Rome and Home

We’ve heard Rome called the Eternal City, and it’s quite apparent why: modern buildings next to Renaissance buildings (1500s) built around Roman ruins (300 BCE–300 AD), and museums containing Egyptian treasures (1300 BCE) and Etruscan artifacts (3500 BCE). It’s shockingly different from Canada, where we don’t have the same physical reminders of the peoples who have lived on the land for the past 5000 years.

It was interesting to compare the Colosseum with the amphitheatre in Arles. Both are ancient and impressive; the Colosseum is larger and almost all brick, while the Arles amphitheatre is in better condition and has much of its marble still intact.

Ruins within the Forum

Heather in front of the 1800-year-old arch of Septimius Severus.

The Colosseum is otherworldly to explore at night!

View from the Palatine Hill looking down into the Forum

We saw this motif on Renaissance ceilings in Florence and elsewhere, and here we found that the pattern dates back to ancient Rome. There are so many pieces of ancient architecture around, many just lying in the grass.

We spent all of our time there being tourists and exploring as much of the city as possible: the Villa Borghese park, Spanish Steps, Colosseum, Palatine Hill, Roman Forum, Vatican Museum, St. Peter’s (and the climb up the dome), Trevi Fountain, Pantheon, Piazza Navona, Piazza Venezia, National Gallery of Modern Art, Baths of Diocletian. We wandered tiny streets, explored neighbourhoods, and bicycled all around the city, which was definitely the best way to travel. And of course, we sought out gelato at any given opportunity. Rather than stories of touristing, we'll let the photos speak for themselves, and talk about the trip as a whole below.

The entire gallery of the National Gallery of Modern Art was re-organized to combine pieces from different eras and art movements in a show called 'Time Is Out Of Joint'.

No visit to the Vatican would be complete without a stop at the Sistine Chapel.

More juxtaposition at the National Gallery of Modern Art.

At the Vatican Museum we joined the throngs to wander through jaw dropping collections of... everything. This was the Gallery of Maps.

We knew the stats on St Peter's Basilica, but nothing prepares you for stepping inside. The grandeur and sheer scale are breathtaking, even more so when you consider that this was built in the 1500s. The bronze columns on the canopy are 7 stories tall, and the blue letters in gold at the top of the walls are 7 feet high!

A closer look at the lettering in the dome (see picture above for scale compared to the rest of the church).

We went early to avoid the crowds and Heather found a sunbeam

View from the cupola with crowds queueing all around the square

The view of the roof of St Igantius church, as seen from where the congregation sits…

…the church ran out of money to put in a dome, so they hired a painter to paint one on a flat ceiling. The is is the view from directly underneath.

Each 35-foot-high granite column in front of the Pantheon is made from a single piece of granite, carved in Egypt and floated across the Mediterranean and then upriver to Rome.

Foods of note:

• Gelato: liquorice, pine nut-hazelnut-almond, pineapple and lime, lemon biscotti, zuppa inglese (sponge cake and custard), Sicilian pistachio, mango, and more…
• ​Olive oil tasting with ricotta, bufala mozzarella, homemade tomato antipasti, and four different homemade breads.
• Bread, cheese and meat picnics in the park. This is something we did in Toronto when we first started dating, and it feels right at home here.
• A dinner involving almost-poutine (potato wedges with cheese and pepper) and deep-fried artichokes.
• Fancy lunch: sous-vide egg with parmesan foam, hazelnut and mushroom risotto served in a bowl sealed with onion paper that was then broken with a goat’s cheese cream, and pig snout.

A bridge over the river Tiber.

The Piazza Venezia: our final photo in Rome.

And now, for some grand perspective:

• Total distance cycled: 1846 kilometres across four countries (Spain, France, Monaco, Italy)
• Total altitude climbed: 15077 metres
• Longest day's ride: 114 kilometres
• Most climbing in a day: 1062 metres
• 5045 pictures taken
• 41 days of riding at least 5 kilometres, and 19 days off the bikes
• We still can't get enough of each other's company, even after all this time together
• No major injuries to ourselves or our bikes!

And now we're back in Toronto! It feels both familiar and strange, and definitely surreal to no longer be on bikes and living on the road. We half-joked about putting up the tent in the living room our first night back, to ease the transition… but ​it's good to be back, and we're excited for the next adventures.