Italy, Day 3
Nov. 3rd, 2012 02:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ladyspriteAnd so we continued on our quest. Fewer pictures today, since the Sistine Chapel and Vatican Museum were less photo-friendly, but still cut-tagging our adventures around the Vatican Museum and after....
So on Monday, fresh from our excellent experience on yesterday's expedition, we woke up at oh-my-god early for another continental breakfast at our hotel and bus ride to the tour's starting point, for our guided walk through the Vatican Museum and Sistine Chapel.
Unfortunately, things started off on the wrong foot and just got worse. In spite of our 6:45am pickup time, apparently the tour didn't actually set out until somewhere close to 9. Until then, we sat in a large bus full of loud, unfriendly people (instead of Sunday's cheery, quietly conversational people) and tried to amuse our tired selves. This mostly consisted of staring at the rear window of the tour bus in front of us, deciphering the meaning of the pictographs there, and speculating on what the hell a VOITH RETARDER was. (My guess was that it helped protect the passengers from abduction by the dreaded Voith aliens. Yes, the internet tells me now what it really is. I find that dull enough that I choose to believe it's not true.)
Eventually the bus took off; unfortunately, I didn't get to hear any of the narration as we drove, since someone was shouting in the seat behind me through the whole thing. We got to Vatican City soon enough, where I realized that I had never actually experienced true crowding before.
Everything about the Vatican Museum is crowded. The lines going in are crowded, even if you take the tour shortcut. The lobby is a packed, teeming throng where you can't even turn around. The halls are stuffed to bursting with people shoving past one another trying to jockey for the best view as their tour guide leads them through centuries of artifacts at a near-jog trying to get it all in in an hour and a half. Unfortunately, this seems to bring out the absolute worst in everyone, in terms of selfishness, obliviousness, and inconsiderate behavior. I lost track of the times I was shoved, stepped on, walked into, and touched inappropriately, the worst offense being when someone actually put their hand on my face to shove it aside and get their handheld video camera up in front of a tapestry.
Between this and the fact that, to keep volume down, tour guides are required to speak quietly and communicate with their groups via headphones, it was a horrible experience for me - my tiny little elf ears can't accomodate earbuds; they just won't stay in, so I couldn't hear a word she said. She tried to keep me close to her so I could hear, but people insisted on shoving me out of my "privileged" spot.
The Sistine Chapel itself was also kind of a letdown. While I'm not one of the faithful, I at least expected to be overwhelmed by its majesty and the devotion of the artist, but.... it was packed enough that you couldn't even turn around or move. And in spite of the clearly stated rules that banned talking or taking pictures, all of those crammed-in people were jabbering loudly and flashing pictures.
Eventually, though, the tour ended, and the bus offered to drop people at a few different places. Since we hadn't been there yet, we asked to be left at the Spanish Steps, and wandered around from there.
The Spanish Steps, luckily, were majestic enough to help clear any frustration and irritation from my heart. The weather was still cooperating, giving us warm, bright, sunny days, and all of that white marble half-glowing in the sunshine took my breath away, and I loved just sitting there and watching the people just sitting there watching other people - tourists with their maps and locals just chatting and eating lunch, and folks at the bottom bustling around...
Halfway down the Stairs is the stair where I sit...
After just watching the people, and the pigeons playing in the fountain at the base of the stairs, for a little while, we wandered on until we found a tiny plaza a few twists off the main street and settled on a cafe there for lunch. It was only after we sat down and looked at the menus that we realized we had sat down in the Leonardo Ristorante, fulfilling "L" for our Restaurant Project; I'll write that up separately. Suffice it to say, for now, that the food was excellent, and the rest of the patrons were quite friendly as well, restoring my faith in my ability to make friends with strangers after the catastrophic rudeness of that morning's tour.
Pigeons are the same everywhere. Fountain at the base of the Spanish Steps
Once we finished eating (and chatting with the folks two tables over) we just kept walking. I had noted the Villa Borghese on one of our maps, and it looked like a big, beautiful green park full of little museums and smaller parks, so we decided to walk in that direction and explore it.
It was everything I hoped for and more. Green and shady and open, almost no cars, full of pretty little gravel paths, benches to curl up on, marble statues, families playing with their dogs, and NO obnoxious vendors hawking postcards of the Vatican, knockoff handbags, Angry Birds toys, or roses. We wandered from one end to the other, mostly ignoring the museums and buildings in favor of the paths and views.
And, because we were up at the top of a hill, the views were spectacular.
There is something amazingly healing and brilliant about just being able to sit in the sun and be in the presence of all that green and ancient and beauty....
I think I felt all of the tension and stress just melt out of me there....
