The Stewart Blog

For our first afternoon in Rome I’d planned a walkabout – a swing by the Termini and then various plazas and other sights so we’d have a feel for seeing the city without having to be anywhere at any particular time so if our plane was late it didn’t matter. This walk, despite having studied the map ahead of time, was easier said than done. I don’t think anyone gets anywhere too quickly in Rome. I’m sure the rambling, narrow streets which veer off in odd directions are part of the charm, but they did turn finding our destinations into a guessing game.

We got good at telling when we were close to a destination by the increasing number of gelato shops and restaurants. And we realized that following other tourists was usually pretty effective. Although I didn’t fully trust the ones holding maps, but since that was many of them we did anyway. Actually our map reading skills weren’t really that bad and we got good at spotting signs that led us to the different plazas. Ultimately we did manage to see just about everything we set out to and found a bus that took us directly back to our hotel so we feel like we have a handle on the city.

Sightseeing wise I think the Trevi Fountain was a low point for me. Okay, it is a wonderful fountain with great statues and a striking setting, but when it is shoulder to shoulder with people is loses something.

The Pantheon absolutely made up for it. We walked in and I was immediately charmed by the wonderful space. It was one of those places you could just hang out in all day. Well, at least I could. We all have expectations when we travel and while this has been near the top of my must see list it out did my expectations. It was bigger and more light filled than I imagined and it was much more than just an architecturally interesting dome and building especially the floor with its different colored marble circles echoing in the hole in the ceiling.

Tomorrow: an Ancient Rome tour which will include the Coliseum and the Sistine Chapel.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 27th, 2010 at 12:51 pm and is filed under AWS, Travel, Family . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.