The Amazing Sites, Sounds, and Monuments of Rome

Rome has been on my wish list for many years. In this article, I give my impressions of the eternal city and describe our experiences visiting the major monuments. Because we stayed for two weeks, we were able to take things slower than people who have limited time. As a result, our experience and view of the city might be a little different than typical. We discussed the food part of Rome in Rome With A Food and Art Focus.

First Impressions of Rome

We arrived in Rome from Amsterdam and our driver was waiting for us. Having a driver waiting is one of the little comforts that we indulge in these days. But once he found us, he lead us on a hike to the car, so we were pretty hot by the time we got to the hotel. We were fortunate to get a quick glimpse of the city on the way to our hotel.

After a little while cooling off, we went exploring the neighborhood and looking for dinner. Rome has an incredible café culture and it’s fun to check out menus until you get really hungry. It turned out that we were staying only a few blocks from the train station, so there were lots of hotels and restaurants.

Hop-On/Off

Our habit these days is to take the hop-on-hop-off bus when we first arrive in a new city. It gives us a little history and helps us orient ourselves in the new environment. We walked out of our hotel the first morning intent on catching a hop-on/off bus. As we started walking down the street, we ran into a guy selling these tours. We negotiated a great deal and then he walked us to the bus. That was a first.

Rome Public Transit

After we got oriented on the tourist bus, we were ready for the subway and city buses. We bought a seven-day ticket that worked for everything. As I’ve said before, Google Maps is awesome. The map would give us multiple choices to get from one place to another and it was super easy. So, we used public transit to get everywhere, not even one rideshare.

Famous Spots in Rome

There are so many famous spots in Rome to visit and I’m not the most patient person, so we headed off.

Spanish Steps

First came the Spanish Steps, so named because they lead up from the Piazza de Spagna. It looked like the Spanish embassy is on one side of the piazza. You used to be able to sit on the steps and take pictures but you can’t do that anymore. We had to satisfy ourselves by climbing the steps and looking at the view.

We saw the view at every level because we had stopped to catch our breath. It took a while to get used to walking in the heat and humidity. There are loads of fancy shops in the piazza and a group of five-star hotels at the top of the steps. Since we don’t shop much, we had to settle for the view.

Trevi Fountain

I had the map in my hand and we were walking on a little narrow street when I started hearing water. The little narrow street opened onto a light-filled piazza where the fountain seems part of a building and takes up a whole side of the piazza. When we rounded the corner I exclaimed “oh”. My reaction reminded me of the first time I saw the Grand Canyon. Of course, Trevi Fountain isn’t that big, but it’s the biggest fountain I’ve ever seen.

We visited twice. The first time, we got gelato and sat at the fountain taking in the ambiance. There were so many people but there was also plenty of police. They would blow a whistle every time someone would sit on a portion of the fountain. The second time we went we were accompanied by a couple we had just met through our nomad group. Then we were able to fight our way up to the fountain and take a selfie along with a bunch of other pictures.

Pantheon & Churches

Of course, there are many famous churches in Rome. Besides the Vatican, the Pantheon is one of the most famous. We waited in a short line to get in but once inside we were able to admire the dome, the Pantheon’s distinctive feature. This dome was used as a model for other domes built in Rome. As with many of the churches in Rome, the Pantheon started life as a Greek temple and parts of the temple are still being excavated around the outside of the building.

There are many other churches in Rome, and many of them have very famous paintings and statues from the greatest artists of the Renaissance such as Caravaggio, Bernini, and Michelangelo. We went into every church that had an open door.

Climbing the Dome at St. Peter’s  Basilica

Our second full day in Rome started bright and early with a visit to St. Peter’s Basilica. I thought we were just going to visit the Basilica but apparently, we booked tickets to climb to the top of the dome. It sure was a challenging climb up winding narrow stairs. The view over Rome was really good but I enjoyed looking down into the Basilica from the mezzanine just as much.

The climb and our tour of the Basilica were if you’ll excuse the saying, “baptism by fire.” It was hot and humid and we didn’t really have our sightseeing legs yet, so we were pretty wiped out. But not too wiped out for a nice lunch, with drinks, before going back to our hotel.

The scale of St. Peter’s Basilica reminded me of Abu Simbel in Egypt. Everything is so large it is hard to comprehend. The magnificent art inside the basilica is also hard to describe, especially once you know that all of the art are mosaics, there are no paintings. There are tombs of popes, there are chambers for church relics that have artistic representations outside. The Bernini canopy over the tomb of St. Peter is so intricate and grand it is hard to describe. Here are just a few of the pictures we took.

Vatican Museum and the Sistine Chapel

Our next visit to the area was to see the Vatican museum and the Sistine Chapel. We actually picked a Wednesday to do this not knowing that the Pope has a public audience every Wednesday morning. As a result, the museum wasn’t too crowded but the audience was over by the time we made our way out of the Sistine Chapel. I’m not even going to describe the treasures in the museum because there are too many. I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves.

You might notice there are no pictures of Michelangelo’s ceiling in the Sistine Chapel (see the pictures on their website). That is because the copyright is owned by the Japanese company that funded the restoration. So unless you pay the royalties in advance, you can’t take any pictures. I will note that the restorers left a few sections untouched so we could see how beautiful the colors are since the restoration.

Colosseum

Our visit to the Colosseum included a visit to the underground areas that housed the wild animals and the gladiators. We learned how the gladiators usually started out as slaves but many became quite famous. They could also buy their freedom. We also saw the extensive winch system used to raise and lower people and animals into the main area.

After the fall of the Roman Empire, the fancy marble used to decorate the colosseum was “repurposed”, much of it in the Vatican. The stones were also used in other parts of the city. Parts of the Colosseum were destroyed by earthquakes and the site was used for various purposes including storing animals. Today the remains of the monument are being preserved for future generations.

Forum

On the Northern side of the Colosseum is the Forum complex where city life happened. There were temples and administration buildings and a grand boulevard. Most of the site is not excavated so only the outline of the ancient town center is visible.

Circus Maximus

The oval area of Circus Maximus is approximately five football fields long was once used for chariot races and could hold 135,000 people. Today, all you can see are the remains of the staging and stable area and some of the raised stone seating. It was the largest public venue ever built by the Romans. Now there is an archaeological park here. But over the centuries the land was used for farming, buildings then farming again until 2016 when the excavation started again.

Jewish Ghetto and Synagogue

The Jewish ghetto that you can see today is a wide pedestrian street.  The ghetto was established in 1555 in the Rione Sant’Angelo section of the city close to the Tiber River, which flooded regularly. The ghetto was controlled by the papacy until the formation of the Republic of Italy in 1870. Prior to 1870, laws restricting where Jews could live, the occupations they could have, and many other basic aspects of life were imposed on the inhabitants. At the time the ghetto was abolished in 1870, there were only 5000 Jews in Rome. But in 1904, the Jewish community was able to build a beautiful synagogue, the Tempio Maggiore di Roma at the edge of the old ghetto.

Today, there is a Jewish museum inside the synagogue and we were able to visit both the museum and the synagogue. To differentiate the synagogue from all of the churches in Rome, the building and roof are square instead of round. Today, there are about 16000 Jews in Rome and they are proud to be carrying on a community that started in 161 BCE.

How did our experience in Rome differ from yours?