And then I found out that the Villa included Rome's zoo (okay, "bioparque.") And I had to see it. I am a sucker for zoos.
The Bioparque was sprawling and huge. It was also rather full of mosquitoes, but I can excuse that. The habitats weren't bad; they made a good effort to at least provide space and environmental enrichment for their animals. The Reptile House was amazing, at least in part because safety measures seem to be less of a thing there - I think there's an idea that if you're dumb enough to try to hug the crocodile, you deserve what you get. The monkeys were pretty fascinating, and it was fun to watch![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
umbran get high-fived by an orangutan who, while hiding from a handful of over-friendly children, curled up in a corner next to him and seemed to be earnestly trying to communicate with him.
The true highlight of the Bioparque, though, was the elephant. We had wandered past her early in our visit, and noted her just kind of standing in the middle of her enclosure noodling around in the dust with her trunk, but there wasn't much information about her. As we were getting ready to leave, though, we noted a zookeeper at one corner of her enclosure. The keeper called her over, and the elephant came, and he spent a good 15 minutes just playing with her. Talking to her, blowing raspberries into her trunk, petting her ears, scratching her, cuddling her....
Eventually, when everyone had left but us and him, I bravely summoned my minimal Italian and called out to the keeper, telling him I was a veterinarian and asking if he was too. It turned out he wasn't - and he spoke about as much English as I did Italian. But between the two of us, and with the help of his girlfriend who showed up a few minutes later, we got the story - apparently the elephant's sister, who had shared the enclosure with her for upwards of 40 years, had just passed away within the past few days. The elephant was, understandably, sad, and her keeper was trying to cheer her up with extra time and attention.
It felt pretty darn special to be able to watch that, and to talk to him about it.
Sad elephant. Good keeper.
The zoo closed late in the afternoon, and we continued to walk through the Villa, just enjoying the green and fresh air and sun and incredibly amazing views until it was time for dinner at yet another pretty little patio restaurant on the Piazza Del Popolo. I'll admit, at this point the fact that there aren't any no-smoking zones in Italy was starting to wear on me. I can understand smoking in general, but I admit I'll never understand smoking at dinner - how can you taste your food?
Anyway, from there we wandered back to the hotel and crashed for the night, in anticipation of the next day's epic All Day Cooking Lesson Adventure....
And, since this is a rather photo-light post, one more picture for vanity's sake -
Friendly Neighborhood Redhead, on the back staircase of the Spanish Steps
So on Monday, fresh from our excellent experience on yesterday's expedition, we woke up at oh-my-god early for another continental breakfast at our hotel and bus ride to the tour's starting point, for our guided walk through the Vatican Museum and Sistine Chapel.
Unfortunately, things started off on the wrong foot and just got worse. In spite of our 6:45am pickup time, apparently the tour didn't actually set out until somewhere close to 9. Until then, we sat in a large bus full of loud, unfriendly people (instead of Sunday's cheery, quietly conversational people) and tried to amuse our tired selves. This mostly consisted of staring at the rear window of the tour bus in front of us, deciphering the meaning of the pictographs there, and speculating on what the hell a VOITH RETARDER was. (My guess was that it helped protect the passengers from abduction by the dreaded Voith aliens. Yes, the internet tells me now what it really is. I find that dull enough that I choose to believe it's not true.)
Eventually the bus took off; unfortunately, I didn't get to hear any of the narration as we drove, since someone was shouting in the seat behind me through the whole thing. We got to Vatican City soon enough, where I realized that I had never actually experienced true crowding before.
Everything about the Vatican Museum is crowded. The lines going in are crowded, even if you take the tour shortcut. The lobby is a packed, teeming throng where you can't even turn around. The halls are stuffed to bursting with people shoving past one another trying to jockey for the best view as their tour guide leads them through centuries of artifacts at a near-jog trying to get it all in in an hour and a half. Unfortunately, this seems to bring out the absolute worst in everyone, in terms of selfishness, obliviousness, and inconsiderate behavior. I lost track of the times I was shoved, stepped on, walked into, and touched inappropriately, the worst offense being when someone actually put their hand on my face to shove it aside and get their handheld video camera up in front of a tapestry.
Between this and the fact that, to keep volume down, tour guides are required to speak quietly and communicate with their groups via headphones, it was a horrible experience for me - my tiny little elf ears can't accomodate earbuds; they just won't stay in, so I couldn't hear a word she said. She tried to keep me close to her so I could hear, but people insisted on shoving me out of my "privileged" spot.
The Sistine Chapel itself was also kind of a letdown. While I'm not one of the faithful, I at least expected to be overwhelmed by its majesty and the devotion of the artist, but.... it was packed enough that you couldn't even turn around or move. And in spite of the clearly stated rules that banned talking or taking pictures, all of those crammed-in people were jabbering loudly and flashing pictures.
