[Chris’s note: this one’s in English only, sorry! It’s also insanely late. Uh … sorry about that, too!]

We arrived in Naples without any trouble and exited the train station, where we immediately ran into the most stereotypical Italian scene I think I’ve ever seen: a taxi station utterly backed up with dozens of cabs because at the front, a group of angry drivers (all male) were standing in a circle, screaming at each other and making wild hand gestures while the other drivers honked and leaned out of their window to also scream. Finally one of the drivers seemed to have enough of fighting about … whatever … and he waved us over to his cab, much to the consternation of several others. We hopped in and told him we wanted to go to the airport. More specifically, we wanted to go to the rental car pickup, because unlike Rome, you can’t really get around Naples and (especially) its suburbs without driving. This is unfortunate, since driving in Southern Italy is one of the worst activities I’ve ever engaged in that doesn’t actually cause physical pain. But more on that later!

Things I’d looked up online told me that it should be about €12-15 from the train station to the airport. Naturally, our driver charged us €25. When we protested, he showed us a chart that we couldn’t really read as evidence. Eventually we gave up and paid him, and he gave me some change (more on that later, too). We found our rental car kiosk and requested a Fiat 500 because, hey, it’s Italy. They gave us a brand new charcoal grey Fiat 500 with roughly 37 horsepower under the hood, and off we went into the lawless hellscape of Neapolitan driving!

Our lodging for this trip was an AirBnB in the hills overlooking the city of Castellammare di Stabia and its bay. I have nothing but positive things to say about the place, except that getting up the driveway was a challenge. Other than that, it was clean, nice, comfortable, and run by a very friendly gentleman. The view was extraordinary, and the grounds were lovely. Five stars, would stay again … if we ever went back, which we absolutely never will.

After getting settled we decided to explore Castellammare di Stabia, especially since GELATO EVERY DAY was calling, and it was already early afternoon. This is where we first began to really appreciate the truth about the greater Naples area: it is a stark contrast between lovely scenery and struggling neighborhoods full of run-down buildings. From a distance, Castellemmarre is beautiful. Up close, most of it looks like this:

The town is full of half-finished construction projects that have left piles of debris lying all over the place. Things like their gorgeous metal and glass gazebo have been walled off with rusting chickenwire because the floor is in such disrepair as to be dangerous. The “beach” you can see in distance shots is actually an expanse of algae-covered gravel that can’t be reached anyway due to the aforementioned piles of construction rubble. Many of the buildings look like they were last painted in the sixties, and the most common look you get from the locals as you walk through the place can charitably be described as “surly”. The traffic lights have all been turned off, as if some previous government tried them as an experiment, saw that the local populace had no intention of paying them any attention, and gave up (this is not an exaggeration – literally none of them work … and this was the case in every town outside of Naples proper). Driving is a case of “everyone does whatever they want, whenever they want, on roads that were built for horses and now have parked cars lining both sides” — it’s a lot like Providence, actually, if everyone in Providence was angry, on meth, driving jerky standard-shift cars, and there were no stop signs, traffic signals, or signs of law enforcement of any type.

I apologize if this is coming off as a rant, or if it seems like I’m ragging on the town because it wasn’t beautiful enough, but I sort of want to record my thoughts for posterity here. I have never been anywhere as perplexing as the southern Italian coast. It’s a place that I simultaneously disliked more than anywhere else I’ve ever been and which made me tense and unhappy much of the time, and a place that I found extraordinarily beautiful and relaxing, depending on where we were and what were were doing within it.

GELATO EVERY DAY nearly came to a sad end in Castellammare, as all we could find were “bars” outside of which were advertised various prepackaged frozen novelties and from within which angry-looking Italian guys in their sixties glared at us (the Italian concept of a bar seems to be one part convenience store, one part coffee shop, one part tobacco dispensary, one part actual bar, and in some cases one part rehabilitation home for ex-convicts). We nearly gave up, but decided to push on one more block, where we found … a gelateria! The service was grudging and the gelato mediocre, but we’d saved the tradition, and that’s what matters! We headed back to the car, and on to more pleasant pastures, specifically: the next town over, Vico Equense.

Set up on the Italian cliff-side, Vico Equense is a nice little town full of restaurants, coffee shops, and hotels. I wouldn’t call it beautiful, but it’s picturesque, and its views of the Mediterranean are spectacular. Charlotte and I wandered the town for a bit, grabbed drinks on a local hotel terrace overlooking the sea, and then enjoyed a very nice dinner at a restaurant our AirBnB host had recommended to us. It was a pleasant evening after an afternoon that had left me, at least, wondering if we’d made a mistake when choosing our destination for this trip.

