Rome, Day 2 (June 27, 2013)

Did a bit of research in the morning (humble though our lodgings were, they did have Wifi), and found that it was best to buy tickets for the Musei Vaticani in advance.  I got tickets for 12:30, and we headed out to the Vatican.  Another country, supposedly, but it's just a stop on the Rome metro line (Ottaviano).

There was a huge crowd of people headed to the Vatican, so it was impossible to miss.  Besides, we were all set upon by unpleasantly insistent tour guides.  Of course, looking like we do, we received solicitations in Hindi, Tamil and Telugu.  Lighter-skinned folks were accosted in Russian, Spanish ... you name it.  It reminded me a bit of the पंड़ा gang in Varanasi -- not that I've encountered them myself.

As we entered the compound of the Basilica di San Pietro, we saw this.

Can't actually see the Basilica from this angle, but it's there.

The think the word edifice was coined for this particular building.

The line to get into the Basilica seemed miles long, so we decided to walk back to the Museum (which is quite a trek) and wait for our time-slot.  We got there at 11:30 or so, but they just let us in anyway.  So much for reserving a slot.

The museum is large, and quite interesting, with the usual variety of exhibits, ranging from early Egyptian mummies and artifacts to Renaissance art.  The piece de resistance is the Sistine Chapel, and the one thing that I personally wanted to see.  They make you traipse all over the museum before they finally let you in, but you can't take pictures in there. 

Honestly, I was somewhat underwhelmed, and experienced much the same sentiment as I did when I beheld the Mona Lisa in the Louvre -- this is it?  Besides, if they don't let me take pictures, it doesn't exist! ("Nekulturniy!", I hear you Russian readers thinking). 

... and the Holy Dove was moving too ... (is that a dove?)

Those ancient Egyptians were tiny

The kids weren't willing to brave the lines at the Basilica again, and we were all hungry, so we decided that we'd return to the Vatican the following day.  We ate at an Indian restaurant near the Ottaviano metro called Shanti. It was not very good, not least because of a sullen proprietor.

We had bought tickets to a music performance that evening called "Music In Bernini's Rome"  in Sant'Agnese in Agone, primarily because Shashank is a classical music enthusiast.  We took the bus to Roma Termini, and then took a taxi to Piazza Navona.

The church and the piazza were beautiful.  The performance was in a smallish hall in the church, and there were about thirty people in the audience.  There was a lead female vocalist, a secondary vocalist (also a woman), and two guys playing various baroque instruments.

To my untrained ear, the music was pleasant enough, and one of the tunes they sang was very catchy.  I couldn't say how good they really were, and I don't think Shashank could either.  I think he was hoping for more of a symphony, anyway.

We spent some time in the piazza after the performance, eating (you guessed it!) gelato, and taking in the sights.

Gelato in front of a dude who seems to be spearing his horses

Obelisk!

I have a weakness for painted walls.

There was some kind of marketplace set up in the piazza.  We looked around, but didn't buy anything.  I can't remember where we ate, and the photographic record is incomplete, but it's a safe bet that we ate some kind of pasta.

Rome, Day 1, Evening

I just love the name Piazza del Popolo. Rick Steve said that a walk from there to the Spanish Steps would be salubrious (OK, he didn't say quite that), so we did that.  Arrived the plaza of the people, and walked down the row of shops.

Supposedly, this walk is good for "people watching", but we mostly saw tourists. We didn't actually buy anything, but sorta window-shopped at the Ferrari store ...

... and the Swarovski store.

Too rich for our blood (a model Ferrari was some $6,000!), but it was fun.

The Spanish Steps were really very picturesque, especially with the evening sun.  More obelisks, though.

Yes, I overdid the HDR effect a bit!

We then found a pasta place (fancy that!) and ate dinner there.  We were looking for some reasonably-priced place, but didn't have much luck with that.  Lots of tourist-trap restaurants, so that's what ended up at. Good enough, but certainly not memorable.

I'm pretty sure we ate gelato, but that too, has already faded into the mists of time.

I personally liked our evening outing a lot better than our morning one -- so much so that I think tourism should occupy only the morning and evening hours!

