Civitavecchia and Rome

7/5

I discovered yesterday, after wearing my second to last pair of clean underwear, that there is no laundry service on the ship until we leave Italy, which is another four days. So, I pulled out my dry laundry soap (glad I brought it, Mom) filled the sink and did my laundry that way. My roommate and I also MacGyver-ed a clothesline from the elastic strings on the nametags we received upon boarding the ship. She brought clothespins, so it works pretty well over all, although it is a little inconvenient to have to duck under a line of clothes when I want to cross to the other side of the room. But, this is a small price to pay for clean clothes!

Last night after the 4th of July celebration I wrangled up a group of people who did not have plans for today. We didn’t really make plans except to meet together around 11am, which was fantastic because I’ve been out by 9am every other morning. We met up and walked around Civitaveccha for an hour and a half or so. The city is very cute, although coming from the port we were a little worried about just walking around the city because there was nothing but industrial-looking buildings and piles of old fishing nets for the first five or so minutes of our walk. But, once we got into the main city it was fine, and we found a very cute pedestrian walkway parallel to the coat that was lined with shops, restaurants and cafes. This was perfect timing, because I was hungry. I stopped into a few to check out their wares, and after fifteen minutes or so of browsing decided upon a chocolate croissant from a café down a side street. I love chocolate croissants, so I was already excited to have this for my (very belated) breakfast. When I took my first bite, I discovered that it was filled not just with chocolate, but with Nutella. I enthusiastically announced this news to my friends and made them all try a bite. They agreed: the most delicious Nutella croissant ever.

Eventually we wandered our way to the train station in Civitavecchia. We hadn’t really aimed to go there, but we figured we may as well check out the times for trains. After looking at the list of departures and realizing that the next train for Rome left in fifteen minutes, we looked at each other, shrugged, and bought our 4.5 euro train tickets into Rome. How often will I be able to just say “Hey guys, let’s go to Rome!” and then actually go?

The train was about an hour with all the stops it made at smaller towns between Civitavecchia and Rome. I felt a little like I was traveling from Palo Alto to San Francisco on the CalTrain, but a lot cooler. On the way we passed tomato greenhouses, small cornfields, grape vines (which may have been vineyards…a friend and I want to do a wine tasting at one of the vineyards nearby before we leave Italy, but I’m not sure if we’ll have time) and several giant fields of sunflowers and I wished I could stop the train to run through.

We arrived in Rome, and the first thing I saw out the window (apart from endless advertisements for calzones and beer…I was hungry again by this time) was a giant flat screen TV suspended from the ceiling of the train station. What was playing? An preview for HP 7 part 2! I *ahem* subtly and graciously alerted my traveling companions to this fact, and remembered that the movie comes out in about a week. I’ll be in Croatia when it comes out (I think), so I’ll see if I have time to see it, or if we can find a movie theater where it’s playing in Dubrovnik.  Once we exited the train, we walked into the nicest train station I have ever been in. It was a two-story mall full of cafes, restaurants and an array of shops with trains coming in on one side and ticket booths sprinkled along the walls. I’m almost sad we didn’t stay there a little longer…but we were in Rome, we had places to go and things to see.

Two out of the four people in our group had been to Rome already, and the other two were going back to do a day at Vatican City, so we decided to head over to the Coliseum. On the way, we were starving so we stopped at a little street café serving pizza and picked up a slice each (which the woman folded into a calzone and served to us in a piece of paper) and a peach iced tea, which was delicious so I had about six more over the next few days while I was in Italy. I remembered going to the Coliseum before, but it was still a little shocking to be turning through narrow streets of modern Rome and then all the sudden have giant ancient Roman ruins popping up out of nowhere. It’s cliché, but Rome really is the eternal city. We decided against doing a tour of the inside of the Coliseum after a look at the giant line, but we walked all around the outside, admiring the feat of Roman engineering and imagining what it must have been like to see the gladiators there back in the day. The Roman Forum is right next to the Coliseum, so we walked around that next. Again, the ruins just pop up in the middle of the city, and the rest of modern Rome just continues operating seamlessly all around it. It’s a pretty large area, which makes it feel less crowded even though there were tourists from all over the world there. I loved hearing all the different languages spoken all around me, and took the opportunity throughout the day as we wandered the city to practice my very limited Italian. While at the Forum, we happened to run into another two of my SAS friends. I was so surprised at this…out of all of Italy how did we just happen to run into each other? But after considering that the majority of SASers were in Rome today, and that the majority of those were at a limited number of main tourist destinations in Rome, it became less surprising.