On Thursday, we slept in. Again. This was the “relaxation” part of our vacation, and we saw no reason not to indulge in that aspect. Anyway, it was raining in the morning. Once we were up and showered and ready to go, we hopped into the car and headed back into Castellammare. We were determined to see a bit more of the town and what it had to offer, and had done some research to find its nicer sections. We did indeed arrive in one of these, and though we still got a lot of odd looks, we were able to find a very nice restaurant with an extremely friendly waiter in which to have lunch. Fully sated, we decided it was time to really see what we’d come here for: the coast.

I will give both the Sorrento and the Amalfi coasts this: they may be the most naturally beautiful places I’ve ever been in my entire life, including Hawaii and the Caribbean. The cliff-sides are stunning, the Mediterranean is a vast turquoise expanse, and the little clusters of houses here and there are impossibly picturesque, especially from a distance (as with everything else around Naples, they suffer a bit when you get up close). Sorrento itself is large enough to be interesting, and we stopped there and took a few walks around the town. Our first walk got us neither to the sea nor to any commercial districts, but our second attempt managed both. We first stopped for GELATO EVERY DAY, and it was here that I had the enjoyable experience of being informed that the ten-euro note with which our cab driver from the train station had rendered change was, in fact, an obvious counterfeit. On inspection, it was clearly inkjet printing on regular paper, with some foil embossing stickers atop it. To the gelato server’s credit, she didn’t seem to think I was trying to rip her off, but rather looked embarrassed that she had to tell this obviously American tourist he’d been ripped off. Fortunately we had other money, all of it real, and were able to pay her.

We took our gelato and headed in the direction of the sea. After a long walk down a very pretty, tree-lined thoroughfare, we ended up at a small city park overlooking the Mediterranean. It was really lush and verdant, and the waters were a beautiful turquoise. Look upon the flickr gallery and despair … that you weren’t there, because seriously it was gorgeous.

After the park, we decided it was time to get serious about getting to the Amalfi Coast. Charlotte has wanted to see it for much of her life, and there was no sense waiting any longer! We cut across the peninsula and headed for the winding route ss163. Driving the twisting, curving, tight coastal road is alarming, but also a lot of fun, and it’s fascinating to see people living and working in little villages that hug the cliff-sides. I have no idea how one runs to the grocery store in such places, but they seem to make it work!

We weaved in and out of tiny cliff-side villages for about two hours, stopping in the middle to have a drink and take in some local atmosphere, which mainly involved watching a whole bunch of middle-aged guys lean against a wall and chat. Our final destination for the evening was the town of Amalfi itself, a multi-tiered pseudo-paradise overlooking a wide turquoise bay. By this time, night had fallen, and we were starving, so we parked the car, looked up a well-reviewed local restaurant that sat at the edge of (and actually slightly over) the bay, and proceeded to have a very nice meal. This was followed by another set of crazy curves, this time in the dark, as we drove into the mountains–climbing and climbing far above the ocean, and then descending the other side–in order to cross the peninsula and get back to our AirBnB.

Friday was ruins day. Naples and its suburbs lie near Mt. Vesuvius, which famously blew its top nearly two thousand years ago, in CE 79, burying the towns of Pompeii, Herculaneum, and several others under tons of superheated ash and bathing them in poisonous gasses. It was not a good time for anyone involved, and for hundreds of years the towns remained buried, with new cities eventually being built atop them. There was one silver lining to a very large dark cloud, though: when they were rediscovered, the ruins contained countless well-preserved frescoes, mosaics, and objects both aesthetic and utilitarian. Much of the best stuff has been moved to museums, but the ruins (and some of the painting/mosaics) are still there.

We started with Herculaneum [Flickr gallery], which is substantially smaller than Pompeii. At the time of its destruction, it sat on the sea’s edge, but the sea is now about half a kilometer away. The town was built on several layers, and we got to explore its cobblestone streets and climb around amidst its ruins, including its large and still partially buried baths and gymnasium, learning bits about the daily life of Italians in the first century. The place is not big; you can walk across it in a matter of minutes, but it’s densely packed with ruined dwellings, and we spent a good bit of time there before deciding that the crowds were too much.

Headed for Pompeii, we stopped at a local coffee shop for GELATO EVERY DAY, which was so melted and flavorless that Charlotte took one spoonful, refused to eat the rest, and refused to count it as her daily ration. Disappointed but resolute, we made our way to Pompeii, which involved an insane amount of cursing at local drivers on my part, to the point that by the time we got to the ruins, all I really wanted to do was go home.

