Vacazione Romana (Pt. 1)

Rome. The Eternal City. It does not have such a name because Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck filmed a movie there in 1953, yet when we were planning our trip to Rome, it was at the forefront of our minds. We wanted to retrace the steps of Princess Anne rather than those of Julius Caesar or Pope Urban. [Unfortunately for us, Gregory Peck was not included in our re-creation of Roman Holiday.] The first thing we wanted to do when we arrived was find a place to cut our hair off. “All off!” Places these days like appointments, however, so that had to be postponed until morning.


We contented ourselves then with Vatican City. St. Peter’s really is absolutely awe-inspiring. It is marble from top to bottom; a beautiful dome with little baby domes all alongside the nave; angels and other sculptures on every surface... Michelangelo’s Pieta is also there, but I’ll let Katie tell you about that. The Swiss guard wear funny clothes. I’m not really sure what the perks are to their job besides location. There were hardly any people there, but I can’t even imagine what it will be like on Easter Sunday!

I’ve been planning to cut my hair off in order to send it to Locks of Love. This combined with the Roman Holiday theme necessitated the length of my hair. Locks of Love asks for ten inches. I’ve been looking at my hair for the last couple of weeks thinking that there is no way I can take off ten inches and still have any hair. I looked up some pictures of short hairstyles, translated ten inches into centimeters and triple-checked the length requirements for donation. I went armed with all this information into the salon. The lady cutting my hair didn’t speak English, and I was far too nervous to think up anything at all in Italian. I showed her my pictures, and Katie and Beka did most of the talking for me. When we told her the length the ponytail had to be she did a double-take at my hair, further making me question my decision. Vente-cinque? Si. She rummaged through her little toolbox and found a measuring tape. Measured my hair. Lengthened the tape. Measured again. She let me give one last look at my hair then began cutting. Then she handed me my ponytail. That is a weird sensation, I must say. She asked if it was okay if my hair wasn’t as short as the picture I had showed her. She figured it would be alright, though, as I almost cried when the ponytail came off. I didn’t really almost cry. Really. But I guess I looked it. Oh well. “All off.”

This took longer than we'd planned, so we had to run off to see everything else. We hit up the Pantheon first. Then coffee at the most popular cafe in Rome. It is also where "Rocca's" in Roman Holiday was... most likely. Everything in Rome is something famous. We were riding around on the bus and Beka tells us to look at to the left where the Theatre Marcellus is just barely off the highway. Above it are Rome's most expensive real estate. Can you imagine living atop ancient ruins? And not being in ancient times, that is. It's one thing for Julius Caesar and Nero to walk around here and another thing entirely for someone in 2010 to live there. Can you imagine giving someone your address? I live at Teatro di Marcello due... We had lunch a stone's throw away from where Julius Caesar was murdered. And when I say, "a stone's throw," I don't mean if we'd rounded a corner or two and stood on our tip-toes, I mean that if I'd picked up a pebble a couple thousand years ago, I could have tossed it onto the platform from which he spoke, "Et tu, Brute?"

We crossed the Tiber a time or two, walked through the Jewish ghetto (not from WW2, the older one: the one from when Rome first conquered Jerusalem in 70 AD), the temple of Hercules, and other famous things ancient and not so ancient on our way to La Bocca della Verità. Legend has it that if you're a liar, the mouth will eat your hand off. This is where Joe Bradley pulled a Red Skelton on Princess Ann.

We went to Michelangelo's Capitoline Hill then to Palatine Hill where Romulus pitched his hut as did Augustus Caesar his palace. Palatine Hill is connected to the Roman Forum. Ancient Ruins are not hard to come by in Rome, in case you hadn't already gathered as much. But it is really incredible to stand somewhere and think of how much history that little clump of dirt or piece of stone or moss or whatever has seen. Standing at the Roman Forum, you can just imagine Senators giving rousing speeches and debating the finer points of patrician politics or, later, of Caesars being lauded by their loyal subjects and striving to achieve deity status. Walk a little ways up to Palatine Hill and there's a house. This is where Augustus Caesar's wife, Livia'a house has been excavated. We've been told, though we're not entirely positive on its accuracy, that frescoes, once painted, stay the same color. If this is indeed the case, then the walls inside this house we were seeing looked the exact same as they did for Livia and Augustus. Well, maybe not the exact same. I'm sure the walls were complete at that time rather than excavated ruins, but you get the picture. It just blows my mind. The view from the top of Palatine Hill was just wonderful, too.

...more soon...