By bmlee18
I remember first watching the classic film, Roman Holiday, starring the beautiful Audrey Hepburn and the charming Gregory Peck. The Rome that I saw in the film was spectacular, and who would've thought then that I would be able to see Rome for myself? After my travels to Capri, I spent four fantastic days touring the Italian capital, marveling at Roman ruins, sampling delicious dishes, and passing by famous Italian fashion brands and gaping at the price tags.
Rome was similar to, but nonetheless uniquely different from the other Italian cities I had visited such as Florence and Venice. While all of these places were bustling with large groups of tourists from all around the world, Rome was especially packed and busy. And given the large amounts of tourists, there were plenty of salesmen and tour guides, waving around their goods and approaching you from all angles possible. I was especially shocked at the Vatican, where I must have encountered at least 50 tour guides trying to sell me special tour packages and skip-the-line tickets as I was walking the relatively short distance from the St. Peter's Basilica to the Vatican Museum and Sistine Chapel.
I tend to be a pretty spontaneous traveller, ready to encounter and learn about a new place without extensive planning beforehand and figuring out things along the way. This worked out quite fine at the other destinations I had visited, and certainly added an element of adventure and surprise, but for the Vatican, I was totally wrong about choosing to go with the flow.
Upon arriving at the Vatican, I was sorely disappointed to see the massive lines winding endlessly like a snake around the St. Peter's Basilica and the Vatican Museum. The day was exceptionally hot, and the lines looked to be at least a 2-hours wait, if not more. I had browsed some Internet sources before coming, but never had I imagined that it could be THIS bad. This situation wasn't made any better by the tens of tour guides coming at me like hawks, exaggerating the disparity of the situation and trying to convince me of their special promotional easy way out.
After considering and attempting a variety of options such as purchasing a skip-the-line ticket from the Vatican Museum website or a ticket with a verified tour company, we realised that our luck had fallen short and the Vatican would have to be for another day. Because we didn't want to give up on seeing the Vatican while we were in Rome (this is a must, after all), we did end up purchasing a rather pricey tour group ticket for the day after, which ended up being a really enjoyable experience from which I learned a lot about the history and significance behind the Vatican's main sites. My lesson from this experience was that spontaneity, while appropriate for some vacations, certainly does not work for the Vatican, and that a trip to the city-state should be planned at least several days, if not weeks or months, in advance.
Other than the Vatican, we were also able to visit other remarkable and world-renowned sites such as the Roman Forum, Colosseum, Palatine Hill, Pantheon, Trevi Fountain, and Bocca della Veritá (Mouth of Truth). Rome truly was packed with an endless amount of places to visit, foods to savor, and things to do. One of the places that we frequented (on a daily basis, in fact) was a gelato shop, which served a heavenly combination of creamy gelato on top of a chocolate-dipped and hazelnut-covered waffle cone. The shop had even decorated the interiors with a chocolate wall - yes, you heard correctly - a fountain of sorts, with chocolate showering down the wall infinitely.
Sometimes, Rome seemed to be a city more populated by mass groups of tourists and salesmen on the streets preying on gullible visitors than by actual Romans. The city was buzzing and packed, with smoke and litter all about, but there was a very unique charm and a sense of humanness about the city.
The city shed light on the ancient Roman civilization through the still standing ruins and monuments, drawing people from all over the world to see what remained of what was once a powerful republic then an empire. The place is unlike any other - you will be dazzled and awed by the metropolis. This was indeed my 'Roman Holiday' - the perfect way to finish off my travels throughout Italy.