I’m glad we didn’t; Pompeii [Flickr gallery] was as peaceful and open as Herculaneum was crowded and constrained. Much, much larger, there was more space in which the crowds could spread out, and we wandered the ruins at leisure, taking in many sights. Favorites included: the active vineyards interspersed between the two-thousand-year-old buildings, the amphitheater, the gardens, and an amazing mansion with intact and elaborate mosaic floors, protected by a carpet, off which people kept stepping, to the (very loud) annoyance of the woman who’d been assigned to watch over the building.

As the sun began to set, we made our way back to the park entrance, and headed once again toward Vico Equense. We wanted to stop for drinks first, and I realized I hadn’t had a glass of grappa the entire time I was in Italy, so I remedied that with a nice, aged selection. Afterward, there was a pizza place there we’d been told we had to try, and it turned out to be a highly worthwhile experience. Not only was the pizza itself quite tasty, but the people watching was magnificent. The restaurant, Pizza a Metro, bills itself as “the university of pizza” and, indeed, it’s about the size of a university dining hall, easily seating a couple hundred people. You’d think in a town the size of Vico Equense, this would be financial suicide, but the place was booming when we arrived, and stayed that we for our entire visit. Everyone from regal-looking elderly folks having dinner together, to massive families with kids, to young couples on dates, and beyond was apparently in the mood for Friday night pizza, the delivery of which is done with massive rolling trays, on which the pizzas are hastily slashed into pieces and left for you to devour at your leisure.

Finished with dinner, we realized that Charlotte’s GELATO EVERY DAY streak was in serious jeopardy, so we wandered around Vico Equense, hoping for the best. We managed to find a cafe that had gelato, although the lady running the place had turned off all the lights in that part of the store. Still, she flipped ’em back on and served us (yes, I had a second gelato … vacation, right?). This one was much better than the one from the afternoon, and thus the streak was saved! We retired to our AirBnB, did a little packing up in prep for departure the next day, and crashed.

Our final half-day in Naples saw us leaving the AirBnb and heading for the city. We had a few hours to kill, so we’d decided to hit the museum of history, which houses most of the best stuff removed from Herculaneum and Pompeii (that wasn’t looted by other countries). This is where things went to hell; after four days of utterly harrowing driving without a scratch on our rental car, I was defeated by the entrance to a parking garage. We were in one of Naples’s many fabulous “roads” that are roughly the width of a half-bathroom, and an attempt to turn left into the garage ended with the whole front passenger side of the car all crunched up. Turns out I’d mistaken the garage attendant’s shout of “For god’s sake, stop!” (translated roughly from the Italian) for “Come ahead, you got this!”

I was not happy. In fact I was in one of the worst moods in which I’ve ever found myself. Three days of dealing with southern Italy had left me tense and stressed out, and this capped it. I’m not proud to admit that I shouted some profanity (not at the garage dude — wasn’t his fault) and punched a stone wall hard enough that my entire hand puffed up … it took two months for it to stop hurting. Once I was done having my tantrum, we went and got coffee. Charlotte went looking for antiseptic wipes–repeatedly punching a filthy stone wall both cuts up your hand pretty good and covers it in grime–and I sat in the corner of the café staring at a wall, hating everyone in Italy, including myself. Sorry, this is a dark paragraph. It gets better.

Eventually we decided that, screw it, we were a block from the museum so we might as well go, since it’d be better than sitting at the airport for several hours. This proved to be a good idea (even though, as it turns out, the Naples airport is by a wide margin the nicest thing we saw in the entire city). The museum was calm, cool, and quiet, which is exactly what I needed to calm down. By the time we were done there, I was ready to get back in the car and continue on. If we’d tried to leave right after the accident, there’s a very real possibility I would’ve ended up in another, worse accident, or some kind of road rage incident.

We spent about forty-five minutes at Hertz, filling out damage forms and waiting for their insanely slow computer to tell us what we owed. Turns out it was about €550, which was about €1500 less than what I’d expected them to charge me. I paid it, and am still (months later) wrangling with Visa to find out if the protection on my card is going to reimburse me anything. Hopefully someday! Anyway, we headed to the airport, got through security, and found ourselves in a nice, wide open place with lots of good shops and restaurants. It was the perfect time for GELATO EVERY DAY, the final one of the trip, and we ended up sitting on some weird leather settees, enjoying our ice cream and waiting for our flight. Eventually it arrived, and we were whisked back to Paris.

