CHAPTER 20 ITALY

We fly TWA from San Francisco via N.Y. to Rome, arriving in the morning of April 26, 1989, take a bus from the airport to the RR station, and walk the three blocks to the Igea Hotel where we had reserved a room. The room and bath are quite adequate, but the heat has been turned off for the summer. We eat lunch at the Trattoria Alfredo across the street, buy bread, wine, and cheese for our supper snack, and return to our room for a 2 hour nap. We return to the RR station to check with Eurocar about the car we will rent, look around some, and buy a Herald Tribune. We read in the hotel lobby for a while then go to the room for our snack before going to bed.

After a fair nights’ sleep we go down to the continental breakfast of roll, dried bread, croissant, jam, butter, and cafe latta. Then we take the Metro train to the end of the A line, and walk several blocks to the Vatican Museum. Joining crushing crowds of people we climb up two high floors to the ticket area, and start the visit that involves much walking and up and down more stairs. It is very crowded; there are many tours, we see Japanese and hear French spoken, there are many children and young people. The exhibits are not as interesting as the building itself, with many frescoed ceilings and paintings on walls. The Sistine Chapel is beautiful, and solid with tourists, but we are lucky and find a place to sit down and look up at the ceiling. After three hours in the museum we haven’t seen it all but are tired, so we walk toward the Metro station, stop for a “tursti” menu at a pizzeria, and return to the hotel for a nap.

The next morning we first go to a nearby bank and cash traveler checks; it takes a long time, but we get a better exchange rate than at the airport. Then we ride the Metro to the Coliseum and adjacent Roman Forum.