Tuesday, September 8, 2015
Did I tell you about how small the elevators are in our
hotel (and most European hotels in general)? How small are they you might ask?
With his heels against one side wall of the elevator, Tim’s size 15 shoes
barely fit across the elevator! And they are only about 6 feet deep. Because
they are slow, we are routinely putting all 6 of us on one elevator, although
there are times when it is difficult to get Tim in, and he has to take the
stairs up one flight.
The motto for the day of our tour of the Vatican was “carpe
spotto” – for those of you who have watched Dead Poet’s Society you will
recognize this as “conquer the spot.” Our tour guide, Ricardo, took us on a
tour of the Vatican Museum, the Sistine Chapel and St. Peter’s Basilica with
1,000,000 of our closest friends from around the world. Each time we arrived at
a spot/opening with no people, he would run to the spot and gather us for his
mini-lecture. We had a thorough tour with lots of history from Ricardo,
sometimes more than we cared to know. The Vatican Museum has about 10 miles of
galleries … and that only represents 20% of their holdings. Of course, the
Sistine Chapel is amazing and there is a river of people passing through there
on a continuous basis. It is actually a pretty small place – after all, it is a
chapel. St. Peter’s Basilica is large and amazing in many, many ways. The most
notable piece of art is the Pieta by Michelangelo, recognized by many as the
greatest piece of sculpture in the history of art. After our tours, we had the
driver drop us off at a restaurant that he recommended at the Piazza di Popolo.
We learned that lunch on a popular square in Rome is more
about the view than the food or service. The waiter at Rosati’s didn’t seem
interested in speaking English or helping with the menu [maybe his shorts were
in a serious bunch!], which had items such as “small sandwich” and “pizza.” Any
questions from us led to very curt responses and a wave of the hand. Apparently
after one question, and unbeknownst to Chris, she ordered the “stuffed
sandwich.” The waiter kept walking away and we weren’t sure what he was doing.
As it turned out, each time someone ordered something, he went away to put in
the order. We realized all this when the waiter showed up with a Costco-sample-sized
sandwich with one layer of ham and one thin slice of cheese. Chris said,
“What’s this? Where’s the rest of my sandwich?” thinking it was perhaps a
sample. Michele caught the moment on film (or on silicon as the case may be),
which shows Chris with an astonished expression as the waiter stepped back. The
rest of our drinks and food came out a little bit at a time as we ordered and
we were never really sure what was about to arrive. Chris re-ordered a “club
sandwich,” which eventually came with tuna, salmon, egg between two dry pieces
of toast … and Chris doesn’t even like fish!!! What I do know is that two 10
oz. Cokes cost more than 3 sandwiches for the Rubergs, the total bill being
35€. We all had a lot of laughs during lunch as we tried to interact with the
waiter.
We did some self-directed touring of other areas of Rome,
eating gelato, seeing more amazing basilicas and churches, fountains and Roman
architecture. We got back to the hotel and decided to eat there in the Rose
Garden restaurant. We had some drinks before dinner, and believe it or not, we
also got complimentary Pringles with our drinks. Turns out this is considered a
delicacy in Rome! We had a GREAT meal, and the mere fact that we had only to go
up one flight of stairs to get to our rooms was and added bonus.
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