So … that’s the story of our Southern Italy trip. It’s taken me like two months to finish writing this blog post, since which we’ve returned to the US and resumed our life in Providence. Charlotte–who, it should be noted, does not share my opinions and didn’t find it nearly so objectionable–recently asked me if my opinion on Southern Italy had softened with a little time and perspective.

The answer is that it has not. While I’m glad we went, and I saw some amazing stuff while we were there, and I do have some good memories from the place, I don’t think there’s any likelihood that I will ever return to Naples or the surrounding area, and I’m honestly in no rush to revisit Rome. I’ve been all over the world, and visited plenty of cities and countries with different customs or behaviors, and dealt with it, but … sometimes a place just doesn’t work for a certain person. Although there were many moments I enjoyed thoroughly, overall, Southern Italy didn’t work for me. Live and learn!

 

 

We’re going to break our Italy trip up into two posts, the first covering our time in Rome, and the second on the coast just south of Naples. Also, once again, I’m handling the English and Charlotte’s handling the French, for expediency and because I just don’t have enough French to adequately describe this stuff. So … onward!

Pour l’Italie, nous allons procéder en deux temps : Rome d’abord, le Sud ensuite. Ce n’est pas du favoritisme, c’est du sens pratique, un voyage touristique étant par la force des choses beaucoup plus intense qu’un long séjour !

We arrived in Rome in the late evening on Friday, collected our luggage, and hopped into a cab. Our driver was very pleasant, and spoke solid if heavily-accented English, which allowed him to give us some information about the areas we were driving through (favorite bit: “this area in the day is all for business. At night, is … [long pause] … [sheepish grin] … mostly prostitutes”). Once we’d arrived, we discovered that our place of residence–an apartment belonging to Cha’s brother-in-law’s mother–was ridiculously nice: 3 bedrooms, 3 baths, a gigantic salon with marble floors, etc. It was a gorgeous and highly functional home base for us, and we owe her our great thanks for making it available. We went out for drinks and a late snack. Cha had wine, I had the best beer I’ve had since we got to Europe (a heavy, slightly sweet Italian brown ale). After that: sleep, in preparation for a day of exploration!

À l’arrivée, tard le vendredi soir, nous avons paresseusement sauté dans un taxi au lieu de prendre le métro. Notre chauffeur, un Italien (du Sud !) s’étant un peu enquis de nos projets, s’est ensuite empressé de nous expliquer les trucs à connaître pour ne pas se faire arnaquer par les (autres) taxis : toujours vérifier le compteur en montant, une base de X euros en semaine, Y euros le weekend, etc. Un type intéressant, ayant commencé sa vie professionelle dans le contrôle de gestion en Angleterre, mais qui n’ayant pas réussi à trouver de poste en Italie s’est acheté une licence de taxi, un témoin du développement inégal de l’économie dans différents pays européens.

L’appartement, que nous devions à Tania, la mère de Fred, nous a surpris : immense, luxueux, un vrai palais ! Quelle chance ! Et à proximité de quelques bars et restaurants auxquels je dois mon premier verre de vin du voyage, un bon début, et Chris sa bière européenne préférée à date. Ensuite, sommeil réparateur.

On Saturday, we slept in, because … vacation. Then we had a leisurely breakfast at Sal de Rizo, the coffee shop around the corner, which came highly recommended and which was so good that we never skipped it for our remaining days in Rome (we mostly tried different pastries each day, though I admit to having the same one two days in a row because it was so good). Then we had weird lunch where we went to the grocery store, bought a sampler pack of sliced sausages, some cheese, and some rolls, and tossed together some sandwiches. After that, we embarked into the city, hopping on the metro–the apartment is well outside the tourist area–and getting off near the central train station. As soon as we exited, there was a cool looking building. I took a single picture of it, turned to take a picture of something else, and the digital camera that has faithfully served us for eight years, across at least thirty plane flights, more than a dozen cities, and three continents, died. D’oh.

Samedi matin, après une grasse matinée (c’était les vacances, même avec Rome à nos pieds !), petit-déjeuner tranquille à une pâtisserie nouvellement ouverte dans le quartier (pâtisseries assez bonnes, en tout cas en restant sur les choses simples… et excellent café !) Après quelques courses pour se préparer un pique-nique, départ en direction de la ville antique. À la sortie du métro, ébloui, Chris a dégainé l’appareil photo qui nous a fidèlement servis depuis huit ans, pris une photo… et réalisé que l’appareil venait de lui mourir entre les mains. La poisse.

