Chapter 10
Italy: May 2002
Day one:
We took the Mac Flight from Bahrain on April 30th and arrived in Naples that
night. We lucked out and stayed at the Capo Inn on base. It was more like an
efficiency than a hotel room and was reasonably priced.
Day two:
We traveled by train to Rome. From the station, we took the Metro (subway) to
the area of town where our hotel was located. Our hotel, the Olympia was suppose
to be a four star hotel but if it were located in the USA, it would be lucky to
get a two star rating. The good part was that it was clean, had free breakfast
and was located near the Vatican. It was also in walking distance to the USO
where we arranged to go on two tours the next day. The restaurants close from
four o’clock till seven daily. This I assume is their siesta time, but it’s
not good for us tourists who are use to eating whenever we like. The restaurant
that we had dinner at gave us a
“Limoncello”. This is their
favorite after dinner drink and the main ingredients are lemon (preferably green
ones) and liquor. It was really strong.
Day three:
Our morning tour was the Vatican. There were twelve of us plus our guide. As we
waited the line for our guide to buy us tickets it grew over three blocks
long. The Vatican has a museum that we went through first. The
statues and pictures are placed in the rooms by the centuries they were created.
They have tapestries hanging along the walls in one room and have the windows
covered so the sun won’t damage them. Most of the tapestries are large and
cover a wall the size of an average room. They tell a story of history, like
maybe a battle. It was hard to imagine all of the work that went into the
details and the time it took to make them. The
Sistine Chapel was amazing. This is something you would just have to see for
yourself since words can't describe it. We were told that there was to be no
talking in there. There were several hundred tourists and they had to be quiet.
Someone had to remind us of this every few minutes. We also weren’t allowed to
take pictures but my husband sneaked and did it anyway. They didn’t turn out
too well because it wasn’t very bright in there.
Next we were taken in Saint Peter’s Church. This place is huge and houses
famous works of art. The Vatican actually is a city in itself and it has over a
thousand rooms…but we didn’t see them all since our tour was only for three
hours. We had pizza for lunch and then went back to the USO to wait on our
afternoon tour. Our next tour was of the Coliseum and other ruins such as the
Arch of Constantine and the Roman Forum. The Guide was late. The metro train he
was to take into the city broke down and he had to drive instead. We (about a
dozen again) got on a red bus and off we went. This tour wore me out. I had no
idea how many ruins they had in Rome but I think we saw all of them. The tour
guide was great but he tried to tell us everything and you know how that is, you
forget almost all of it. I couldn’t wait to get back to that red bus.
Afterwards, it was back to the hotel to rest, but first we stopped in this
little shop for sandwiches.
Day four:
This was our day to sight see on our own and do some shopping. We took the
metro to the other side of the city and we shopped at “The Hard Rock Café” and
then went looking for the Trevi Fountain. This is the one from the movie and the
song “Three coins in a fountain”, so naturally I had to throw in my coins too.
On our way there Danny (my husband) noticed this film crew shooting a movie and
he took a couple pictures of the actresses. At the time he thought it was just
one girl, but it turned out to be the Olsen twins. When viewing the pictures he
took on his digital camera, he saw that they were dressed differently. Along
with most of the many tourists, I paid no attention to the event.
(Angie said she would put up these two
pictures on here for everyone to see.)
After throwing lots of coins in that beautiful fountain we were off to find our
next sight, the Pantheon. The Pantheon is the most reserved of their monuments
and they say it’s an architectural masterpiece of ancient Rome. Several kings,
artists, and other famous Romans are buried there. The next place on our
(made-up) tour was the Piazza Navona. It’s a historic square which is
surrounded by churches, palaces and the Fountain of Neptune. We ate our lunch
outside of one of the many restaurants there and it was delicious. I did a
little shopping at some of the stands that were set up in the square. We
decided to walk back to the hotel instead of going on the metro. This was for
us to see as many sights as we could and to try to walk off our pizzas.
Day five:
We woke to rain and cooler weather. It had been sunny and in the seventies the
past few days. This changed our plans of walking to the Metro. We had the desk
person call us a taxi to take us to the train station and headed back to
Naples. In Naples we were picked up by Chip (a friend) and taken to the base.
He had already gotten us a room at the Capo Inn. I shopped at their Exchange.
It’s a lot better than what we have in Bahrain. Of course, that’s not saying
much since anything is better than what we have here. We rested for a while and
a few hours later we were picked up by Cindy George (another friend, we are
lucky that we have so many of them in Naples) and she took us to her house.
Later we all (over twenty some of us) met at this
restaurant where they had about ten or more tables put together for our group.
You had to pay one price of twenty Euros per person (less than $20.00) for all
the wine you can drink as well as bowl after bowl of food.
At the end of the dinner they brought out a cake for Cindy since it was her
birthday. We left the restaurant and walked to this couple’s house where some
of our group (but not me) sang karaoke. Later Cindy & Bob took us back to the
Inn. This had been a great night. We had good food, wine, good friends and we
made new ones.
Day six:
We ate our breakfast at the cafeteria and then went walking outside the base.
We did some more shopping on base and went back to the hotel to rest. We were
still tired from our night out. We stayed in our rooms (bedroom, living
room-kitchen, and bathroom) the rest of the day.
Day seven:
We took the Mac Flight back to Bahrain. Winston greeted us at the door and was
so glad to see us. He’s the only reason we are glad to be back.
I loved visiting Italy. It was great to
get to see all of the famous places and eat all that delicious food. We’ve been
able to do a lot of traveling to other countries since we’ve been here and have
enjoyed them all but there
is NO country as great as our country, the USA.
Sylvia