Italy

We’re off on our whirlwind tour! We got up absurdly early Thursday morning to get on our flight—it truly astounds me how long it takes to get in and out of airports though, because by the time we actually got to any sightseeing, it was about 1:00. 

We decided to start with the Vatican, since more of it is indoors than the Roman Forum, and the weather called for rain in the afternoon both days we were here. So it turns out that in Rome (at least), if you’re pregnant, you  don’t have to wait in any of the lines, which at the height of tourist season are quite long... we didn’t find this out, of course, until after waiting in the St Peter’s basilica line for about an hour, but it was actually not too bad, because I had my stool and it was kind of fun to soak in the experience, since the line forms around the outside of the big courtyard in front of it. It also started raining when we got there, but I was prepared—Matthew thought I was silly to buy cheap ponchos at Walmart before I left, but they were excellent. We stayed pretty decently dry, except for poor Rebecca’s shoes (mine didn’t get my feet wet at all, actually). So I had been to the basilica before, and I remember it being very grand, but goodness, I’d forgotten how MASSIVE it is. I guess I didn’t have much to compare it to before, but having been to Jerusalem since, i found the sheer size to be very impressive. It’s also beautiful, of course. 

After the basilica, we went around to where the Vatican Museum entrance is—I had figured out by this time that some of the people standing around shouting at us were simply informational and not actually trying to seek anything, so that’s how we found out pregnant people don’t wait in line. However, about 30 feet later we got stopped by a tour guide who told us that there were no more single entries for the day, and you could only get in with a guided tour—which of course was about $50 each... I mean, it was after 3:30, and I did figure that the museum would probably be closing altogether by about 5, and he made the point that there WAS no ticket line anymore... so we may or may not have been suckered into paying an absurd amount of money for a tour we didn’t need, but on my last visit, we got right up to the entrance of the Sistine Chapel, and they closed it because the pope was in town. And I didn’t want to get up to the ticket counter just to be told it was too late and then also miss the last tour. So, we paid the man—Becka was pretty convinced he was leading us away to some other shady business, so she got pretty tense, but once we got back to the museum (they had to take us to their tour office across the street to buy the tickets), she calmed down. We weren’t really that interested in the actual tour, and they told us we didn’t have to stay for it once we were in, but after paying the big bucks, we figured we should get our money’s worth, right? Unfortunately, between the guy’s accent and the poor quality of the headset, I only got about 10% of what he was saying, and about half of that was his catch phrase, “Can you imagine?!” (which he seemed to be confusing with something like “Can you believe it” lol). Becka and I got a pretty good kick out of it, though. And she listened a little more than I did, as well. Most of the museum either hadn’t made it into my long term memory from before or we must have skipped parts, because it honestly felt mostly like a new experience, which was fun. And the Sistine Chapel was truly magnificent. Such an incredible work of art. 

Our guided tour actually got us back around to the basilica again, too (eye roll), but we left our guide there, since we’d already had a pretty good look around and it was dinner time. We walked out along the big avenue in front of St Peter’s, where we met Luigi, who was giving out coupons to his restaurant for its 25th anniversary. It actually sounded like a pretty good deal (dinner, drink, and dessert for €11 instead of €20), and we were looking for a nice authentic Italian place to eat, so we said, “Sure! Why not?” He wanted to walk us personally to the restaurant (which he said he owns with his brothers), which for my American sensibilities was a little overkill, and he also gave us a card for his taxi service, lol, but the restaurant was truly charming and exactly what we were looking for. I had lasagna and Becka had carbonara, and we had gelato and tiramisu for dessert, and it was just perfect. Our last stop for the day was the Trevi Fountain (where you wish to come back to Rome), and unfortunately by then it had really started to rain. Showers up to that point had been scattered, and actually the worst of it was while we were inside the museum, but toward sunset it started really coming down. The fountain was still very impressive—I’m pretty sure it wasn’t on when I went before (probably because it was the dead of winter)—and we threw in our coins. I actually wished for my daughter to come back to Rome one day, so I hope she will. :)

