Tuesday, October 13, 2009 – Rome, Civitavecchia, and Grand Princess

Tuesday was going to be another busy day, big surprise. Our plan was to go to the forum and coliseum in the morning, then take the train to Civitavecchia to get on the ship. Our plan was to get on the train between 12:00 p.m and 1:00 p.m. since it was about an hour ride to Civitavecchia. The ship sailed at 6:00 p.m., but we did not want to cut it too close. So we planned to leave around 8:00 a.m. to accomplish everything.

It felt like it was very early when the alarm went off, but thanks to the additional water I had drunk the night before and sleeping with my feet elevated all night, they felt (and looked) much better then when I had gone to bed. They will still a mess, but not quite as bad. We both got ready, and once again packed up all our stuff. The check out time for this hostel was 10:30 a.m., unfortunately they did not have a place to store our luggage and we knew with our schedule we could not be back by 10:30, so we had to check out before we started our day, and find some place to store our luggage. The proprietor of the hostel told us about a Laundromat down the street that also stored luggage for a reasonable price. So we decided we would try there.

We were ready pretty much on schedule and left Liliput and Friends hostel for the last time. On the way out we took some pictures.

First up is the elevator – it is your typical small, old, European elevator – where you had to shut the doors yourself. When we first got here it was new to us, but now a couple days later we thought nothing of it. We each rode down separately with our luggage.

Here is Shan getting out of the elevator.

Here I am, not sure what that expression on my face is, maybe just tired?This is the courtyard of the building – it was very lovely!!
A close up of the center island. This is the building from the gate – we stayed up on the 3rd floor.The Laundromat was just a few doors down the street. We paused before we went in, not sure about this whole situation. As soon as we walked in a girl asked if we were there to store our luggage. That eased some of my concern, until she led us to the back of the store and had to move stuff to open a door. She led us into this small back room that was filled with junk and told us this was where we could store our stuff. I did not have a whole lot of confidence in this situation, but we did not really have any other choice. So we moved some stuff around and put our luggage in the most secure place we could find and were on our way.

The coliseum and forum, including Palatine Hill, are located right next to each other, about a 20 minute walk from where we stayed. Just a few minutes past this area is the Mouth of Truth, so the plan was to walk past the coliseum to the Mouth of Truth and work our way back.

I found it interesting how the traffic seamed much less overwhelming that morning. We were getting used to it, and become much braver. In Rome, you can’t wait for a break in traffic to cross, it just not happen. You have to dart out when ever you get a chance and trust you will make it across. The first day we tried to wait and it became frustrating. Now we were crossing the streets like natives and thinking nothing of it.

I enjoyed our walk that morning, seeing different sections of the city. This is a corner that had old buildings on the left side and really old ones on the right side. It was also our first view of the coliseum. I was pretty excited to see the coliseum for the first time so I took a few pictures as we approached. There it is up the streetCloser This is the Arch of Constantine

Arch of Constantine (Arco di Costantino) is a triumphal arch in Rome, situated between the Colosseum and the Palatine Hill. It was erected to commemorate Constantine I's victory over Maxentius at the Battle of Milvian Bridge on October 28, 312. Dedicated in 315, it is the latest of the existing triumphal arches in Rome.

Here is the Arch and the Coliseum.

Here I am with the Arch and Coliseum – this is one of my favorite pictures!!! We continued on our way to the Santa Maria in Cosmedin, the church were the Bocca della Verità – the Mouth of Truth is located.

La Bocca della Verità (in English, "the Mouth of Truth") is an image, carved from Pavonazzetto marble, of a man-like face, located in the portico of the church of Santa Maria in Cosmedin in Rome, Italy. The sculpture is thought to be part of a 1st century ancient Roman fountain, or perhaps a manhole cover, portraying one of several possible pagan gods, probably Oceanus. Most Romans believe that the 'Bocca' represents the ancient god of the river Tiber.

This is the Mouth of TruthFrom the sideThe most famous characteristic of the Mouth, however, is its role as a lie detector. Starting from the Middle Ages, it was believed that if one told a lie with one's hand in the mouth of the sculpture, it would be bitten off.