But, we had cell phones, so we made do! We took a winding path south, toward the Colosseum, taking in the sites as we went (we stopped at one basilica–I don’t know which, maybe Cha does–but mostly just walked the streets of Rome). At some point, we determined that gelato was required. This began a tradition that we continued for the entire rest of the trip: “Gelato Every Day” — it was a good tradition. I recommend it if you’re ever in Italy. As we ate, we watched a large protest move down the street, eventually following it for a time, as it was headed in the same direction we were.

Nous nous sommes donc débrouillés avec les portables ! Une ballade au hasard des rues nous a menés à Santa Maria Maggiore, puis à un café en face de l’église, où nous avons mangé la première gelato du voyage, nous promettant instantanément d’en faire une habitude quotidienne (défi relevé, je vous rassure !) Une énorme manif anti-TPP, rassemblant aussi bien des syndicats communistes que des groupes de defenseurs de la Slow Food que des écolos, est passée juste à ce moment-là. Nous l’avons un peu suivi en direction du Colisée, mais les avons ensuite perdu de vue.

We ended up in the Parco del Colle Oppio, a very nice public park featuring the remains of a bunch of Roman Empire-era ruins, which lies atop a hill, from whose south side you get a pretty stunning view of the Colosseum. We’d planned to go in, but the line was pretty long, so we decided to wander through the Roman Forum instead. This turned out to be a pretty great idea; Rome is super full of tourists–seriously, the only places I’ve ever been that are as packed as central Rome, everywhere you go, are Times Square and the Disney parks–and the Forum, while crowded, is large and very sedate. It offers a ton of amazing views along with a lot of nice, quiet spaces to spend a little time. Cha and I were a bit keyed up from all the walking, and the Forum helped us relax. After that, we stopped and had a drink at an outdoor café, watching the world go by, then walked across the Garibaldi Bridge into the very nice Trastevere neighborhood, where we had a tasty dinner at a pretty local restaurant. After that we headed back to the apartment, where Charlotte went to work putting together a plan of attack for the next day while I looked up fixes for the camera on the internet (and got it working).

Arrivés au Parco del Colle Opio, nous avons fait un tour rapide des ruines de la Domus Aurea de Néron, et renoncé à aller au Colisée ce jour-là, car il était pris d’assaut. À la place, nous sommes allés nous détendre sur le Forum, lui aussi bien sûr plein de touristes, mais tellement étendu que des recoins calmes s’y trouvent en abondance. La vue, en plein dans l’heure dorée, était magnifique, et essayer d’imaginer le forum “de son vivant” était magique. Nous sommes ensuite repartis à la marche dans Rome, finissant la soirée dans un restaurant charmant du Trastevere avant de rentrer préparer les visites du lendemain (Cha) et réparer l’appareil photo (Chris).

Sunday, we got up a bit earlier than Saturday, went for coffee and pastries, and then set out to execute Cha’s plan. It started us at Trevi Fountain, where I took one picture and then the camera died again. I managed not to hurl it into the fountain, and we once again set out with only our crappy cell phone cameras. Oh well! We tried to go to Basilica Minerva next, but it was closed to the public, so we moved on to The Pantheon. Before heading inside, we had a nice lunch outdoors across the piazza, where Charlotte discovered Cacio e Pepe, a Roman pasta dish with tons of cheese and black pepper that is quite delicious. Well fed, we checked out the Pantheon (it is … very big).

Samedi, après un départ un brin plus matinal (mais toujours aussi pâtissier), nous voilà embarqués pour un petit circuit partant de la fontaine de Trévi… où l’appareil photo, réparé la veille par Chris, nous a refait le coup de se bloquer après une photo. Ayant difficilement controlé son envie de jeter l’engin dans la fontaine, Chris m’a ensuite suivi à la Basilica Minerva toute proche (fermée, mais sur une place intéressante avec un éléphant portant une obélisque), puis au Panthéon. En sus de la visite, j’ai découvert dans un café de la place les pasta Cacio e Pepe, fromage et poivre fort, et ai eu la surprise de les trouver délicieuses et parfaitement cuites malgré l’endroit touristique. Bon, le serveur m’a bien dit que lui ne les trouvait pas assez pimentées, mais moi je les ai adorées ! À tenter d’imiter [note: grâce aux MOIS que j’ai mis à finir la traduction de ce post, bloquant ainsi le désir de Chris de le poster, j’ai mis du poivre partout, en bien plus grande quantité qu’auparavant. Et j’approuve toujours. Ces pâtes ont été une révélation durable du vrai pouvoir du poivre noir…)

