For 36 hours in Rome, you have to be really focused, for seeing what Rome has to offer could be a lifetime of 36-hour visits. Stopping briefly in Rome for the very first time (on the way to a Mediterrean-Adriatic cruise), my smart move was a private tour guide for a half day, arranged by the concierge at the Hotel Splendide Royal.
Jet-lagged yet eager to set out, I indulged in the private tour for just the dose of sight-seeing I could manage in that short visit. The personalized service was pricey (344 euros plus tip) but well worth not having to stand in interminable lines (hours long) in the excessive August heat (hats and shelter required). By and large the guides, who drive mini-vans, can get you right to the front of a line or even in the door. (Clearly they have their connections.) Typically the minimum fee is a half day and you pay the same price for one or several people, but that splurge certainly was worth it in the personalization, efficiency, ease and dose of history that met my own tolerance levels and expectations.
First off, I'll have to confess that I skipped St. Peter's and the Vatican City for this trip. I decided to get a wider swath of the sights more serendipitously and then next time, dig in deeper with more planning. That's always been my style for short trips to mega places -- get out on foot or by car to absorb the big picture first, then be choosier and more prescriptive later. It's always worked well for me and resulted in considerable quality and unexpected finds. It happened in Rome, too.
While the tour guides do have their favorite spots, I set aside my long list of touristy to-dos and let Rolando Lerey, who once lived in the U.S., studied at Boston University and speaks seven languages, suggest some destinations I wasn't even aware of. Another smart move because it brought some truly marvelous experiences I wouldn't have selected from my initial research. First off that took us to the less-traveled basilica San Pietro in Vincoli, originally a pagan temple built in 432-440 A.D.
to house the relic of chains that bound Saint Peter in Jerusalem. As if that is not awesome enough, here stands Michaelangelo's
stirring sculpture of "Moses," part of the funeral monument originally built for Pope Julius II in his relatively small family church. The 8-foot 4-inch marble statue (bottom center) creates a powerful presence of a Moses who is both watchful and meditative (you feel his wise leadership as well as the potential of his terrible wrath), and, frankly, it has stuck with me a lot longer than Michaelangelo's "David," which I later saw in Florence.
Then we drove outside the ancient but still intact city walls to the Appian Way, the oldest and most strategic road in the Roman Empire, where I visited the Catacomb San Callisto (see another post for some highlights of that one-hour tour) and
walked along the amazingly preserved 560-mile highway, where the grooves of chariots in the lava bricks are still visible. (Actually the scope of all the preservation in Rome, given its thousands-years antiquity, is completely amazing).
Then, with about 90 minutes left, we cruised through some elegant neighborhoods on the Aventine Hill, before reaching the Capitoline and Palatine hills that house some of the most-renowned treasures. Along the way, we stopped for a view of Sophia Loren's palazzo overlooking Piazza Venezia -- note she has a view of the Vatican in the far distance among other churches
from her terraces -- and around the must-see sights of the
Colosseum, the Palatine Hill residence of the
emperors built in 200 A.D. and up a narrow roadway untraveled by tour buses and
overlooking the Roman Forum, so I could see everything in one sweeping vista. I'll be blogging more about this fabulous trip, but this in itself, was the perfect way to spend part of my first 36-hour Rome adventure.