After the Roman Forum, we decided to walk to Trevi Fountain (which never actually happened that day). On the way, we passed by one of those spray paint street artists, and deicded to watch. One of the girls in our group was attending art school, so we stayed a little longer than I would have otherwise, but it was in the shade and the rest was quite pleasant despite the spray paint fumes drifting past us. While sitting on the curb inhaling fumes and watching the street artist create a sunset behind the Coliseum, I heard my name shouted from across the street. I looked up, and—again—I saw another two of my friends, the very same that I would be staying in a hostel in Rome with the day after tomorrow, across the street. Shocked and delighted, I waved them over, and the six of us decided to head to the Mouth of Truth (Bocca della Verita), which was close by. It was closed when we got there, so we just peaked at it through the bars and stuck our hand through to take pictures. Harry Potter must have still been on my mind, because the only thing I could think when I saw it was how much it reminded me of the Salazar Slytherin face that the basilisk slithers out of in the second movie. While I’m at it, I’d just like to say that even though I’m in Europe I’m still really excited for HP 7 part 2 to come out…and will most likely see it while in Croatia as long as we have some free time (which is doubtful considering my trip so far) and can find a theater where it’s playing in Dubrovnik.

After the Mouth of Truth, we walked up to the Piazza Venezia, which is right next the gorgeous, giant white marble capital building which is definitely one of the most beautiful things in Rome. We admired the finely carved marble statues, watched the guards near the two flames which are never supposed to go out, and hiked up the stairs to venture inside the building. Inside, we stumbled into what I thought was an Italian war history museum from late 1700s to WWII. I think we came in somewhere in the middle, because I didn’t see any titles for the museum and just assumed this from the exhibits inside. The museum was free, and was really well done. By the time we got through, I realized that we had come in at the end and that is was a museum about the unification of Italy and then the war history from that point through WWII. It was all arranged by time and full of interesting artifacts like military attire, swords, flags and lots of maps from different time periods showing the size of the different independent units within Italy. I had never really thought about Italy’s history in this way. We always study the Renaissance and look at Italy today as a solid unit and wonderful place to travel to, not to mention the mother of some of our most beloved foods. But, Italy was only unified to its current state in the late 1800s, and even today many people in Italy identify much more by their region or city (Tuscany, Venice, Rome) than by being Italian in general. I also hadn’t thought much about Italy’s position in WWII, and it’s so easy to forget that Italy had a fascist period under Mussolini not that long ago. But in the museum they had a big room all on WWII with the different generals and a video and lots of objects from the time that made it feel very real. Unfortunately, most of the text in the displays was only in Italian, so my ability to learn from the content was limited, but I’m still glad I went through the whole thing. So next time you’re in Rome, actually go inside the gorgeous marble building instead of admiring the façade.

By the time we were finished with the museum, it was getting close to time to head back to Civitavecchia, so we started walking in the direction of the train station. On the way, we passed by another piazza where there was stage and chairs for what looked like a concert or speech being set up. We wandered around for awhile, and figured out that it was a celebration for the 150th anniversary of the unification of Italy. There weren’t very many chairs though, so I think it must have not been a public function, but we couldn’t stay until it started to find out. We also passed by what looked like a political rally further along this piazza. It was a giant crowd of people, some of whom had flags with slogans in Italian that my friends and I couldn’t read, and one guy with a megaphone shouting passionately and in Italian stuff that we couldn’t understand either. But the crowed seemed to enjoy it, because they would clap or yell in response at some points. We sat back, watching and confused, for awhile and then decided to continue to the train station.