The afternoon brought us to Cattedrale San Luigi di’ Francesi, which I think was my favorite religious building we visited on the entire trip. In addition to the usual insane amounts of gilding and marble, it’s decorated with several absolutely stunning Caravaggio paintings. The fact that the organist and a violinist friend decided to start playing just after we arrived really added to the effect, and we lingered until they booted us out to start services. From there we headed to the lovely Piazza Navona, crossing through it to reach the Palazzo Altemps Museum, where we took in a whole lot of statuary. Leaving the museum, we grabbed GELATO EVERY DAY back at the Piazza, then headed for the Church of St. Augustine (more Caravaggio work!). Then we wandered through the ritzy section of town to Piazza di Spagna and from there to Piazza del Popolo–there are a lot of piazzas in Rome–where we thought about going into Basilica Parrocchiale Santa Maria del Popolo, but decided we were churched out. So instead we walked through the Villa Borghese Gardens, a gorgeous park full of trees, ponds, and angry-looking geese. We kept walking all the way back to our neighborhood … I logged 25,000+ steps on ye olde fitbit that day.

De là, visite à la cathédrale Saint-Louis-des-Français, concue par la communauté française de la Renaissance et des siècles suivants comme une espèce d’opération de pub pour la France, et magnifique. En particulier, la cathédrale est ornée de nombreux Caravaggios, qui nous ont tous les deux scotchés–les effets de lumières et l’expressivité des personnages sont incroyables. La présence d’un organiste et d’un violiniste ne faisait rien pour gacher l’ambience, et il a fallu qu’un service religieux s’annonce pour que nous nous decidions à vider les lieux.

Ensuite, poursuite du circuit touristique : visite d’un des quatres musées de la ville de Rome, le Palazzo Altemps, surtout orienté Antiquité, dans une magnifique villa Renaissance qui vaut le détour à elle seule (et il n’y a presque personne !) Le musée est à deux pas de la belle piazza Navone, qui nous a offert notre gélato quotidienne avant que nous ne nous dirigions vers l’église Saint-Augustin (encore du Caravaggio !), puis la piazza di Spagna (à peine vue sous les échaffaudages), et enfin la piazza del Popolo. Trop fatigués pour visiter la basilique Santa Maria del Popolo, nous avons à la place déambulé dans les superbes jardins de la villa Borghese, sous l’oeil méfiant — et un brin aggressif — d’un troupeau d’oie. Puis nous sommes rentrés à pieds, pour découvrir 25 000 pas au compteur de la Fitbit pour la journée. Pas étonnant que nous étions fatigués !

Dinner was a stop at a large pizza joint just around the corner from the apartment. We followed that up by heading home, where Charlotte did some planning for the following day while I attacked the bottom of my digital camera with a screwdriver, eventually hacking out a chunk of the plastic covering to expose the gear that was locking up. This didn’t fix the problem, but it did allow me to employ the temporary fix I’d found online each and every time the camera died from then one … which happened between every one and ten pictures for the rest of the trip. This is what I go through, to bring you quality photos! On a related note: from here on out there will be Flickr gallery links. For a few pictures from the first two days, check out Charlotte’s and My Instagram pages.

La fin de soirée fut ensuite calme : pizza dans une pizzeria de quartier, recommandée par Nolwenn comme la pizzéria “traditionelle” du coin, puis mêmes activités que la veille. Cette fois-ci, Chris a carrément rajouté un bouton à l’appareil photo, en découpant une ouverture dans sa coque plastique, afin de pouvoir débloquer le mécanisme enrayé pendant la journée… Ce qui nous permet d’avoir pour les jours suivants de photos d’un peu meilleure qualité que ce que vous pouvez trouver sur nos fils Instagram respectifs (Charlotte et Chris)

Flickr Gallery: Rome Misc

Monday, we got up, ate pastries, and headed for Vatican City. That’s it … that’s all we did. But I assure you, that’s enough. If Rome is like Disney World, the Vatican is like the Magic Kingdom, a central attraction with way too many people and way too many lines, where everything is regulated to the point where everyone’s experience is almost exactly identical. We started with St. Peter’s Basilica, which is, if not the largest and most ornate church on the planet, certainly well up on the list. It borders on ridiculous, to be honest, especially when you start considering the messages Jesus Christ was said to have preached. But we won’t go into that here; suffice to say that it’s an absolutely amazing building with so much statuary, marble, gilding, woodwork, painting, and other artistry that it’s hard for the eye to even settle on anything!