So Thursday was Vatican, Friday was Roman. :D This is what I was excited for. We went down to the Colosseum, which I was still kind of undecided about, but I knew I really wanted to explore the Roman Forum. Well, turns out it’s one ticket for it all. This time we did skip the lines, and it was excellent. I highly recommend Rome while pregnant. Straight to the front, no wait at all. The Colosseum was actually very cool. We probably spent a little more time than we needed to, and I definitely spent most of it taking pictures of the view through the arches, haha (I’m so obsessed with arches and columns), but it was very cool to explore. And the Roman Forum was everything I hoped for and more. :D It’s basically downtown Ancient Rome, and you just kind of wander through it all, and there are ruins of temples and gardens and arches... plus there’s also a kind of medieval-era recreation of one of the buildings that is pretty neat, with its own gardens. The complex is actually massive, and we hiked through a good portion of it, although after yesterday, my feet were killing me before we finished it all. Becka wasn’t feeling it as much as the Vatican, but she was a pretty good sport. When we could go absolutely no farther, we made our way over to a cafe to eat and sit. Becka really wanted pizza with ham on it, and we’ve found that most restaurant entrees are about a good size for us to split (our dinners the night before were actually too much for us, haha), so we did that. It also rained again while we were inside, which we were able to wait out. It had sprinkled on us a little toward the end of our Roman tour, but this was the worst of it for the day. 

When the rain had abated, we made our way over to the cat sanctuary, a random stumble-upon-find from my last visit. It’s basically a sunken square with a bunch of unearthed ruins, and they’ve made it into a space for feral cats to just hang out. I was afraid there wouldn’t be any cats out because of the rain, but they were there! And we also went down to their little office, which I swear was much smaller and/or they didn’t let you into where the cats hang out, but today we got to see a bunch of them and pet them and it was excellent. :D Since we had about an hour or so left before we had to hear back to catch our train to Pisa, we also decided to walk up to the Pantheon, since it’s not far from there. I got some gelato, and we once again went to the front of the line to get in. It wasn’t quite as exciting as the other stuff we saw, but a nice diversion. And thus ends our whirlwind tour of Rome! On to Pisa!

My favorite thing about Pisa is that it’s so much more than you even expect. In fact, the tower was never meant to be an attraction at all—the jewel of Pisa is its cathedral (which is indeed stunning, and also huge). We got in pretty late at night, so it was actually pretty neat to walk past the square with all its buildings lit up on the way to our hotel. (We stayed in the same places here in Italy that I did before :D) We neglected to take pictures because being out after dark with all our stuff made me a little nervous, but in hindsight, I kind of wish we had. It was beautiful. We got up early in the morning to get out to the square, which was a good choice, because the crowds started descending roundabout 9:30, and we had some time to get to the ticket office (no lines to skip here), have our Italian breakfast in the shadow of the tower, then be the first in when it opened at 9. I’m so glad Rebecca agreed to go up with me. It really is a singular experience, and she made it so hilarious, too. Whoever put a circular staircase in the tower was an unintended genius, because you really get the full effect of the lean as you sway back and forth going around and around and around. Also, the stairs were pretty decently shallow, which made for not a bad climb, even six months pregnant. There were also landings, although I made it about one flight from the top before I felt like I even needed to take a break. There are two observation decks, one higher than the other. Ironically, the lower one gives you more of a sense of the lean, with that sliding-off feeling I remember. They also rang the bells while we were up there (an electronic message plays just before, to warn you, haha). Going down was even funnier to watch Rebecca do than up. She kept bracing herself on the sides and I swear I just giggled the whole way down.

We had left our bags in our hotel room, since checkout was at 10:30, and we still had a few minutes once we reached the ground again, so we visited the crypt before retrieving them. Becka was a little dubious at first, but they have some really neat sculptures and these gorgeous (faded, but you can still tell) frescoes on the walls, and there’s also a courtyard that’s nice. After that we checked out and then went to the cathedral and baptistery. The cathedral is incredibly impressive, especially considering how small of a city Pisa really is. It’s not as big as St Peter’s, but the ceiling is just as high, and it feels nearly as big. The baptistery has two levels, and actually the stairs to the second level were harder than the tower, which is three times as high—these were steeper. While we were inside, a woman stepped up to the front and shouted for silence, then started to sing. It was just chords on an “ah,” but with the acoustics in the place, they blended together into this really amazing harmony— and it was only her one voice! After that we had to catch our flight, but I think we got everything we wanted to out of our short but sweet visit.