When In Rome...

The last few weeks have been an absolute whirlwind for me. I had midterms, then my family came to visit, then I had spring break. All that considered, the blog has been neglected and is now due for some major updating. So, back to the beginning of the craziness (well, after midterms, those aren't worth mentioning), the Hamachek Family Visit!

As soon as my wonderful family arrived in Milano, we grabbed some gelato, a quick picnic lunch, and dashed off to Rome! Within their first few hours in Italy, my family had eaten the best of the food, conquered the metro and taken advantage of the fabulous train system. Talk about immersion!

We arrived at our beautiful B&B (oh the joys of traveling with Parents- you get to upgrade from hostels), ate dinner and set out to explore the city a little. Our B&B was located mere minutes away from the Spanish Steps.

And was similarly close to the Trevi Fountain! Everything was so beautiful and light up and relatively less crowded. It was an incredible introduction to Rome, to be able to first see some of the major sites in a more intimate way. Though they had put up a commendable effort, the family was a little travel-weary (and I had mid-terms burnout), so we headed in early and got a full night sleep.
The next day we hit the ground running (literally, running toward meeting points as we somehow always found ourselves on the verge of being late for the tours...). We started off with an incredible tour of ancient Rome, seeing the forum, Palatine hill and the colosseum. Though I've become a fairly self-sufficient traveler, having our fabulous tour-guide, Mandy, really made the city come alive. We saw and learned about more history, monuments, etc than we ever could have seen or appreciated on our own. As I'm sure anyone who has read most of this blog already knows, I'm a huge fan of knowing the history and context behind places that I travel, so having someone there to tell us all the background information and details on everything we saw was such a wonderful treat for me!

Here's a panorama my sister Tori took of the forum,

We learned all about the ancient Roman culture, learning the back-stories on ordinary looking piles of rubble. One of the more interesting details was the palace of the Vestal Virgins. These women were selected at a young age from amongst the elite families of Rome, and given the honor of protecting and guarding their chastity and the sacred flame of Rome. Failure to uphold either resulted in live burial. Now, if you're anything like me, you probably are thinking these women were given the bad end of a deal. But before casting judgement, there are some more facts to consider. As it turns out, these women weren't just some glorified, objectified figureheads of a bygone era. The VV's were the most powerful, revered women in ancient Rome, bestowed with privileges and power given to no other women. For example, their power of pardoning ANY prisoner allowed them to save the live of Julius Caesar. Paradoxically, through submitting to objectification, these women gained tremendous agency. Here's a picture of the temple that housed the sacred flame the Virgins had to protect.

Here's a picture of the whole family in the colosseum.

And fortunately for my family, and me of course, the weather was fairly nice and there was even some evidence that spring was finally arriving in Italy!

After that tour we grabbed a disastrously quick lunch (suffice to say jet-lagged brains didn't understand my explanations of the lack of a "quick bite" in Italy), and we raced to our next tour at the Vatican with more or less empty stomachs. The Vatican tour was incredible! I saw so many pieces of art that I've been studying all semester long in my Renaissance Art History Class, the experience was literally mind blowing. I do have to admit though, being packed into such crowded quarters took away some of the magic of seeing artwork in person. None the less, we admired the School of Athens by Raffaello, la Cappella di Sistina, and even saw a courtyard by good old Bramante (a favorite of the Milanese).

This is the pine-cone courtyard by Bramante, so named for the prominent Pagan pine-cone statue at the front. Interestingly, the Vatican has installed some modern art smack dab in the middle of this historic place. I haven't entirely made up my mind, but I have to say there was something pleasing about the paradoxical contrasting coherence. Anyone else want to weigh in on this relationship of new plus old?

After having our brains wonderfully packed full of all sorts of history and art and culture (when I, self admitted nerd, am becoming weary of that, you know everyone else must be bored stiff), we headed off to get a treat and take a break. After recharging, so to speak we headed off to a recommended restaurant for dinner. What we ended up with was a full on traditional Italian meal experience, complete with antipasti, primo piati, second piati, and dessert. The waiter took immense pleasure in both playing practical jokes on the entire table, and in trying to confuse me with my limited Italian. I have since concluded he must have been largely speaking in the Roman dialect as I truly didn't understand most of what he said!

Day 2 of tours was much more relaxed and history-light. We once again had the privilege of being led around by Mandy who mangaged to show us all the rest of the must-see sights in Rome as well as take us to her favorite gelato shop!

We saw temples turned into city buildings,

Beautiful courtyards,

and of course the Trevi fountain, actually a monument to celebrate the faithful aquaduct that survived time, neglect and war and still brings water and prosperity to the city of Rome. Here's Tori and I throwing our coins into the fountain, wishing to return to Rome!

And that, more or less, was Rome packed into 2 days! It is an incredible city that I'm so glad to have seen. The sheer quantity and extreme proximity of so many generations upon generations of history was amazing to experience. And from there, we headed back into Milano to let the family get a taste of my typical daily life in the city!

Ciao for now,

Katie