Rome, Day 1, Morning

For want of a better algorithm, we decided that we would follow Rick Steve's "Rome In Three Days" instructions.  For the first day, he recommended that we go see the Colosseum, the Forum and the Pantheon in the morning, and (after a siesta) a walk from Piazza del Popolo to the Spanish Steps in the evening.

So we climbed aboard the tram at Tor Pignattara station (about 200 yards from our pensione) and rode it to Roma Termini, where we took Linea B to Colosseo station (prossima fermata: Colloseo. Uscita lato, destro!)

Tor Pignattara (courtesy Google Street View!)

It was quite a long walk from the tram stop at Roma Termini to the metro station, so we started taking the bus instead. It took longer, but dropped us off right at the metro station.  Our Roma pass covered all transport, so we were able to hop on any bus without thinking about it. (But -- contrary to Rick Steve's assertions -- we couldn't get the Roma pass in any tabacchi, and had to get it at Termini.

The Roma pass let us into three attractions for free, so we bypassed the ticket-buying line at the Colosseum and went straight in.

Of course, the Colosseum is such a familiar landmark from countless pictures we've seen that there isn't much of a surprise when you do finally behold it.  I have a feeling that it's some atavistic allure of the macabre history that makes it fascinating. Thousands of people were killed here in dramatic and inventive ways, for entertainment, even as the culture of the time was quite enlightened along so many other axes.  Makes you wonder about our species.

I did remember the Bruce Lee - Chuck Norris fight in the Colosseum in Return Of The Dragon, particularly the chest hair ripping bit!

Surprisingly, Shishir knew about it, too.

Lots of photo ops, of course, but lots of tourists, too, and the bright midday sun wasn't that great for taking epic pictures.  Still, got a few nice ones.

A view of the Forum from the Colosseum

A somewhat less traditional view of this ancient hall of horrors

Shashank was happy with his gift shop purchase

Walking from the Colosseum to the Forum (not particularly pleasant in the hot sun, especially after a wrong turn), we saw this pair.

I'm pretty sure not a single person was actually taken in by this (you can see the support under his shirt), but it must be good business because we several other pairs doing the exact same act elsewhere in Rome.  Well, the dude being held aloft must have some balance skills, I suppose.

We traipsed around the Forum for about half an hour.  To be honest, I had a hard time getting excited about it.  It is impressive that they're as much left as there is, after two millennia, but that's only in the abstract.  Perhaps a real tour guide would have imbued it with some significance that was lost on us.

Found a place to eat right across the street from the Colosseum.  Vimala ate a sandwich (mozzarella and tomato) and the rest of us ate spaghetti with marinara.  And gelato.

It had started to rain ever so slightly by the time we finished lunch, and we didn't really feel like walking anyway, so we took a bus to the Pantheon (the next stop in Rick Steve's itinerary). Well, it was near the Pantheon. We still had to walk by the column of Marcus Aurelius.  As we found out soon enough, the Romans love their columns, pillars and obelisks.

Column of Marcus Aurelius

The Pantheon wasn't actually built by Marcus Agrippa, according to Wikipedia

The dome is actually open at the top (the hole is the oculus), so it was raining inside the Pantheon. Well, more like a leaky roof.  Considering that it's almost two thousand years old, it's surprising that there aren't leaks anywhere else.

It was somewhat crowded inside the Pantheon, but the light was quite nice.  My pictures don't do justice, but here's one.

Is the entire interior as old as the superstructure?

As we were standing there, a man came up to me and asked if I was Indian.  I fessed up, so he launched into barely comprehensible, almost-Punjabi Hindi.  With some difficulty, I gathered that he wanted to know what there was to see in Rome.  I said, "खंडहर" (ruins), which may not have been too helpful.

Rick Steve recommended that we adjourn for a siesta before evening activity, so (ever the obedient tourists) we took the train back to our flophouse.  I remember walking a lot to get to the Barberini station.

Geneve to Roma, June 25

Off in the morning to the Geneve Centre Sixt location to get our steed for the next ten days.  I had reserved a "BMW 3 series or similar", but they offered us a free upgrade to an Audi A5 with satnav.  We (Shishir and I, that is) took it without hesitation.  After all, we had been contemplating acquiring a European delivery S5, so we figured this would be close.

