Marcus's Trip to Rome: May 2009

Tuesday, May 19th, 2009

Today was Catholic Day—we got up bright and early, savored our hotel breakfast, enjoyed our interactions with the Dutch women and with the hotel staff, and then shot straight to the Vatican in a cab, to preserve our energy before the long day of walking ahead of us.

First we walked through the square up to St. Peter’s, and Robert was waved through the metal detector, despite setting it off, because of “Bello! Bambino!” on his back. After St. Peter’s, we walked about fifteen minutes around the Vatican over to the Vatican Museums, where there was a long line—we couldn’t quite see the end of it. I peered toward the end, and then peered toward the front, and all of a sudden a guard was holding my arm and ushering me to the front of the line. “Signora, per favore!” My baby (asleep in the mei tai), my ticket to avoiding a line in the heat! Robert scrambled after us, saying, “I’m with the baby!” and hurrying in.

Inside, I waited for the rush of air conditioning that one normally finds in museums. The lobby did appear to be air conditioned, but apparently, like the “air conditioning” in our hotel, it doesn’t actually cool the air perceptibly. Marcus was hungry as well as hot, but the only bench I saw in the lobby was in the middle of too much hustle and bustle for baby to relax and nurse, so I told Robert we’d head into the museums and find a bench in a quiet nook or corner—you know, like museums always have. Uh huh—not this museum! The Vatican was more crowded, by far, than the ancient Roman sites we’d seen yesterday, and these humongous tour groups kept clogging the path. It was also unidirectional, and as I plowed through the rooms, growing increasingly panicky, I didn’t see a single bench. Finally—in the gallery of maps—I found a bench. I leapt onto it triumphantly, scaring the two Japanese men who were sitting on half of it and admiring their digital pictures. Marcus, who had been fretful, latched on desperately and started chugging. We both relaxed. I sat there in bliss, admiring the map I was randomly situated in front of, while people streamed by and my baby nursed. Two Dutch women gave me big thumbs-up signs and pointed to their own breasts in apparent solidarity. Robert rolled his eyes. Thus fortified, we were ready to continue on, actually appreciating the museum now.

We walked along slowly, ready to do what we normally do in museums and read everything—all the plaques under the paintings, everything on the paper floorplans/maps you get while walking around, and all the informational notes at the beginnings and ends of galleries, even if they’re in Spanish, or Italian, or French—but we encountered another snag: there was nothing to read. I mean nothing. Not a thing was labeled. There were no free floorplans to be had (just 6 euro big fat guidebooks). We had no idea where we were or what we were looking at. We decided to just take it as it came, and we walked along casually until we got to the Sistine Chapel. That was air-conditioned, a little bit, unlike the rest of the galleries, where wide-open windows (no screens) just let in heat, humidity, dust, pollution, etc., but absolutely jammed. The guards kept shushing people, but people kept talking anyway. Marcus absolutely refused to look up. Robert was amazed that the chapel was so small—a chapel, in retrospect, not a cathedral—and that the “Creation of Adam,” which is so famous, doesn’t really jump out as the focal point in the room at all. If it had been less crowded, I would have used the little map our guidebook had to the ceiling, but as it was the crowds and heat were giving me a headache, so we walked on through and continued on in the exhibits. We ran into the friendly Dutch women from our hotel, and they seemed thrilled to see Marcus; they were flagging after so much walking in the museums, I think.

After Marcus had a relaxing crawl around the cafeteria, while Robert and I sat down and rested and ate our cookies, we all headed outside and onto our next stop—Castel Sant’Angelo, just a few blocks from the Vatican. This fabulous mausoleum was originally built by Hadrian, and then renovated every few hundred years or so by different popes for their own purposes. The self-guided tour took you around the circular building and all the way to the top, where there was a great view of the entire city.

We walked back over the bridge into our part of Rome and stopped for a late lunch at La Montecarlo, a pizzeria where we had a zucchini flower pie, as well as some deep-fried pork-stuffed olives (yum). The tattooed young waiters, not exactly your typical baby-loving demographic in the US, stopped whatever they were doing to exclaim over, play with, and pick up Marcus, every single time they walked back and forth from the kitchen. Marcus sucked on an olive and nibbled on a pizza crust, and then we walked back to the hotel for our late-afternoon siesta.

Dinner, at the recommendation of the man at the front desk, was at La Pollarolla, near Campo de’Fiori. I had an excellent, perfectly al dente bucatini and a very nicely seasoned veal chop, and Robert had a very good carbonara and a lemony roasted chicken. The food was very nice, but—like everything we’d eaten so far in Rome—not really out of the ordinary for Italian-style food we have at home. The service was an incredibly odd combination of grumpy and charmed—the waiters hated us (we order tap water), but loved our baby—and Robert was disappointed that we hadn’t yet managed to go to a restaurant where Italians outnumbered American tourists. Marcus sat on my lap and gnawed on bread and a veal chop until he fell asleep, still sitting on my lap, still greasily holding onto his bread and chop. We had a nice panna cotta with tiny wild strawberries while he slept, and then bundled him into the mei tai and headed home.

By the way, by this point we’d figured out the bread charge that was always added to our bills, and if it had been just Robert and me, we would have refused the bread hands-down (none of it was ever more than adequate, at best), but Marcus did actually eat some of it, so for the sake of our baby we lived with it.

Wednesday, May 20th, 2009

Robert and I were now on a Rome schedule as much as our baby, who took naps wherever we happened to be during the day, but did still try to put himself to sleep around 7:30 or 8:00 every night—apparently even while at dinner. In any case, today we all woke up refreshed and ready to do more of the ancient ruins which were closed on Monday.

First thing after breakfast we walked over to the Campo de’Fiori market, fairly close to the hotel, and bought some fresh and dried fruit. Marcus had his first fresh strawberry, which he loved—he ate it from my hand while in the mei tai, and his entire face, neck, and upper arms were full of strawberry. Thankfully, there was a fountain nearby to wash him off.

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