On the walk back, we of course stopped for gelato, and I had the most delicious chocolate gelato I have ever tasted. On the train on the way home, we ran into yet another group of SASers, also heading back to Civitavecchia. We swapped stories all the way back, and then decided to have dinner all together (now ten of us) at a restaurant on the promenade along the beach in Civitavecchia. I had caprese salad, spinach and ricotta ravioli, and of course red wine, all of which were delicious. The guy next to me had a bowl full of clams, and he let me try a few and they were fantastic, which makes sense since Civitavecchia is a fishing town.



7/6

Today, two of my friends and I decided that we would go to the train station and hop a train to somewhere none of us had been before. This meant that I slept in until about 10am, which felt fantastic and was much needed. Once we got to the train station, we discovered that Pisa was about a three hour ride away, and the next train left in fifteen minutes. So, we got our tickets and went to Pisa. I was only mildly enthused to see the leaning tower and much more excited just to be spontaneously taking a train somewhere I had never been before. But, once I got to Pisa, I was so glad we had decided to come.

The city was great. When we were there, there were vey few tourists in the city (they were all at the tower and cathedral) so we could walk around and enjoy the city without being buffeted back and forth by sunburned families dragging their children on backpack leashes or giant bus groups stopping in every doorway to take pictures and clogging up traffic. The city was a good size for me, easily walkable and navigable (even for us directionally challenged) thanks to a river running through the middle of the city and the large leaning tower on the far side. It only took us about 15-20 minutes to walk from the train station on one side of Pisa to the leaning tower and cathedral. Once we got there, I immediately saw where all the tourists were. There were a lot of people, but the area around the tower and cathedral is so large (a football-field sized grassy area with paths in between, the cathedral and tower in the middle and touristy shops…so many touristy shops…on the edges) that it didn’t seem too crowded. The first thing that struck me about the tower was that is was much smaller than I thought it would be. It was also much more beautiful. It’s covered with detailed reliefs and the ornate columns run along the entire thing. The columns are tricky though: they get smaller toward the top, which combined with the angle postcards always have of the leaning tower, make it look taller than it actually is. Also, in all the pictures of the tower, it’s alone. But, there is a giant, gorgeous cathedral right next to it and a giant baptistery right next to the cathedral. We toured the inside of the cathedral, and it was as beautiful as the many other epic Baroque Italian cathedrals. I find it fascinating and a little confusing how every city in Italy has one and how each are so beautifully decorated.

Like good tourists, we of course took the picture of us trying to hold up the leaning tower of Pisa. Turns out that the leaning tower was a campanile, or a bell tower, and now the bells at the top are leaning at an awkward angle which looks very silly. Also, when you stand on the other side of the cathedral, at a certain angle it looks like the tower is peeking around the cathedral, which is also very silly. But neither of these are as silly as watching everyone taking the picture trying to hold up the tower. The person holding the camera would say something along the lines of “Ok, to your left a little, no too much back to your right…ok put your hands up a little higher…um actually no just forward a little,” which, it turns out, looks the same in every language. Also there are probably a bunch of people with their hands up in a silly pose or leaning down to support the tower with their back in all of my pictures.

Once we had soaked up our fill of the tower and cathedral, we wandered around the city a little more, and had dinner at a street side café. After dinner, we headed back to the train station and hopped on the 7:15pm train back to Civitavecchia since we had FDPs (SAS-organized trips) that left at 7:30 the next morning and we needed some sleep. About half way into the train ride, the man came by to check out tickets. He looked at them for awhile, and then asked us where we were going. We told him Civitavecchia, and he shook his head. “No,” he said, “this train is going to Firenze, you need to be going toward Roma.” We had accidentally gotten on the train going in the opposite direction from where we needed to go. We looked at each other with giant eyes, and luckily the train guy spoke pretty good English, so we asked him what we should do to get back to Civitavecchia. He said we could get off in a few stops, and then take the next train from there back to Pisa, and then take the next train from Pisa back to Civitavecchia. We asked when the next train from Pisa to Civitavecchia was, and he told us 9pm, but that there was no way we could make it. The next train after that left at 2:15am. We asked if there was any other way we could get back to Civitavecchia faster, and he said no. At that point we looked at each other, shrugged, and said I guess we’re going out in Pisa.

