During the last week of October we spent 4 nights in Rome (over the kid’s half term school break). There was a lot of gelato to be had, interspersed with fountains, outdoor cafes, statues, piazzas, churches and some pretty amazing ancient ruins. It’s a good thing that we haven’t had a car for months, hence we all had pretty good walking legs which came in very handy in Rome. We explored mostly by foot, took an occasional bus, and did not use the metro at all.
First, a word about the public drinking fountains in Rome. They aren’t like the modern push button or pedal fountains you might be thinking of. They are located around town, and the water is apparantly very safe to drink, coming from deep natural springs. When we spotted our first one, Jason was so excited that he didn’t bother to wait to hear our guide’s explanation of how to drink from it properly.
hence, the after math…
Big sis took her time and clearly paid attention. Well done!
Trevi Fountain
Jason loves to throw things, so naturally we couldn’t pass up tossing coins into as many fountains as possible, especially the famed Trevi Fountain.
We wound up visiting the Trevi fountain twice since the kids really liked it (and it was a mere 5-minute walk from our hotel). We decided to fully engage in tourist behavior by tossing coins over our shoulders into the fountain, which supposedly means that some day, each tosser will return to Rome.
Here’s a shot Madeline took. Not bad…
Piazza Navona
We spent part of a day unwinding at the Piazza Navona, known for street entertainers and local arts & craft vendors.
As expected, there was a very old fountain in the piazza.
Everyone liked the water coming out of the the lady’s mouth, with the added touch of the pigeons making themselves at home.
While there, we had lunch at a nice outdoor cafe and then checked out the local arts & craft vendors.
There were a bunch of street entertainers who stood like statues dressed in various costumes. Madeline got a bow from King Tut.
Jason decided to give Tut his soldier’s pose. To this day, Jason remains uncertain whether these are real people. We haven’t indicated one way or another…
The kids especially liked the tallest street entertainer, who we named the Big Friendly Giant after Roald Dahl’s the BFG. We had coincidentally been reading this book to Jason, which has a central character that looks a lot like this guy.
We also visited the Church of St. Agnese. Madeline was quite fond of the the angel statues on the outside of the church.
Inside the church, I found myself quickly having to explain what a confessional was to Jason, in trying to prevent him from climbing all over one. I didn’t really think that he was paying much attention to what I was saying, but then he suddenly signaled for me to lean over for him to whisper in my ear and confessed that he had “kicked Madeline in the butt.” Ha ha ha! I was so tickled that I decided to see how Madeline would react. She immediately confessed that she picks her nose!
The Forum and Colosseum
At the recommendation of a friend, we wound up hiring a private tour guide to take us through both the Forum and Colosseum. We’d highly recommend our tour guide Olivia. She was extremely knowledgeable, patient, and we had absolute flexibility with the kids in tow. We also lucked out with the weather, so the kids were able to “run around” the ruins of the Forum.
At first, Madeline was not interested in the tour at all, and was quite moody (I think the prospect of having to spend a few hours listening to a guide rather than running around seemed quite boring to her). Then, to our surprise, she got over it and wound up having some very animated conversations with Olivia. I was privately hoping she would be able to get more out of our visit to Rome, because over the summer she had devoured all of the Roman Mystery books by Caroline Lawrence — a series of historical fiction books for children on ancient Rome.
In true Madeline fashion, she started quizzing Olivia on such things as the actual location of the emperor’s box (in the Colosseum), who Pliny the Elder really was and (amazingly) referencing actual page numbers in specific books when recalling some of the details.
Olivia was fantastic and patient through it all, and had even read some of the books herself! At one point, after Madeline proudly recounted a story line of how a central girl character had to fight as a gladiator to free her friend who had been forced into slavery. Olivia gently clarified that children never actually fought as gladiators in ancient Rome, and cautioned her not to believe everything in the books because they are fiction. Madeline sat back quietly with a thoughtful look on her face, which was priceless. :-)
In the mean time, Jason mainly occupied himself with climbing amongst the ruins (where ever possible) and finding ways to relate his experience to Star Wars in as many ways possible. We hung on to an empty Fanta bottle which he wielded as his light saber.
After the Forum, we headed to the Colosseum.
In Jason’s eyes, the Colosseum was akin to the arena in Star Wars, episode II. Unfortunately, they didn’t allow any one to go down into the actual field area where the gladiators fought. They had most of the field area “peeled back” so you could see the underground rooms where the slaves and animals were apparantly kept in holding.
The Pantheon
We toured the inside of the Pantheon, after overcoming my shock at the huge mobs of tourists milling around out front (October is supposed to be off season — I can’t imagine what the crowds are like during the summer!). There were lots of horse and buggy rides and people hocking their wares.
And of course plenty of tourist traps like this one.
I had never realized what an architectural feat the Pantheon was, and it’s truly amazing how intact it still is!
Jonathan took this cool shot of the domed ceiling. It has a perfect circular opening in the center that provides enough natural sun light to completely light up the interior of the Pantheon, even on the overcast day when we visited.
The highlight here for the kids was climbing all over the majestic columns.
Other Experiences
We tried unsuccessfully to get in to see the St. Peter’s Basilica cuppola (dome). You can see it in the distance here on our approach.
Even though we arrived before 10am (and it was supposedly off season), the line was already out the door and half way around the perimeter of the piazza. So, we took some nice pictures from the outside…
while the kids had a bit of fun jumping on and off the concrete posts and chasing each other in and out of the columns.
In the end, we skipped the dome, yet were able to at least tour the popes’ tombs. We were told to not even bother to try visiting the Vatican unless we lined up at the crack of dawn, so we skipped that entirely. However, we were able to glimpse parts of Vatican City via the open top bus tour, which the kids enjoyed.
We really enjoyed the outdoor cafes around Rome.
Some times, there was entertainment, even on a narrow street
with oncoming traffic!
We tried to visit the Castel D’ St. Angelo, however it was closed on the day we visited. It was impressive from the outside though.
Just past the castle, we were nearly swindled by a street vendor. The kids spotted some dancing paper characters on the street and went into major begging mode. Since we had promised them they could buy a few souvenirs, we stopped to look. After close inspection, I couldn’t figure out how the cheap paper characters seemingly pasted to popsicle sticks with pipe cleaners for support and magnets for feet, were moving completely in sync to the music from a nearby boom box. I asked the vendor and he explained in broken english that it was the magnetic waves from the boom box causing them to dance. I didn’t believe him, was still puzzled, but since I managed to bargain down the price to 3 euros for 2 of the characters, I thought it was relatively cheap and not a big deal as long as they worked. As I paid the guy, Jonathan came up and pointed out that the dancing characters were positioned between the boom box and a black duffle bag (which I hadn’t noticed). He asked the guy whether he could move the duffle bag, thinking there were something hidden in the bag that was really making the dancing trick work. The man vehemently said no, at which point I realized there was definitely something up with that bag. I quickly waved my hand in front of the bag and accidentally snapped a nearly “invisible” black thread that was holding up the dancing characters and tied between the duffle bag and boom box. The characters instantly fell flat on their faces and our kids’ jaws dropped. I immediately demanded our money back and the vendor quickly obliged. We left quickly, but later I felt bad about not doing something else like reporting him, but then who would we report this too? I was really glad that Jonathan had the wherewithal to probe further and so we didn’t get “taken” after all.