Andrew Betts

Arriving in Rome, the city’s budget accommodation options were a bit thin on the ground, and availability seemed limited to a huge Hostelling International place a long way from the centre. Having no real choice in the matter, I got on the metro and headed west. I had to get off at Ottavio St Petro and change to a number 32 bus, and finally arrived at the hostel realising that it was actually off my map.It was a typical HI hostel - ultra clean, but anonymous and completely devoid of any helpful utilities like power sockets. It also featured a curfew and a lockout, which wasn’t terribly helpful when it takes so long to get there from the centre.

Having showered and generally feeling a lot more human, I got the next 32 back to the metro station. Unfortunately it is rather a long way, so I wasn’t really paying attention when the metro stop went sailing past the window. I stayed on, thinking something interesting would probably crop up.

Something interesting was the Vatican. I got off the bus and joined a queue for the Vatican Museum - the queue was very, very long, but it moved at a reasonable speed and I got to the entrance in about 40 minutes. The museum was huge. I’m told that if you stood in front of every item for 10 seconds, you’d be in the museum for about a thousand years. Actually I don’t remember the exact timings, but it was an impressive statistic.

I spent only a couple of hours in the museum, as paintings and sculpture aren’t really my thing, but the Sistine Chapel was spectacular. It was packed though, so perhaps it would have been better to go earlier in the day. I moved on to St Peters’ Basilica. The piazza in front provides all the grandeur you’d expect, but it was still impressive - columns marched in a circle around the perimeter, and the Church stood majestically opposite a tree-lined avenue which ran to the river.

Inside, St Peters is enormous. The size is not immediately obvious because it is not one cavernous space, but instead has various off-shoots. I spotted an English-language tour, and positioned myself to discreetly listen in, trying to appear as though I was looking at something else. The American guide finished what she was saying about the sculpture that was the current focus of her attention, and then surveyed her group.

“For all those people listening in, yes - you, you and you - I know who you are, this is a FREE tour. So don’t be shy”

Oh. Well, fair enough then. I followed the rest of the tour, and the group got steadily larger as the guide managed to keep pulling in more people. It was good, not for the serious intellectual, but there was a good amount of information wrapped in glossy soap-opera packaging, which kept the crowd interested. At the end of the tour the guide (whose name was Mason - the only piece of information she kept repeating) delivered her sales pitch for the paid tour of the Vatican Museums.

On the way out I spotted a couple of Swiss guards. These guys are part of the smallest armed force in the world, which protects the pope. They seem to be largely ceremonial, seeing as they wear uniforms that look like costumes from a pantomime, and to get anywhere near the church you have to pass through a security checkpoint manned by rather more practically-attired police officers. The American tour guide had finished her tour talking about the requirements to be a Swiss guard, which are, if I remember them correctly:

1. You have to be Swiss.
2. You have to be under 26, and unmarried at time of joining. (Allegedly being a virgin was also a requirement, but this was dropped when it was realised that it was not easy to verify)
3. You must have completed at least a year of military service in Switzerland.
4. You have to be Catholic.
5. You have to be good-looking.

Political correctness has apparently not been a major part of the Vatican’s recent policy!

I spent the afternoon walking into town, through the city’s park, and back to the hostel though ‘unmapped’ territory. I had loads of laundry to do, and assumed (wrongly) that such a large hostel would have laundry facilities. I was directed to a laundrette ‘near’ the metro station.

It took almost half an hour to find it, and I had to ask at least five people. It turned out to be on the corner of a block southwest of the metro station. It had internet facilities to keep customers entertained while they waited, so I checked my email and found some friends online on MSN. At one point I managed to get rid of the counter indicating how much time was remaining, and thought that perhaps I’d managed to give myself infinite credit, but as soon as my washing was ready the machine just switched off. Crude, but effective.

Having deposited my laundry back at the hostel, the bus and metro once again took me back into town. I ate dinner on Via Nationale, and phoned home from the floodlit Coliseum. Made it back just before curfew.

summary

Vatican Museums didn’t impress, but St Peters Basilica and the Coliseum provided the necessary wow factor

location

trip

day:15