Saturday seemed like it could have been a promising day. I somehow convinced Aaron (who is not the biggest fan of the Catholic Church) to make a trip to the Vatican City.
It was a sunny, pretty day and we spent a bit of time exploring the main center of the City. First things first, the line going into St. Peter’s Basilica was extremely long. Not knowing much, we assumed this was the only way to get into the museum, the church and the Sistine Chapel. So it was either wait in the huge long line, turn around and go back to Rome or... there were several people offering guided tours of the museum and everything. They said it cost about 20€ to get in, but if we took a tour with them, we could cut the line, learn a few things while walking through and that it was only 30€ in total.
So... that’s really expensive. At that point, I really wanted to go in and going all the way to Rome without visiting the center of the religion I grew up with seemed dumb. We agreed to the tour and then followed our tour guide around to the real entrance of the museum. The museum had no line. Once you were in the museum, it led you through the Sistine Chapel and then directly to St. Peter’s. No lines through any of that. On top of that, since we were students, the cost to get into the museum was only 8€....and we ended up paying 20€ for the guided tour. We definitely got screwed over. Our flakey tour guide also proved to have minimal knowledge.
During the 4 hours it took to go through everything, we got to see a lot. I actually really enjoyed the museum. The Sistine Chapel was amazing. I thought it was really strange though because visitors cannot take pictures of the ceiling (even though many people were). Apparently it’s copyrighted.
St. Peter’s Basilica was enormous and really beautiful as well. I didn’t get to see the Pope but I did manage to get really creeped out that I was standing next to an old dead embalmed Pope in the Basilica.
After our adventures in the Vatican City, we went to the Trevi Fountain. It was a lot bigger than I thought it would be for some reason. I tossed in one Swedish crown, of course. We didn’t spend a long time there; although looking back, I wish we would have. It was my favorite place we saw in Rome.
Saturday was such a long day. Aaron and I didn’t even bother looking for a new restaurant for dinner. We went back to the one we discovered the previous night. We actually ended up sitting awkwardly close to the couple next to us and one of their meals looked divine. So I did one of those, “I’ll have what she’s having.”
I think mine was called something like “Penne alla Minerva.” Minerva being a Roman goddess, I think the name suited the dish really well. It was a large plate of pasta covered in gorgonzola, garlic, mushrooms and parmesan. It was our last night in Rome and I think it was well spent drinking the house wine and eating my weight in pasta. We even ordered tiramisu for dessert.
On Sunday, it was time to go back to Paris. Rome was interesting and I’m glad we went. However, I don’t think I will be going back to Rome anytime in the near future. I thought it was loud, dirty, historic and delicious.
When we got back to Paris, there wasn’t much to do on a Sunday night. We ended up seeing “The Social Network” at a small theater.
Monday was Valentine’s Day. It also happened to be sunny, warm and very beautiful outside. Aaron and I had a late lunch and just walked around Paris for a few hours. Then that night, instead of trying to fight the crowds in the restaurants, we attempted to recreate the “Minerva” pasta dish from Rome in Aaron’s small apartment kitchen. It turned out to be a successful dinner and a perfect day in Paris.
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