Unfortunately we got to La Bocca della Verita before it opens at 9:00 a.m. and we didn’t have the time to wait around. So we did not get a chance to see if it would bite our hands off.

Here is Shannon with the Mouth of Truth in the background

On our way back to Palatine Hill we passed the Circus Maximus

The Circus Maximus (Latin for great or large circus, in Italian Circo Massimo) is an ancient Roman chariot racing stadium and mass entertainment venue located in Rome. Situated in the valley between the Aventine and Palatine hills, it was the first and largest Chariot Racing Stadium in ancient Rome. The site is now a public park and retains little evidence of its former use. The Circus could hold over 1/4 of the city's population, over 250,000 people, allowing for this Circus to be a popular viewing place by the Romans. The Circus measured "621 m (2,037 ft) in length and 118 m (387 ft) in width.

While it was impressive in its day, it is not much to look at these daysNext we were going to explore ancient Rome.

Who goes out for Chinese food in Rome?

We turned from the Wedding Cake monument and started on our way. Shannon had intended to walk all the way back to the hostel, but I had just had enough. My poor feet were not happy with me. They were just not used to having shoes on and now had blisters on top of blisters and bruises. After walking all day long, I just was done. Plus we had purchased a day long pass for all the public transportation; we might as well use it. So I had a mini break down and insisted we take a bus back. We quickly found the correct bus stop and got on the bus.

I have to say my little fit worked out for the best. Midway through our ride back to the transit station it started to pour. Had we been walking we would have gotten caught in the middle of it and had been drenched. We both just look at each other and were very thankful we were on the bus. We got back to Termini and walked the few blocks to the hostel.

When we got back to the hostel we decided to take a little rest before we went to dinner. I pealed my shoes off my feet, another day of walking around and not drinking enough made my feet so swollen and bruised; I did not even recognize them. They looked even worse then my right foot had looked the year before when I needed to get tested for a blood clot. Since that test had come back negative, I figured it was just from the strain of the past few days. Not to mention the lack of water. On a regular day at home I drink 1 – 2 liters of water plus other stuff, but due to the fact that I was buying all my water and not drinking any of the local water, and water was not cheap, I had only been drinking a fraction of what I normally drink. I had also been eating a lot of salty food and my body did not know what to do and I was not sure how to fix it. So I called my Mom. Until this point I had only communicated via email, but needed to talk to my Mom. After a few minutes on the phone I felt a whole lot better at least emotionally and took my Mom’s advice to lay down with my feet up for a while.

After we rested for a while we got ready to go to dinner. We had heard from more than one person, including the owner of the hostel that we should go to the Trastevere area for dinner. This is an area with lots of good, authentic places to eat. We walked towards the bus station to catch a ride over to Trastevere and along the way passed a Chinese restaurant. We both kind of paused and I think it was Shan who said, Chinese food sounds good, I have not had it in forever. I agreed it sounded good and Shan said do you just want to go there instead of going over to Trastevere. By this point we had been going non-stop for 5 days and this was the first night we were not traveling somewhere. This would be our first chance to actually have a sit down dinner somewhere. Part of me wanted to go have an authentic Italian meal, but a bigger part of me was happy to not go any further and just have Chinese. So we decided to go in.

Here is Ristorante Hong Kong. We got seated right away and decided to order a couple of meals to split. We also had to order our rice separately and split a bottle of water. While we were sitting we talked about how ridiculous it was that we were eating Chinese food in Rome – who does that? So we decided to take pictures with our food to commemorate it.

Here is Shannon digging in Me showing off our yummy dinner As good as our food was, I was equally as excited to be drinking the amount of water we got with dinner.

After we finished we walked over to the other side of the train station to find the hostel we would be stay at after the cruise. I also grabbed another bottle of water. At this point I decided I should have put a line item in my budget for water.

On our way back to our hostel we stopped at the internet café our hostel owner had told us about and we spend some time online catching up on emails and facebook. I did quick log in to my work email just to check a couple details on my boss’ trip that I was concerned about. Once I saw those had been taken care of, I did not check into work again.

We then headed back to the hostel to call it a night. Tomorrow was going to be a great day – the coliseum and forum in the morning and then to the port to get on our cruise ship for the next 12 days. We both were so ready to unpack and settle into one location for a while.