What do you do when your kids get a two day national holiday to celebrate the feast of the immaculate conception?! You go to Rome, naturally. We have been enjoying the “new” national holidays here and look forward to the extra days that the kids have off from school. In LA, random days off were a source of stress, trying to figure out how to cover child care when we both had to work. Now, we just buy tickets and hop on a train!
Specifically, we hopped on the Frecciarossa 1000, Italy’s closest thing to a bullet train (going up to 300km per hour). With just a few stops (Milan, Bologna and Florence), we arrived in Rome 4.5 hours after boarding our train. Rome is not only the eternal city, but also a massively touristy city. We didn’t want to spend all of our time in lines to hit the major sites. So, we pre-bought tickets to the Colosseum and the Vatican Museum. Even in December, the lines are crazy. A bit of pre-planning definitely paid off.
We made a beeline for the colosseum after checking in to our hotel.We opted to listen to the self-guided audio tour; they even had a special tour specifically for kids. It is amazing how much information kids can retain when told by someone other than their parents. We all marveled at the grandeur that once was the colosseum, that the emperors of the time (80 A.D.) would bring in 10,000 lions and 10,000 gladiators. However, I had that same series of nagging questions in my mind, feeling as I always do in Italy. Is this country’s best days way behind it? Is there too much stock in the past, relying on the ancient glory that once was the Roman empire? Do I really need pocket-sized replicas of the coliseum for 1 euro? I think the answer to all of the questions is yes.
When I came to Rome 20 years ago, I remember cars buzzing around and tourists jammed up on the sidewalks. There was a clear urban planning decision made to convert the dense tourist areas to be (at least partially) pedestrian only. It made for a less life-threatening and more relaxing stroll between the Forum, Trajan’s Column and the massive white marbled monument built to celebrate the unification of Italy.
Our next day was an aggressive walking itinerary. We went to the Trevi fountain (which has been scrubbed so white and clean I couldn’t believe it) and tossed in our coins. As Roman lore has it, if you throw a coin in (right hand over left shoulder) you will return to Rome, two coins ensure a romance with a Roman and three coins ensure marriage to that person. We all stuck with one coin. We then went to my mother’s favorite Piazza Navona, ambled past the Pantheon and Castel San Angelo, winding up at the Vatican. We had our pre-assigned time for entry into the museum. Again we opted for audio guides (kids’ only). They were great to help navigate through an immensely overwhelming and crowded museum. The Sistine Chapel was breathtaking, but it is really a cattle call–the room is completely packed with people. That was on a Friday in December. I can only imagine how awful it would be in the summer.
We ended our day going into the cavernous and magnificent St. Peter’s Basilica. After seeing Michelangelo’s amazing Sistine Chapel, the scale loomed even larger in the basilica, the biggest church in the world. It was dark by the time we left, with St. Peter’s Square glowing with a nativity scene and a large Christmas tree. But, even that gigantic tree was dwarfed by the proportion of the square–the huge piazza in front of the church. By the time we walked home from dinner, we had clocked 10.5 miles for the day. I am so happy that the kids are at an age that they can actually cover this much ground AND not complain.
The Roman highlight for the kids was a private tour we took the next day with Context Travel. The company was recommended by a discerning friend in LA. It was, hands down, the best tour we have ever taken. The guide was a professor in Rome. He started the tour by handing the kids beautifully bound, black sketchbooks (yes, Noah, you get to keep it!) and colored pencils. The topic of the tour was “Myths for Families” which took us to the Trastevere neighborhood and the beautiful Villa Farnesina. We spent 2.5 hours learning, drawing and just soaking in the unique perspective on Rome the tour afforded us. We are already looking for another Context tour in Florence to take Josh’s mom on when she visits in the spring.
A quick stop at the Spanish steps the next morning, and we were back on our train to Torino. We were all a bit whirlwindy tired, but decided that Rome is a city you could visit over and over–never seeing the same thing twice. While we loved seeing the Sistine Chapel, our most special time in Rome was tucked away inside a villa, with the place almost to ourselves. And we know we will be back, those Trevi coins have told us so.