Rome Part 1: "Pop(e) goes my heart!"

Sunday: Me and my workmates arrived at Rome Ciampino airport this morning, were picked up by a coach bus and were driven straight to our hotel, The Rome Cavalieri Hotel, which is a Waldorf-Astoria owned hotel, so not too shabby at all. It is actually so not-shabby so that a bottle of still water is humbly priced at €8 and access to the internet for guests is associated with a nominal fee of €27 per day (hence the reason why this entry probably will be posted when I get home)! In the VIP valet parking there was a Maserati convertible sports car parked right next to a Ferrari Enzo super-sports car.

Anyway, our rooms were not yet ready when we got there as we were a bit early, so we jumped right on the next shuttle bus to downtown Rome. I believe I also managed to confuse practically everyone on the bus when I had my Italian speaking team member Giuseppe talk to the bus driver and have him, out of the blue, pull over on the next available side street and drop a few of us off at the Vatican instead of proceeding further downtown where the bus would normally stop. Reason for this sudden move was that I had heard that the Pope himself usually made an appearance at noon on Sundays and I couldn’t afford to miss an opportunity to see the Big Papa(l). Said and done; after a quick walk with my friends from our office in Sweden, we walked through the arches to the Vatican! Not only had we just disrupted the whole shuttle bus 5 minutes ago, we were now also in another country! Boom!

We snapped a few photos of the famous circular square(?), St Peter’s square, in the Vatican whilst trying to figure out where the Pope would actually appear. When the clock struck 12, there he was! He started speaking in Italian, so no idea what he said, but man was that a cool experience! After listening for a little while, we realized that everyone else seemed to be a lot more into it than we were (probably because they were: a) Catholics and/or b) they knew Italian) so we moved on through the Vatican security checks, which was much like airport security checks, and once through, we headed full steam towards the Papal tombs. This was a little bit eerie, a little bit interesting, and a little bit romantic at the same time, but we decided to speed through the vaults fairly quickly as there is so much to see in the Vatican. After the tombs, we took a wrong turn and before we knew it, we had left the secure area without seeing half of the things we had set out to see and the Swiss guards did not want to let us back in without going through security again. So we did.

We had our sights set on checking out the St Peter’s Basilica and the famous dome, but I don’t think anyone of us realized what exactly we were about to see. To get up to the dome of the Basilica, you have to pay either €5 if you are taking the stairs all the way or €7 if you would prefer to take a lift half way up. We opted for the stairs all the way. All 553 steps up to the top! After about 300 steps, you get to enjoy a bird’s eye view of the basilica from a balcony type ledge before continuing up to the top and we were all just standing there, astounded by the beauty of the cathedral and the unbelievable engineering feat it must have required to build the whole thing! A guessing game of how tall the dome was from the ground to the top and various ways of estimating were discussed. One of the guys suggested that “his parents’ house was about 13 meters tall and that he would estimate that he could probably stack 20 of those houses on top of each other inside the dome.” We later found out that the dome was 147 meters, or about 440 feet, tall. This was also a good opportunity to catch a breath and let our legs rest after what felt like a billion steps instead of 300. After a while, we motored on towards the top in a system of stairs that were both spiral and leaning against the cupola wall at the same time. And people wonder why Quasimodo had a funny walk! Once at the top, we were presented with a breathtaking 360 degree view of Rome and great photo ops. And then it was just the matter of getting down…

After another 553 steps going down, we ended up down in the Basilica itself where we admired the artwork, the ceilings, the beauty, and again, the architecture. We also got to witness a somewhat creepy procession of priests, priests in wheelchairs, nuns and common people. In hindsight, after catching my breath and after composing myself, the Vatican is probably one of the most amazing places I have ever visited, truly fantastic!

The day was rounded off with a late lunch in an authentic Italian restaurant. Very, very tasty foods were had! Tonight I have been down mingling with other CB people at the opening reception, which was held in a venue that supposedly is the best rated restaurant in Rome and the 4th best restaurant in Italy! I concur, as the food was divine!