Obviously I am failing terribly at this daily blogging thing, so I am going to blog about our 3 Italian stops. So first, Rome. Wow! It was called an “Outdoor Museum” and that was an understatement. Every view from everywhere is breathtaking. Jen and I were both overwhelmed. Honestly, it was almost an anxiety attack. The food and the wine are amazing. We arrived in the Rome airport to be greeted by Maria who helped us get our luggage and then took us to our driver. About a 45 minute trip to our hotel in the middle of Rome. The drivers in Italy are following some unwritten road rules. They drive fast, do not recognize lanes, or signal lights, or oncoming traffic, or pedestrians, or the width of the road. It’s mental. What they do recognize is the power of their horn. It lets drivers know they are behind them, coming up to pedestrians or pretty much anything else. I have no idea what would constitute a traffic violation here. It has also given all of us a new respect for Smart cars.
Our hotel was very nice, rooms were small (we estimated it to be approximately 1/3 the size of our Aberdeen room.)There was almost a marital dispute while we were wheeling our luggage in. I have to backtrack a bit. When we were in the Aberdeen airport we had the most miserable, unhappy troll of a woman that checked us in. My suitcase was overweight (story of my life 🙄) and after getting a 15 minute lecture I had to pay $100 CDN for my suitcase. I forked over the cash and then heard about it for another 10 minutes from this nightmare of a human all the while she was rolling her eyes. I smiled and waved. It should also be said she was not Scottish but from some country just to the east of hell! Needless to say while we were enjoying our favourite pub in the Amsterdam (or as Jennifer requests we all call it Amsterdarn) I took the opportunity to go and buy a new carryon suitcase to accommodate my ever expanding wardrobe. Again to our 15x15 Roman hotel…..we now have 4 suitcases, 1 large backpack, 1 large lulu bag and my purse crammed into this room. It was tight. Delicious supper on a quaint back alley in Rome - movies are made about these places!
Again some more back tracking - we are playing cards in the AmsterDARN airport, living the life, 4th pint of beer, diligently watching the display board for our boarding time when we decide we we should mosey on down towards our gate. We turn the corner and see 400 people standing in a line, waiting to go through security. Epic fail on our part. We have to board the plane in 20 minutes and we have approximately a two hour wait to go through security. There were 2, count them 2! security people to filter through all of these people. We went to airport person and they “fast tracked” in another line. This line only had 30 people in the line….. it they are averaging 8 minutes per person, so do the math…..WE ARE GOING TO MISS OUR PLANE!! Honestly, if I could have put my head between my legs to avoid a panic attack I would have done it. There we were, pissing around for 4 hours in the airport and now it is situation critical. By some miracle we made it through security but then had to run for 15 minutes to get to our gate. Gate 81 was the frigging furthest gate from where we were. Jesus with us and we made it….only to wait on the plane for 30 minutes while they loaded our luggage. 🙄
Next day is our first tour - the Forum and the Coliseum. We met our guide Mohammed. I was so glad we had a guide. He walked us through 30 centuries of Roman history. The coliseum was quite busy but when Mohammed started talking you didn’t even notice the crowd. Scotland has history but Rome has H.I.S.T.O.R.Y. We also met a very nice couple from High River - Craig and Sue. We went for lunch with them where we discovered that Craig is retired from Immigration Border Patrol. Very interesting.
Next days tour was the Vatican. Okay, we are going to take this slow. We met our very lovely guide Maura and we were given headsets so we could listen to her talk throughout the tour. Good idea because there was approximately 15,000 people also touring the Vatican. I wish that was an exaggeration but, if anything, that might be a low estimate. This is my forewarning- if you are a strong Catholic you should stop reading. The Catholic Churches are so ostentatious that I am embarrassed for them. Once again the Pope’s apology for residential schools rang through my ears. When Maura gave us the overview of Vatican City and she showed us where the priests live and where the nuns live, “close by so they can wait on them” I pretty much lost interest. There were so many people that you honestly couldn’t see a thing. They just take your money and file you through. We did get to see the Sistine Chapel and Michaelangelo’s amazing ceiling. We did learn that in 1994 Japanese restorer’s cleaned the ceiling but instead of the Catholic Church paying them (I can only assume they are on a tight budget and couldn’t afford the cost….) they gave the Japanese 40 years of copyright on the paintings, so no pictures. We left before the tour was complete - honestly, I would rather walk naked through Rome than do that tour again. And I don’t like walking naked from my bathroom to my bedroom!
We did also miss the Pope in the morning. Maybe the Pope missed us in the morning.
Things we have decided about Italy:
- we don’t like Aperol spritz’s - disgusting. Vile.
- Big beers. Seriously big beers. We stopped on the way to our Vatican tour for a “quick” beer and they wheeled out 4 kegs of beer. Equal to about 17 pee breaks in our immediate future.
- The Vatican. The fucking Vatican! 🤬
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