The city we got off at to turn around and go back to Pisa was called Empoli, and it was not touristy at all. But, the city itself looked like a smaller, less busy version of Pisa. Once there, we had about 45 minutes to wait until the next train back to Pisa, so we (of course) went to a gelateria. I had melon flavored, and one of my friends had pineapple. Both were delicious and about ¼ the price of gelato in Rome.  We did make it on the train back to Pisa this time, and arrived there around 9:30. With 4 ½ hours to kill, we decided to go to one of the supermarkets on the corner (which are probably the Italian version of 7eleven, but full of delicious Italian food instead of slurpies). We picked up some baguettes, prosciutto, and a block of what we though was cheese but actually was butter, and wine. We got everything for about 10 euro…less than a bottle of cheap wine would cost at a restaurant. We took our swag and wandered around the city, looking for a good place to sit, eat and drink and do some quality people watching. Apparently Pisa is much more a day time tourist attraction than night, because I didn’t see anyone else that was blatantly a tourist while we were walking around that night. We did see the Pisa locals though…it seemed like the whole city was out walking along the street by the river. So, we crossed the bridge and came to a piazza that was filled with people. There was a club open, with music bumping and filling the whole square with a background bass beat, and a gelateria, which had a line out the front the entire time we were sitting there, and a few bars that people wandered in and out of. But mostly, people were just sitting and chatting in the piazza or along the wall next to the river, which is what were opted for. We just sat, chatted and ate our bread, prosciutto and wine as couples, groups of young Italians, and families (including children in strollers and a few babies) paraded past us.

Around midnight or 12:30, we noticed that the people sitting next to us were eating this giant (like a foot long) chocolate filled croissant. Obviously we had to have one, so we asked them (in our limited Italian and their limited English) where we could go to get it. They gave us directions to go back across the bridge, turn left and then make the first right and keep going until we passed the patisserie. We did so, and ended up on this creepy little alley. We looked at each other, sure we had gone the wrong way and thinking that maybe we should just go back, when the ally led into yet another piazza filled with Pisa locals. And there was the patisserie, Dolce Notte, with a line out the front of the store. There was also a gelato place still open and a café just closing when we arrived. The store was tiny, no sitting room inside, and filled with the most delicious croissant smells. There were a bunch of different kinds of croissants and a bunch of different toppings: nutella, chocolate sauce, whipped cream, all different jams and marmalades. I was a little overwhelmed with happiness at this point, so when it was my turn I just got the same thing that the guy in front of my did: a basic croissant with nutella and whipped cream filling. It was heavenly. With only another hour or so left to kill, we hung out in the piazza, eating our delicacies and talking with a few locals that came up to us, probably wanting to practice their English.

A little before two, we headed back to the train station and ran into another group of Pisans. We told them out story, which they found very funny, and walked us back to the train station.

We managed to get on the 2am train back to Civitavecchia. It was a sleeper train, the kind with compartments where you can lay down, but all the compartments were full. Also, all the aisles were packed with people, so we ended up standing/sitting in the area between two trains (not outside, just where the connection is) with a group of Italians about our age. They didn’t speak much English, but they were very entertaining nonetheless. We were exhausted the whole trip, but there was no way I was going to be able to sleep, so I listened to my iPod and laughed about our day the whole 3 hour ride back to Civitavecchia.

I got back to the ship at 5:30am and got about an hour and a half of sleep before getting up to start the next day. I was pretty unhappy when I had to get up, but I am still so glad that we got on the wrong train and spent that night in Pisa.


7/7

Today I had an FDP (SAS-organized trip) for my renaissance history of the Mediterranean class. It was a tour of the Jewish Museum and old ghetto in Rome. The first ting I noticed when we came to the museum was the security. There were cameras everywhere around the building, and visibly armed guards in bulletproof vests were spaced the building and surrounding area. Also, all the streets around the museum were closed to all but pedestrian traffic.

Inside the museum, our fantastic guide led us all through an incredible and well-organized chronicle of the history of the Jews in Rome. The first room contained a wide array of beautiful Torah covers, all of which had been made from second-hand fabrics and hand-embroidered by the Jewish women. Jews had been living in Rome since about 200 BC, but in 1555, the Pope decreed that the Jews must live separately from the Christians. They all lived in a few square block area which was gated and locked from the rest of the city. The inhabitants could go outside the ghetto from sunrise to sunset, but only to work. The Jews in medieval-Renaissance Rome were restricted to two professions: lending money (which was a mortal sin for Catholics) and repurposing second-hand fabrics, which explains why the Torah covers in the museum from that era were all made from recycled clothing, which the women then donated to the synagogue.