Eventually, though, the tour ended, and the bus offered to drop people at a few different places. Since we hadn't been there yet, we asked to be left at the Spanish Steps, and wandered around from there.
The Spanish Steps, luckily, were majestic enough to help clear any frustration and irritation from my heart. The weather was still cooperating, giving us warm, bright, sunny days, and all of that white marble half-glowing in the sunshine took my breath away, and I loved just sitting there and watching the people just sitting there watching other people - tourists with their maps and locals just chatting and eating lunch, and folks at the bottom bustling around...
Halfway down the Stairs is the stair where I sit...
After just watching the people, and the pigeons playing in the fountain at the base of the stairs, for a little while, we wandered on until we found a tiny plaza a few twists off the main street and settled on a cafe there for lunch. It was only after we sat down and looked at the menus that we realized we had sat down in the Leonardo Ristorante, fulfilling "L" for our Restaurant Project; I'll write that up separately. Suffice it to say, for now, that the food was excellent, and the rest of the patrons were quite friendly as well, restoring my faith in my ability to make friends with strangers after the catastrophic rudeness of that morning's tour.
Pigeons are the same everywhere. Fountain at the base of the Spanish Steps
Once we finished eating (and chatting with the folks two tables over) we just kept walking. I had noted the Villa Borghese on one of our maps, and it looked like a big, beautiful green park full of little museums and smaller parks, so we decided to walk in that direction and explore it.
It was everything I hoped for and more. Green and shady and open, almost no cars, full of pretty little gravel paths, benches to curl up on, marble statues, families playing with their dogs, and NO obnoxious vendors hawking postcards of the Vatican, knockoff handbags, Angry Birds toys, or roses. We wandered from one end to the other, mostly ignoring the museums and buildings in favor of the paths and views.
And, because we were up at the top of a hill, the views were spectacular.
There is something amazingly healing and brilliant about just being able to sit in the sun and be in the presence of all that green and ancient and beauty....
I think I felt all of the tension and stress just melt out of me there....
And then I found out that the Villa included Rome's zoo (okay, "bioparque.") And I had to see it. I am a sucker for zoos.
The Bioparque was sprawling and huge. It was also rather full of mosquitoes, but I can excuse that. The habitats weren't bad; they made a good effort to at least provide space and environmental enrichment for their animals. The Reptile House was amazing, at least in part because safety measures seem to be less of a thing there - I think there's an idea that if you're dumb enough to try to hug the crocodile, you deserve what you get. The monkeys were pretty fascinating, and it was fun to watch
umbran get high-fived by an orangutan who, while hiding from a handful of over-friendly children, curled up in a corner next to him and seemed to be earnestly trying to communicate with him.The true highlight of the Bioparque, though, was the elephant. We had wandered past her early in our visit, and noted her just kind of standing in the middle of her enclosure noodling around in the dust with her trunk, but there wasn't much information about her. As we were getting ready to leave, though, we noted a zookeeper at one corner of her enclosure. The keeper called her over, and the elephant came, and he spent a good 15 minutes just playing with her. Talking to her, blowing raspberries into her trunk, petting her ears, scratching her, cuddling her....
Eventually, when everyone had left but us and him, I bravely summoned my minimal Italian and called out to the keeper, telling him I was a veterinarian and asking if he was too. It turned out he wasn't - and he spoke about as much English as I did Italian. But between the two of us, and with the help of his girlfriend who showed up a few minutes later, we got the story - apparently the elephant's sister, who had shared the enclosure with her for upwards of 40 years, had just passed away within the past few days. The elephant was, understandably, sad, and her keeper was trying to cheer her up with extra time and attention.
It felt pretty darn special to be able to watch that, and to talk to him about it.
Sad elephant. Good keeper.
The zoo closed late in the afternoon, and we continued to walk through the Villa, just enjoying the green and fresh air and sun and incredibly amazing views until it was time for dinner at yet another pretty little patio restaurant on the Piazza Del Popolo. I'll admit, at this point the fact that there aren't any no-smoking zones in Italy was starting to wear on me. I can understand smoking in general, but I admit I'll never understand smoking at dinner - how can you taste your food?
Anyway, from there we wandered back to the hotel and crashed for the night, in anticipation of the next day's epic All Day Cooking Lesson Adventure....
And, since this is a rather photo-light post, one more picture for vanity's sake -
Friendly Neighborhood Redhead, on the back staircase of the Spanish Steps
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Date: 2012-11-03 08:31 pm (UTC)http://www.vatican.va/various/cappelle/sistina_vr/index.html