Ali – We arrived in Rome Monday evening and bumbled our way to our AirBnB located close to the Pyramid of Cestius, which legend had it was the tomb of Remus but was actually built in 30 BC during a Roman ‘All things Egypt’ fad. Think of it like the Luxor Las Vegas.
The big thing we had planned in Rome was a private tour that we booked on the recommendation of sister-in-law Beth through Italy Rome Tour. Beth said the very steep price of admission was worth it and I planned to send her the bill if the tour sucked. However, that wasn’t until Wednesday so Tuesday we were on our own.
The thing about Rome is it is absolutely overwhelming if you have a need to see all the sites. Every 50 feet there is a priceless artifact, famous building, historical figure tomb or ancient Roman Taco stand. For Tuesday, we set our sights on the Pantheon because a) it wasn’t included on our tour on Wednesday and b) refer back to a. Not 10 minutes into the walk we came across a pastry shop and were sucked in past the pastry shop event horizon. Joe and I ordered coffee and discovered ‘coffee’ was Italian for ‘raw coffee grinds in a hint of liquid’. 
Overcaffinated and over sugared we resumed course, and started to encounter random ruins. The Italians have a very practical approach to their historic treasures. Given that Rome was a rather large city, they have recognized that they have neither the time nor the money to turn every ancient urinal into a pristine tourist trap. Instead they practice a sort of benevolent neglect, putting a fence around the site and letting it continue to be…well… a ruin. 
So random temple, ancient theater and former gate to something were all sitting in their delapidated glory, surrounded by overgrown weeds, like grandpa in his underwear out on the porch. Now for the do-it-yourself tourist, this is great. You can wander around the city with your google map and click on each icon, which will give you a link to a Wikipedia page or some other reference. Maya tolerated me narrating our walk for about 30 minutes before she put her earphones in and turned on an audio book. Joe seemed to tolerate me slightly longer, but I suspect was actually counting Italian sports cars while nodding politely.
Now there are other very cool sites in Rome besides the historic buildings. There are walls of chocolate, nuns getting ice cream, funny Tourist crap and hunky priests. Clearly a city with something for everyone. 
Eventually we made it to the Pantheon, which turns out is a Roman temple turned church that was built and then rebuilt over a 150 year period and currently sports the world’s largest un-reinforced concrete dome. Pantheon Check. Next?
Next we decided to go to the Villa Borghese, which is a big park. We rented a power-assisted peddle cart thingy and took turns taking corners at high speed.
Those were probably the highlights of Tuesday. We covered a whopping 10 miles and we’re feeling a bit pooped when we got back to the apartment.
Wednesday we were picked up at our AirBnB by Daniele and ushered into a plush black minivan with waters and candy. He took us first up one of the seven hills of Rome, Aventine hill, to see the Garden of Oranges, a fantastic lookout spot, the Basilica of Saint Sabina, which is the oldest preserved Roman Basilica (fun fact: Basilicas are churches where dead people are buried), and the home of the Knights of Malta, which are an order of knights hanging on to relevance since the Crusades. The thing about residence of the Knights of Malta is their keyhole, which you can peep through to see a cool sight. My picture through the keyhole was pretty lame but you can click on the link above to see a better one.
Next we were dropped off at the catacombs. This was honestly nothing special. We were joined by an entire bus load of English speakers and trailing after 40 mostly elderly Americans did not make for an excellent touring experience, although it did provide for one of the best quotes of the day.
Tour guide: Though most famous for Christian burials, people of all the Roman religions are buried in here in the catacombs.
Tourist: So did they have the church services down here?
Tour guide: They would mostly perform rites above ground before the burial.
Tourist: You mean they buried savages down here??!?
Tour guide: [pause] Maybe we should continue.
After the catacombs we met up with our main tour guide, whose name I have shamefully forgotten. We’ll call her Maria because that sounds Italian. So Maria is an art history major who has a bubbly personality and an impressive ability to talk for hours about Roman history. She is also the Italian separated -at-birth twin of Jeanie Murphy from the Spain blog, I’m pretty sure. She completely endeared herself to me because she started the answer to every question with, “Well yes and no…”, which is akin to the Epidemiologist’s pat answer, “it depends.” First Maria took us to the Colloseum. 
“Did lions really eat the gladiators?” “Well yes and no…” “Were there really no toilets in the whole Colloseum?” “Well yes and no…”. I won’t tell you all the amazing information that came after the consistent preface but I can say I learned a lot.
After the Colloseum we toured around a bit in the area, delving into some interesting parallels between Roman mythology and Christianity (check out the original Easter Egg)
. It was really a brilliant strategy on the part of the early Christians to convert pagans by making for a smooth and seamless transition between religions. Emperor Constantine chose the 25th of December for Christmas because it was winter solstice in the Julian Calendar, the birthday of dying and rising gods like Mithra from Persian tradition. Check out the Remus and Romulus story for more fun biblical parallels.
Finally we hopped back in the minivan to head to Vatican City, the world’s smallest country (fun fact: the 200 some citizens of Vatican City pay no taxes).
So there’s a lot to see at the Vatican but the big ones are the Sistine Chapel and St Peter’s Basilica. But aside from that there’s a ton of art and antiquities that the Catholic Church has managed to squirrel away. The mandatory flow of tourists takes you through a beautifully decorated hall towards the Sistine Chapel.
What’s remarkable about it is it looks like there are decorations and reliefs across the surfaces. But No! It’s all painted and made to look three dimensional! Check this out and see if you can tell:
Before we went into the Chapel we got a full art lesson on Michelangelo’s frescos. He was apparently a cantankerous dude probably because he kept getting forced by various popes (I think Maria said he outlasted 7 of them) to work on church stuff. Anyway no pictures in the Sistine Chapel!
Next Saint Peter’s Basilica. Couple fun facts. Jesus named Peter Petrus because Pietra means stone in Greek and he was the rock of the church. Saint Peters Basilica was the last thing Michelangelo was forced to work on by a pope as he died in his 70s while working as the general contractor. Finally in the whole bloody place there is only one symbolic reference to God. 
Well we were totally pooped (again!) after 7 hours of touring and called it a day. Buuuuut no trip to Vatican City is complete without checking out the Swiss Guard on the way out, who are the dedicated Vatican soldiers. They are apparently allowed to show up to work in their silk pajamas, which shows that the Catholic Church has a soft side. 