The nav system was set up for German, so we used the Garmin Nuvi that we'd taken along to get back to K&P's house, where Shashank obligingly posed proprietarily beside the car.

Shishir switched the nav to English, but it still spoke in German.  After poking around a bit, I realized that there was a language CD that you had to put in, at which point the lady started to speak in the Queen's English.  Well, almost.  For some reason, her German roots showed through whenever she said the word "right", and then only in the phrase "Now keep right".  Tickled me pink throughout the trip. Everyone else thought I was weird for being thus tickled.

More on the A5.  This was a European model with the 2.0 liter TFSI and (count 'em) eight-speed automatic and FWD.  No great shakes in the low-end torque department, but the tranny shifted beautifully and fast, and the engine made nice (if muted) sounds when on song. Compared to our decade-old (or more) Audis, very sophisticated.

Bidding goodbye to Kiran, Prasanna, Pranav and Vaibhav, off we zoomed toward Italy via the Mont Blanc tunnel and Genoa.

For us car-bound West Coasters, 500-odd miles doesn't seem like a huge deal, but it somehow felt much longer.  The first part of the drive was positively spectacular, into the Alps, through the tunnel and then down into Italy.  Less thrilling were the hefty tolls -- we spent a good bit more on toll than we did on gas (which is also pricey, of course).

Approaching the Mont Blanc tunnel

A rest area, I think just after we entered Italy (Aosta, maybe?)

Pixar's everywhere!

Once in the plains of North Italy, things got a bit monotonous.  Being on the Autostrada meant that we made good speed, but there were no picturesque little towns -- only Autogrill-anchored rest areas.

We made it into Rome by 6 or so to find the streets exactly like India. Lots of scooters, lackadaisical traffic law obedience, no visible signage.  I felt right at home, except that (a) I was driving an expensive car that wasn't mine, and (b) our B&B was in the seediest part of Rome.

To be fair, it didn't feel unsafe -- just not particularly clean, and smelly.  But more on that later.

The manager took one look at our car,  and directed us to an autorimessa down the street. It wasn't safe to park such a nice car on the street apparently.  Very reassuring, we thought, and went off in search of said parking garage.

Which turned out to be in the basement of a dilapidated building, to which you gain entrance by descending a 45-degree incline.  Cars of all descriptions are parked (I should say "packed") side by side, quite literally centimeters from each other.  This is where we were going to leave our rental for the next three days?

But Valentino, the proprietor (?) was a friendly, animated fellow who attempted to tell us in mime about his motorcycling enthusiasm.  We caught a few words and grinned vacuously back, but left feeling a bit better.

The room in Pensione di Acqua Bullicante was supposed to be a quadruple, but that's only in the strictest sense.  Still, we were only planning to sleep there, so we figured it was OK.  Besides, we'd just been on the road all day, and we were in no mood to go looking for another place.

The manager told us of an Indian place round the corner, so we headed there for dinner. The proprietor was from Bangladesh, and the food was passable, although hardly haute cuisine.

Geneva, June 24

Arrived without incident at about 10 in the morning (SFO - JFK - GVA).  Kiran picked us up in their diesel BMW X5 for the very short ride to their house in Grand Saconnex.  Went to a nearby mall (Balexert) and attempted to buy a sim card for my unlocked iPhone.  Swisscom was happy to sell us one, but they told us it wouldn't be too good in Italy.  In the end, we never bought one, so I still don't know for sure if my iPhone's actually unlocked.

Went to a nice trattoria for dinner after Prasanna came home, one that's owned by a friend (Tony? Tonino? My Italian fails me).

Prasanna's friend suggested various vegetarian options for us, which were pretty good.   I can't keep my pastas straight, but here's what I ate.

Shashank ordered a profiterole for dessert, and Shishir and I a tiramisu.  I had no idea what a profiterole was, but here it is, in all its multi-pod glory.

We were to encounter the tiramisu later, under even better circumstances, but this one was not 'alf bad.