Rome with Rick
May 20 - 21
High: 79
Low: 59
Partly to mostly cloudy with brief rain Tuesday morning
Statue of Marcus Aurelius
Having spent a couple of days on our own in Rome, we were ready to check into our first tour hotel. It was a nice, clean hotel with gracious staff and comfortable facilities in the Trastevere neighborhood.
At check-in we were directed to a note our tour guide had posted which explained what to expect (and what was expected of us) in the next 24 hours. These were posted at each stop and were very much appreciated.
Take photos of the tour note each day. You will definitely reference them to make sure you're in the right place at the right time. There's so much to see and do - it helps to keep you on track!
At 4pm we kicked off the tour by going to meet our guide, Bea, and our fellow travelers for drinks and hors d'oeuvres in the hotel restaurant.
Bea had all of us introduce ourselves and gave us some information about the tour. We had an interesting mix of folks. There was a younger couple taking their dream vacation and several people who first met on a Rick Steves tour and have since booked several of them together. And the fact that those folks did not form a clique in any way but wanted to interact with all of us is testament to the type of travelers that a Rick Steves tour attracts.
After the introductions, Bea took us on a walk around Trastavere, pointing out the locations of significance and getting us oriented to the neighborhood. That was followed by the first of several group dinners that Rick provides on his tours. I believe that having dinner together on the first night really helps make the tour successful. As an introvert, I appreciated the opportunity to start talking to our tour-mates over dinner, since it can be difficult to approach folks I don't know. And part of the point of taking a tour is that we're not on our own!
The Capitoline Museum & Jewish Quarter
Bea and my buddy*
*Photos of people on our tour are used with permission.
For our first full tour day we had breakfast with our tour group. Each hotel we stayed at provided an excellent breakfast. The food and experience changed at each hotel, but they were uniformly good.
Before we headed out, Bea had us choose buddies. We had to pick someone we didn't know. Every time we left somewhere as a group we did a quick buddy check to make sure nobody got left behind. She then handed out the listening devices and earbuds that we would carry with us throughout the tour.
Capitoline Museum
We had the most fantastic local tour guide, Francesca. She is really passionate about the art. Rather than just telling us facts about the things we were seeing, she wove tales about them, bringing to life the people who created and interacted with each piece as it was created.
Remains from the Colossus of Constantine
Recreation of the Colossus of Constantine
Funerary monument of a Roman infant
Everyone agreed that it was really an exceptional tour, unlike any we’d been on before.
Dying Galatian sculpture
Sarcophagus with relief depicting the hunt for the Calydonian boar
There are two types of guides on a Rick Steves tour. You have a guide who accompanies you on the tour from start to finish. They are the folks who manage all the things and ensure you have a fantastic trip overall. There are also local guides at stops along the tour who are hired for their expertise in the place you are visiting. Both are crucial for a successful tour, and Rick is clearly thoughtful about who he hires.
After the museum Francesca led us on a walk past the ruins of a theatre that at one time had been the largest and most important theatre in Rome. Later, in the 16th century, a residence was built on top of the structure. The lower level was used as merchant stalls. I think that Italians invented the phrase "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle" (right after "Veni Vidi Vici").
The walk ended at the old Jewish quarter. It is now a vibrant, eclectic neighborhood with excellent restaurants, but there were dark days in its history. The markers in this image commemorate some of those who were killed by the Nazis in WWII.
On Our Own
Once the tour ended we had free time the rest of the day. We had walked by the Pantheon on our first day, but hadn’t had tickets. So we used this time to go inside the ancient structure. Luckily, Rick has an audio tour for that, so we were well-informed and not just wandering blindly.
Afterwards we headed back to the hotel and stopped into the unassuming church next door because our guide had told us that there was a Bernini sculpture inside. I’m not sure what we expected, but this was so much more. This was Blessed Ludovica Albertoni, a stunning, heartbreaking depiction of a dying woman. And it lives not in a world-renowned museum, but in a small church on a side street. Rome is truly full of wonders!