In another room, there were more Torah covers and crowns and well as scrolls, menorahs and other festival objects, all very beautiful and ornate and made by the Jews of Rome and donated to the synagogue affiliated with the museum. 

The synagogue was incredibly beautiful. It was built after 1870, which was the unification of Italy when the Pope lost governmental power over all of Rome and the ghetto was abolished. It is the largest all the synagogues in Europe, and decorated in acetyl Babylonian style, with palm trees and rainbow colors (the rainbow being the symbol between man and God) decorating the walls. It is atypical for the synagogue and looks almost like a cathedral with its lofty ceilings and carved marble decorations. It was meant to be a statement of the end of the ghetto, a symbol of equality and the continuation of Jewish life in Rome. We couldn’t take pictures inside the synagogue, or anywhere else inside the museum, which was too bad because it was beautiful.

After the museum and synagogue tour, we went on a tour of the area that was previously the ghetto. I day the area that was previously because the whole thing was demolished in 1870 and then rebuilt. The 1555 ghetto was built 7 meters below the level of the rest of the city, and since it bordered on the river Tiber, every time the river flooded (once or twice a year), the whole ghetto would flood also. Most of the Jews in Rome today live in other parts of the city, but in 1943, many still lived in the new buildings of the area, which used to be the ghetto. So as we toured the area, outside a few of the doors were the names and dates of the Nazi deportation of some Jews. 2,000 of 10,000 Jews living in Rome were deported, with the majority of the other 8,000 hiding in Rome with Christians. Unfortunately this was not the end of the area’s persecution, because in 1982 the PLO bombed the museum and synagogue, killing a two year old boy as he exited the service with his family and injuring many others.  This was the reason for the high security around the area, which was provided to the Jewish community by the Italian government. I wouldn’t have thought to do this tour if it had not been an FDP for my class, but I am really glad I went. I got to see a part of the history and present of Rome that normally gets ignored as everyone bustles off to the Vatican and Coliseum.

The area around the museum and synagogue had several Kosher Italian restaurants, so we stopped by one of those to have a delicious panini. After that, I headed to the bus stop to go to the train station with some other people on the trip, where I met up with Laura and Kallen, two of the friends I booked my hostel with. Once together, we headed to Mosaic Hostel, which was very close the train station and conveniently located near lots of tasty and cheap pizzerias and supermarkets. They also included WiFi, which is a commodity high on my priority list when wandering cities. We rested a bit, and then took a shower (they had no towels…so I dried off with the hair dryer) and went out to get dinner. We decided to get something from a small café nearby, and I had the most delicious white lasagna with artichokes. It was so good that the other girls I was eating with, who had gotten pizza, went back and bought another piece to share.

From there we headed over to the Spanish Steps, where we were planning on meeting up with several other SASers to go out. Before long, SASers were appearing out of nowhere, and we got a group together (both SASers and other people our age from all over the world who were ready for a night out in Rome) to go on the Spanish Steps Rub Crawl. It was a great night…and we ended at a club where Jeremiah, the guy who does the “birthday sex” song was playing. I was underwhelmed with his performance, but I was so happy about the night overall that it didn’t matter. Also, while on the pub crawl, we passed the Trevi Fountain and threw in a coin, so I’m all set to come back to Rome.


7/8

I woke up this morning absolutely exhausted. But, my friends and I were determined to redeem the coupons we had received at the pub crawl the night before for free pub crawl t-shirts. So, we bussed down to the Coliseum area and walked another 15 minutes or so to get to their office. At the time, I was not at all happy about this walking. I really wanted to get back to Civitavecchia and go to sleep, but now that I’m back on the ship and well-rested, I am very glad that I got the t-shirt.

We took the train back to Civitavecchia, had a late lunch and got back on the ship. We left Civitavecchia that evening and set a course to Dubrovnik, Croatia.