing our trip to Thailand, Vietnam, and Cambodia in October/November.  As of this weekend it now includes a week-long stay in Rome, Italy.
  
  One of the Wife's students is being ordained a deacon on his way to becoming a Catholic priest.  The ordination will be at the Vatican and the Wife and I were invited to attend.  Included with the ordination will be a ticket to Pope Francis' monthly audience.  While an audience with the Pope sounds exciting it will be us and probably a thousand other people.  We are turning the three day event into a week-long visit to Rome to see some of the sights.  Flights have been booked ($$$) and a place to stay ten minutes walking from the main entrance to the Vatican (and a block from the Vatican Museum) and close to a metro station has been reserved.  The Wife is working on the itinerary.
• I took my car in for a cooling system service that was advised the last time I got the car serviced.  I also wanted them to check on a slow leak I had in one of my tires.  After $300+ I discovered I had a leak in a radiator hose and a leaking water pump.  Oh ... and the front two tires needed to be replaced due to excessive wear.  The cost of the hose and water pump ... $1,500+.  The parts are on order.
  
  The crazy thing is the price for two tires ... $500+.  I said hell no to this and went to Sam's Club and ordered two tires there for $185 which includes installation and alignment.
  
  I gave the Toyota service three stars on their online survey.  I soon got a call asking why my rating was so low.  When I explained the excessive cost they apologized and gave me a $30 credit.  Yeah ... a 2% discount will really help. 🌵

... and a few smaller things.

• This week we resubscribed to Netflix for the month,  I started with the sixth season of "Black Mirror".  The anthology series is usually centered around science fiction and technology with some Twilight Zone-ish twists.  This season two of the five fit that theme but the other three are more horror/thriller themed which felt out of place in "Black Mirror".  The stories were interesting but just felt wrong for the show.
  
  After finishing "Black Mirror" I moved on to season eleven (the last season) of "The Walking Dead".  Even tho it's getting long in the tooth I still enjoy this series.  While some just consider it a zombie series it is more about the corruptibility and fragility of our civilization.
• This week I think I'll restart my walking again.  Wish me luck.