Lundi, j’ai démontré la profondeur de mon amour pour Chris en faisant ce que je m’étais bien promis de ne plus jamais refaire, les musées du Vatican. Les visites en sont tellement réglementées, accompagnées, dirigées, et enfoulées, que c’est un peu tout ce que je déteste dans une expérience touristique. Sans compter que lors de ma première visite, j’avais été suffoquée de rage (et oui, on ne contrôle pas tout dans sa tête !) en pensant à toute la misère que pourrait soulager la richesse engloutie dans les marbres, ors, sculptures, peintures, et autres topiaires tirées au cordeau du Vatican. Mais Saint-Pierre n’en est pas moins, ou plutôt en est d’autant plus une expérience incomparable, écrasante, unique–qu’il fallait bien que Chris puisse avoir !

We had a quick lunch in a nearby wine bar, and then made our way to the Vatican Museum. We had tickets for 4:30, and it was too early, so it was time for GELATO EVERY DAY, which might actually have been the best gelato we had on the entire trip. Good job, random place in a basement several blocks from the Vatican! Anyway, heading back to the museum, they let us in fifteen minutes early, and so we joined the throngs of people all doing basically the same thing: heading through the long hallways, admiring the art, and going “wait, is this the way to the Sistine Chapel?” … we did indeed make it to the Chapel, which is both an amazing and frankly unpleasant experience. On the one hand, you’re surrounded by some of the greatest works of Renaissance art in the world. On the other, there are dudes shouting constantly, in like six languages, at people to be quiet, to take off their hats, to not take photos, to keep the line moving or get in the middle, and so forth. These guys are not pleasant, and it makes it kind of impossible to be as awed by the surroundings as one otherwise might be. Still, I’m glad I saw it, and gladder still that we had to walk through several immense and amazingly painted hallways to get there. It was a cool experience.

Après un déjeuner rapide dans un bar à vin, et une gélato délicieuse (chocolat-orange, mon amour), les musées proprement dits. La visite tout entière vous dirige vers la chapelle Sistine, mais cette fois-ci ce que j’ai le plus apprécié sont les bâtiments eux-mêmes, avec leurs plafonds souvent peints en trompe-l’oeil (sauf quand le stuc imite le trompe-l’oeil imitant le stuc !), leur parqueterie raffinée, et leurs décors muraux démesurés. La chapelle en elle-même reste l’expérience étrange dont j’avais le souvenir, un lieu de recueillement décoré de fresques puissantes et agitées (sérieusement, les personnages sont tous en mouvement, il se dégage de l’ensemble une certaine impression de chaos, à l’exception bien sûr de Dieu tendant le doigt vers Adam), sous lesquelles se pressent sans grande charité des hordes de touristes cherchant à accaparer le meilleur angle pour tout voir, pendant que des cerbères leur jappent en six langues d’arrêter de pousser, de continuer à bouger vers la sortie, d’ôter leur chapeau, de ne pas prendre de photos, d’arrêter de parler, de ne pas se gratter le nez, etc. Un contraste intéressant.

The Vatican was frankly exhausting, so we headed home for a couple of hours to decompress in a nice, quiet environment. Once we were feeling a little more relaxed, we headed out first to a local bar for a drink on the patio, and then to another restaurant that Cha’s sister Nolwenn had recommended to us: Pepe Verde. A semi-upscale place decorated in pastels, they served us a nice meal of pasta (for Charlotte) and more pizza (for me). Mine was delicious. Charlotte’s was, too, but it was made with a heavily salted pork that proved eventually overwhelming to her. Still, we enjoyed the meal and had a very nice, long discussion over a bottle of wine before heading home for more sleep.

Épuisés par le Vatican, nous nous sommes offert une pause de deux heures à l’appartement avant de finir la journée en prenant un verre et en regardant passer le monde à la terrasse d’un bar du quartier. Et bien sûr, dîner pasta (moi) – pizza (lui), même si ma “pasta alla gricia” s’est révélée une expérience moins enthousiasmante que les cacio e pepe, le porc salé (et surtout le sel) me brûlant la bouche tellement il dominait. Une soirée relaxante et très agréable malgré ça, et la pizza de Chris, délicieuse, ne compensait pas mal ma déception.

