We spent day three visiting St. Peter’s square, the Castel Sant Angelo, the Mausoleum of Augustus, and the Spanish Steps. There was so much more left to see in the city, but unfortunately we had to get to the airport in order to make our flight back to Brussels. I thought that getting on the bus to the airport was one of the harder things I’ve had to do in my life, but several hours later, as I was sitting in the plane and waiting for it to take off, I quickly realized that I had spoken too soon. You see, for budgetary reasons, we had decided to fly Ryanair home. We were excited because it was cheap, and despite being forced to wait in a depressingly crowded airport terminal with an utter lack of adequate seating for at least two hours, our spirits remained high. All three of us managed to secure window seats after a frantic sprint across the tarmac to our plane (for those of you lucky enough to have never experienced Ryanair, they seat people on a first come, first serve basis, which makes for an incredibly stressful boarding process), so we were in good spirits. This didn’t last long. Ryanair operates similarly to a perpetual infomercial variety show, except with worse English. As soon as we left the ground, we were subjected to constant interruptions from a maliciously upbeat flight attendant. If this wasn’t bad enough, she would repeat her ‘special deals’ a total of three times: first with her underdeveloped English, then in Italian, and then finally in French. And of course this was the trip that I forgot to bring my iPod on. We eventually made it back to Brussels in one piece, despite one of the rockiest landings I’ve ever experienced. Ryanair. Never again.
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| Looking into Vatican City. |
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| Swiss Guard. |
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| Walking towards St. Peter's. |
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| The pillars of St. Peter's square. |
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| Pope. |
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| St. Peter's. |
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| Obelisk. Which, interestingly enough, was originally part of a Roman Circus constructed by the Emperors Nero and Caligula, and bore witness to bloody games involving the massacre of hundreds of Christians. |
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| It's not that easy to make out, but there's a line of people crowding directly underneath the obelisk's shadow, which I thought was kind of funny. |
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| Statue. |
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| Castel Sant Angelo. Originally constructed as a tomb for the Roman Emperor Hadrian, it was later converted into a Papal fortress and prison. |
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| The bridge to the castle, called the Pont Sant Angelo, and the Tiber River. |
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| One of the statues lining the Pont Sant Angelo. |
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| If you look closely, you can see an EU flag flying above the Castel Sant Angelo. There's some symbolism in there somewhere. |
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| A magnificent building, though I have no idea what it is. |
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| Cool church along the Tiber. |
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| A nice little plaza-fountain deal. |
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| This is the Mausoleum of Augustus, first emperor of Rome. This isn't a great picture, but it's a circular structure overgrown with trees and vegetation. Though the ruins have long since been closed to the public, it was still awe-inspiring to be able to see this ancient tomb. |
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| Cool building. |
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| Approaching the Spanish Steps. |
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| Spanish Steps. |
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| A cool fountain at the base of the Steps. |
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| Looking down from the Steps. |
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| I saw this on the bus to the airport. This is a statue of Pope John Paul II, but people claim it looks too much like Mussolini, so there's been a fair amount of controversy surrounding it. |
Leaving Rome was painful. There's just so much to see and experience in the city; three weeks would not have been enough time to spend there, let alone three days. All the more reason to come back as soon as possible.
I'll leave you with this, a quote from the English poet Robert Browning:
"Every one soon or late comes round by Rome"
