Hello everyone! It’s Ariela back again with a great post for you! 😁 I’m going to post a series about my trips in Italy, and my first post is about Rome, Italy’s capital. 🇮🇹 It is one of the most visited cities in the world, and Rome’s history dates back around 753 BC. That’s a long long time!

At its peak, the Roman Empire (27 BC–285 AD) ruled these today’s countries and territories: England, Wales, Portugal, Spain, France, Italy, Austria, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Belgium, Gibraltar, Romania, Moldova, Ukraine, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Egypt, Albania, Greece, Hungary, Bosnia, Slovenia, Croatia, Bulgaria, Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Jordan, and Israel. That’s a whole lot! The ancient Romans were also very smart, so they developed drainage, roads, sewer, arches, aqueducts, the alphabet. concrete, underfloor heating, tools, the modern calendar, surgical tools, codex, the hypocaust system (a heating system), Roman numerals, (that’s one’s kinda obvious, who else would make Roman numerals?) and they developed the first senate. Rome is the center of Christianity, and the center of western civilization. If you’re a total history lover, you HAVE to visit to Rome! There is a lot of paintings by famous artists, ancient ruins, and other really fascinating things.

Enough of the history lesson! Time for… The Adventures of Ariela! Dun dun dun! (haha, Adventures of Ariela) 😂

We went to Italy in October of 2019. My parents were glad that we went back then, because as we know there’s a global pandemic happening right now. Early that day, it was 5 o’ clock in the morning when we headed to the YSJ Airport. This the closest airport to our home in New Brunswick, Canada. It’s a pretty small airport, and we had to change flights from YSJ to YUL. From YUL (Montreal, Quebec), it was an only eight hour flight to Rome, which meant that we would arrive in the middle of the night. I said ONLY eight hours because I’ve been to a sixteen hour flight to Asia. Watching movies on the plane makes the flight go by faster. I downloaded some movies on my device to watch, Dragons Race to the Edge is one of them, and I 🤍LOVE🤍 that show! We got to Rome safely, and we took a taxi to take us to our hotel. Our driver had a hard time looking for it. He even had a GPS! But we still ended up driving around in circles. Not great when you’re tired and you just want to sleep.

We each had quick showers then went straight to bed. Then next day we woke up around lunch time, and had a quick bite to eat. I don’t remember what we had for lunch, though 🤔. My parents decided to take sightseeing bus tour in Rome to see the city, and check out all the famous landmarks. It was a Hop-On-Hop-Off Bus Tour. Which meant we could get out of the bus when we want to visit a landmark, and catch another bus later on at the stop to continue the tour. It’s all in the name. From the bus, I saw St. Peter’s Basilica, The Colosseum, Palatine Hill, Castel Sant’ Angelo, the Arch of Constantine, Piazza Venezia, Circus Maximus, Palatine Hill, and like, a million piazzas! (a piazza is pretty much just a fancy name for a public square of market place in Italy). The gigantic white building is a monument to Victor Emmanuel, king of Italy. One of it’s nicknames is the “wedding cake.”

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We only got out of the bus once to visit the Trevi Fountatain. 😄 The Trevi fountain was finished in 1751. It is very popular because it was one of the first water fountains in Rome. It is the largest Baroque fountain in the city, and one of the most famous fountains in the world. It also appeared in a few movies, and I think that increased it’s popularity. It’s hard to take a good picture because there was a lot of people around. The best time to visit is early in the morning. Also, in the left corner you have the Triton fountain in it’s own piazza. After the bus tour we had pizza for dinner, and we went to our hotel to rest because we were still jet lagged. We had a jam packed day planned the next day.

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Then you have Vatican City, which is the smallest country in the world, with it’s area and population. Even if you aren’t a Catholic, you’ve probably heard about the Pope who is the head of the state. Anyway, we went to the Vatican Museum, the Sistine Chapel, and St. Peter’s Basilica. This was a three hour walking-tour at 8am that my dad booked ahead online. There was fifteen people in our group, and she gave us each a set of wired earphones and a radio device so we can hear everything she explained to us. It was the best thing because when there’s a lot of people in a confined space it’s hard to hear each other. Our tour guide was actually a history teacher! She was really great, and knew a lot about Rome and it’s history. The Vatican museum was also really nice. I saw a lot of beautiful paintings: 15th century frescoes, old statues, huge maps from the 16th century, and a lot of antiques things. I tried to pay attention to everything she told us because it was a lot of history to take in. The pictures below are the just some parts of the ceiling decorated beautifully and one of the many wall paintings (fresco).

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When were exiting the Vatican Museum we walked down to this beautiful staircase. I read about it, and it’s a double-helix, allowing people to ascend and descend without crossing paths. Suuuuper coooool!

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Down below are the photos of the Sistine Chapel ceiling and wall. They aren’t mine though, I got them from the internet. That’s because the paintings are shy and they don’t like to be photographed or videoed 🤫 No! the real reason is that the paintings are sensitive to cameras, so in order to take a picture of the paintings, you would need to have a special camera. I can’t believe this was ALL painted by ONE person! Michelangelo (the painter, NOT the Ninja Turtle) did an amazing job, and it wasn’t an easy thing to do. He wasn’t even a painter! He was a sculptor. The chapel was very beautiful, and it felt amazing to finally see the artwork. The intricate details and the stories from the Bible were really stunning. Because there was so many people crammed inside it felt like I was in a can of sardines. Plus, you couldn’t really stay too long because it was hot and sticky. I think we stayed for about thirty minutes or so.

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Next is the St. Peter’s Basilica. It was finished in 1626, and it is the largest church in the world. The picture below is St. Peter’s Baldachin located under the dome. It is a beautiful Baroque bronze canopy that marks the exact location of St. Peter’s tomb beneath the basilica. Beneath the canopy is the high altar. I also saw two deceased popes in their own bullet proof glass coffin. 😬😵 Even though their faces had masks on it was still creepy.

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There’s a Holy Door and it is only opened on the year of Jubilee by the Pope. That means every 25 years. Sooo, it will be opened in 2025! Maybe I can go back to Italy in a few years and see them open! Also down there, you can see the Pieta (1498-1499). It’s a sculpture of Mary holding Jesus, by Michelangelo. Sorry, it’s a bad picture. The sculpture is a little far, and it’s behind the glass because in 1972 someone attacked it with a hammer and broke off Mary’s arm. At the catholic churches, you can give a donation then you can light a candle. My dad and I always light some candle and say a prayer when we visit a catholic church. And that was the end of our three hour tour of Vatican City.

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After our tour I mailed a postcard to my grandpa from the Vatican Post Office! He enjoyed the postcard because he likes the Pope 😁 The picture with my mom and dad was at the St. Peter’s Square. It’s where the Pope speaks and that’s followed by a prayer, a homily, some singing, and he blesses religious articles. Our tour guide told us that, we need a ticket to attend, and that’s free to obtain! But the Pope was not in Rome on the day of our visit so we didn’t bother.

Then we had a quick lunch. I had a sandwich that we bought from a one of the cafes we walked by then we headed to the next meeting place for the Colosseum and Palatine Hill Tour! That will be for the next post! I hope you had fun reading this and you may have found it helpful. There was a lot of things I saw, but I couldn’t possibly write them all. I hope you all get a chance to see the Vatican, and Rome for yourselves! Have a great day!🤍

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FOLLOW ME ON INSTAGRAM: arielaonthego

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