We left Dallas on Saturday October 3rd night and arrived in
Rome Sunday afternoon. That included an all night flight from Dallas to London
and then spending the next day and another flight to get to Rome. Needless to
say, after all that we were pretty whipped by the time we got to Rome.
Sara had a business conference in Rome, Italy so we decided
we would go to her conference and then fly on to India afterwards from London.
Since we’re traveling on air miles, we could get to India, and decided to spend
some time in India since we had never visited that country. We then have another flight to the
neighboring country of Nepal.
But first
Rome! Our time in Rome gave me a chance
to tour the city and do lots of photography while Sara was sadly working. Rome
is a beautiful city with lots of ancient structures and of course the Vatican
and all its beauty and facilities. I mainly used public transportation which
worked well once I got the hang of all the routes and how it all worked. On the first day (Monday 5th), Sara and I
went to St Peters Square, the Pantheon and some of the other Piazzas. Rome is
very busy with traffic and crowds and a huge line to get into the Vatican.
On Tuesday 7th, John got up early to join a
special tour which allowed entry into the Vatican before the general public,
making photography much easier. He toured
the Sistine Chapel, the Vatican museums and St Peters Basilica, which is the
largest church in the world. All of
these were fabulous and stunning.
One of the highlights of our time in Rome was getting to attend
a Rheinhold Messner talk the last day of Sara’s conference. He was the keynote
speaker and was very inspiring. He started mountain climbing at age eight. He
was the first person to solo summit Mt. Everest without supplemental oxygen. He
was a very humble man and claimed not to be any different than most ordinary
people but if you look at all his climbing successes it is very clear he was a
very special person.
After the conference ended we had one last afternoon in
Rome. We took the metro to the Coliseum,
which is architecturally stunning.
However both of us commented it had a really bad vibe because of the
brutality that occurred there. Ok it was
over 2,000 years ago that the gladiators fought there, but it was easy to
imagine when looking down on the main arena. After the Coliseum we walked
through the “Forum” which is large area full of old temples and the area where
the Roman Senate met. This was really
interesting and peaceful.
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