MILWAUKEE NYC-ITALY-GREECE AND A DAY IN LONDON BLOG POST TWO/PART ONE

A 24 HOUR SPRINT THROUGH ROME
THE SITE SEEING PART AND AN AMAZING TRIP THROUGH THE GALLERIA BORGHESE

SITE SEEING

We arrived in Rome in the early evening of the thirteenth. For me having the ability of sleeping almost anywhere included the confined seating on two airlines in the economy section with seats that virtually pushed your knees up into your chest was a task I was well up to. I accomplished this despite two crying babies and three middle-aged women having each downed three mini bottles of champagne and then proceeded to include all of us passengers in a continuous giggle fest all the way from Heathrow to Fiumicino. I slept through it, for Rick and Emmy not so much.

I had my travel goggles on the minute our driver left us off at our hotel. Rick and Emmy had their sleep masks on and it was all I could do to drag them to dinner.

The fourteenth turned out to be much better, so much better that I have to break our 24 hours in Rome into two posts rather than one. As much as we no longer need to see the standard tourist traps we seemed to wonder by some of them involuntarily.

Chronology is not going to play a part in the plot line of our journey here but once we were situated in our hotel

it was out into the heart of our Rome, the shopping district and its port of entry, the Spanish steps where you can see a good deal of Rome spread out before you.

On that evening of the thirteenth tired and bleary-eyed we got as far as two blocks down the Via Condotti before our weary legs gave out and we crawled back into a taxi and then into our beds.

Our neighborhood of choice for our Roman holidays has always centered around the Via Veneto with its infamous hotels and its anchor point of the old celebrity watering hole of fame, Harry's Bar. Even though it is now very passé you can still see the exquisitely fashionably dressed pretenders sitting outside in suits and Dior sipping cocktails in the ninety degree heat without producing a bead of sweat.

Of course we couldn't avoid the Trevi Fountain, it was too close to our choice for dinner that night. Even at the witching hour the area around the fountain was more packed than Times Square on New Year's Eve.

And since all paths, at least the ones we take, always go through the Piazza Navona our trip this time would once again pull us through that notorious tourist trap where street vendors with dancing light balloons and fake portrait artists try to pry you from your Euros and your dignity making many an American tourist walk around for the rest of the evening with a ridiculous lit balloon on a stick.

Still, the piazza is one of the surest places in Rome where we know we can find a taxi stand. Unlike New York where you can stand on any corner and hail a cab Rome is different. You can stand forever with your hand in the air but a cab isn't going to stop to pick you up.

On the night of the fourteenth by the time we returned to our hotel we realized for the first time the true character of our hotel's surroundings. Cica Cica Boom Boom, oh what a night!




















THE GALLERIA BORGHESE

The Galleria Borghese was my idea. We always find time to go into the park at the Villa Borghese every time we're in Rome but we've never made it into the Galleria. The Galleria requires a timed ticket and you  have to have made reservations far in advance to get your tickets. I took it upon myself to garner those tickets well in advance of our arrival in Rome. What I didn't consider was my museum partners deciding shopping might be more enjoyable than a two-hour tour of the museum. I wasn't eager for a tour either but I figured once inside I could slip away and do my own investigating. So with three tickets one for me and the other two unclaimed by Rick and Emmy, I went on my own. I tried to give away the two extra tickets to an elderly couple that had come to the ticket counter looking for tickets and were disappointed that the 1pm time slot had been sold out and there'd be no other tickets available for any time that day but when I approached them with my two extra tickets the guy behind the counter said he'd have me arrested if I handed out the tickets inside the museum. So much for a good deed going unpunished.

Despite my almost acquisition of a criminal record and a ticket to wage my own fight with the lions in the gladiator ring of the Coliseum I went unopposed into the galleria and I was glad I did. It's impossible to annotate the entire experience.

So I'm going to let my photos do my talking about the architecture, the frescos, the paintings of Caravaggio and the amazing sculptures of Bernini and Canova.

Despite the unhelpful people behind the desk, get your tickets if in Rome and go to the Galleria Borghese. You'll then know why tickets are in such demand.