Flickr Gallery: Vatican

 

Tuesday marked our last full day in Rome, and we knew we had to get inside the Colosseum; it was the one thing I said I’d absolutely regret if we didn’t do. So we got our tickets and headed in (the line was surprisingly short, even though we’re not early risers and didn’t get there ahead of the crowds). I was not disappointed! Not only is the structure itself amazing, but they’ve done a very good job with the informational signs, which paint a fascinating picture not only of the games themselves, but of the spectators who took them in. We were particularly amused by the accounts of the people nearly 2,000 years ago who decided to bring their own charcoal grills to the stadium in order to have hot food while they watched the spectacle — not that far from modern tailgating!

Mardi étant notre dernier jour à Rome, notre mission était claire : le Colisée ! Les tickets achetés par Internet ont bien raccourci la queue malgré notre inaptitude à nous lever tôt, et nous avons tous les deux énormément apprécié la qualité des informations sur place, qui dépeignent à la fois l’histoire des spectacles, celle des spectateurs, et celle des fouilles qui permettent de reconstituer les deux premières. Chris en particulier a trouvé l’habitude romaine d’apporter des grils au charbon au colisée amusante, car elle ressemble beaucoup à la pratique américaine contemporaire du tailgating, ces pique-niques très équippés que les Américains organisent sur les parkings des stades.

Flickr Gallery: Colosseum

Satisfied with the Colosseum, we moved on to Castel Sant’Angelo, about which I knew nothing. Turns out, it was the burial site of the Roman Emperor Hadrian, until a bunch of Popes were like “hey let’s pile dirt and rocks on this and then build a fortress and some apartments on/around it” (no, seriously). As a result, it’s a weird-looking multi-tiered sort of mushroom building, which is actually very cool. We climbed all the way to the top, taking in the sights along the way. It wasn’t crazy-busy like a lot of attractions, which was nice, although like much of Rome it was periodically flooded with school groups composed of approximately ten thousand eight year-old French kids and four teachers who looked like they wished they were outside smoking.

Du Colisée, nous sommes ensuite allés au Castel Sant’Angelo, dont j’avais un excellent souvenir qui ne s’est pas démenti. À l’origine tombe pour l’empereur Hadrien, le castel est réellement devenu château quand les papes ont eu l’idée… originale… de recouvrir la tombe d’un monceau de terre, d’y construire une forteresse, et d’adjoindre quelques appartements de plaisir au tout. Le résultat est un peu étrange, à mi-chemin entre un champignon géant et une tour de jeu d’échec, et donc très unique. La visite donne une grande sensation de liberté, on monte progressivement le long de la tour en admirant la vue sur Rome, et le monument grouille moins de monde que les autres, même si il est de temps en temps pris d’assaut par une troupe d écoliers en voyage scolaire. Les groupes français étaient particulièrement bien représentés lors de notre visite, chacun composé d’une dizaine de milliers d’enfants de dix ans, et de quatre jeunes profs se retenant à grande peine de tout quitter pour aller en griller une ou trente n’importe où où ils puissent avoir la paix.

Flickr Gallery: Castel Sant’Angelo

Our final dinner in Rome was also our best. First we had a drink at a café in the market square Campo de’ Fiori. Then we headed for a little restaurant called Al Duello, at which we’d made reservations earlier. The restaurant was upscale without feeling pretentious, and the food was excellent. As appetizers, I had salmon carpaccio with orange peel sauce and Charlotte had beef carpaccio, and for our mains I had a filet mignon in mustard sauce, and Charlotte had saltimbocca. Everything was terrific! We finished up with coffee (but passed on dessert — too full!) and then caught the train back to our apartment, where we digested for a bit before heading to bed.

Le dernier dîner à Rome fut aussi le meilleur. Le restaurant Al Duello, bien connu des touristes, tire son nom d’une légende sur Le Caravagge, mort (peut-être…) des suites d’un duel occasionné par son caractère orageux. Nous avons dégusté à la mémoire du grand homme, dont nous avons tant admirés les toiles ce voyage, des carpaccios (OK, c’est pas le même peintre… et alors ?), saumon pour Chris et boeuf pour moi, J’ai finalement mangé une saltimbocca à Rome, la sauge “sautant” effectivement en bouche, et Chris un filet mignon sauce moutarde. Le reste n’est que baggages à faire et train à prendre, direction Naples, pour la suite de nos aventures italiennes. Avanti !

Wednesday morning, we packed up our stuff, cleaned up the apartment, and headed for the train station. We grabbed a quick lunch at a nearby tourist trap (wild boar pasta for me, carbonara for Charlotte), and then found our platform and waited for our train. It arrived on schedule, and we hopped aboard. A few minutes later, we were bound for Naples, and a whole new set of adventures.