Part 3:  A challenging holiday  

By Shanaz Ramzi

   Leaving early for the train station the next morning, we arrived one hour fifteen minutes before time – yes, hubby dear likes to play it safe! Luckily, there was a shopping gallery below the station so I whiled away the time doing some gift shopping. But, surprisingly, the train was delayed, so we still had plenty of time on our hands, before we finally set off. 

   Arriving at the train station in Rome, we took a taxi to our hotel, II Covo B&B, ideally located at a ten-minute walk from the Colosseum, on a street lined with quaint shops and restaurants. Since we had arrived before the check-in time, we left our bags with the hotel and walked to the Colosseum. We were immediately accosted by guides offering us tours of the Colosseum along with the Palatine Hill and Roman Forum with an option to skip the long lines and get immediate tickets, so we decided to go with that. 

   Joining a motley group of tourists we did an exhaustive and exhausting tour of the awe-inspiring Colosseum, which I saw for the first time from the inside, and then the guide left us on our own to explore the Forum after ensuring our entry there. Our feet ready to fall off, but motivated by all the mind-boggling sights no matter where we turned, we continued to plod on our own and take pictures till the heat and fatigue got the better of us, and we decided to call it a day. Walking back to our hotel we stopped for lunch at a wayside restaurant on an adjacent street, where we had the most divine garlic bread as appetizer, and then stayed indoors, unpacking and resting, till the evening.

   In the evening, we walked to a taxi stand, all the while browsing in the shops lining the narrow streets, and picking up an item or two. We took a cab to the most famous and photographed, 18th century Trevi Fountain, which we had seen on an earlier trip, but had not had our fill of, and after a lot more photographs, thought we’d explore the 17th century Baroque Saints Vincent and Anastasius church located at Trevi, where the embalmed hearts of 22 popes are preserved. That’s when disaster struck! After taking a few pictures, just as I was climbing down the last step, my left knee caved in. I felt like it had separated from the joint; the pain was excruciating. With great difficulty and with my husband’s support, I managed to limp to a nearby eatery, where we partook of dinner, which despite the pain was an enjoyable experience. In fact, the presentation of our food was so great that it seemed like they were celebrating us, and the two young ladies sitting at an adjacent table, were so taken up by us – I think they hadn’t seen an elderly couple so young at heart before --! that they insisted on taking our photograph for us!  After dinner, since there was no question of walking around any further, we took a cab and went back to our hotel to call it a night.

   The next morning, we had booked ourselves for a tour of St Peter’s at the Vatican, and right after that for a tour of the Vatican Museum and Sistine Chapel. Although my husband felt we should give the Vatican a miss seeing the state of my knee, we had both been looking so forward to this part of our trip that I was reluctant to let it go, especially as I was unsure if we would ever be able to do it again, if we missed it this time! So, we had an early breakfast as the Vatican was half an hour away from our hotel and we were booked for a 9 am tour. We had booked a taxi and waited patiently for it to arrive, but it turned out that there was a labour strike taking place, so no taxi was responding. Hence, we decided to walk the ten minutes to the nearest taxi stand, and hail a cab from there. By the time we got the taxi, I was already in acute pain, but kept mum. 

   At the Vatican, since we had prior tickets, our queue was not as long as the one for without tickets, but the walk to the entrance of the Vatican, and then inside to St Peter’s, and then inside the church, and the fifteen-minute walk outside the Vatican to reach the Museum, was probably one I will never forget as long as I live! The pain was so consuming that I was howling from within, but determination (my husband would like to think of it as stubbornness!) and short breaks whenever I spotted a vacant bench, finally got me to the entrance of the Museum. There we learned that they needed physical tickets for us to enter – we had e-tickets on our phone – and the ticket office was also at some distance, so I waited while my husband went to do the needful. He returned with one of the Vatican volunteers in tow, who took one look at me and asked if I required a wheelchair. I must have blessed that boy countless times, as had it not been for him, we would probably never have known that the Museum had wheelchairs – and complimentary ones at that – for anyone who may require them.

   The rest of the tour that day was a breeze, and I don’t know whether we were more fascinated by the glorious art and architecture we were exposed to that day, or by the concern, respect, and protocol given to people with special needs. Truly humbling! After the tour we decided to try our luck at Saint Maria Maggiore, where the late Pope Francis has been buried, as we had spotted long queues outside it, the day before. As luck would have it, the queue wasn’t too long, and was quite fast-moving, and the cherry on the top was that there was a ramp for people who couldn’t take the stairs, so it was a relatively painless experience. Inside too, it was very fast-moving as the volunteers were not allowing anyone to tarry too long at the site, so it was just a matter of a few seconds, when you paid your respects, perhaps took a photograph – selfies were strictly prohibited – and moved on.  

   Famished, we decided to take a taxi to Trastevere, a restaurant hub specializing in Roman cuisine. The area, comprising the quintessential narrow cobbled streets was lined with way-side restaurants and shops, so ate and shopped some, before taking a taxi back toward our hotel. We got off a street or so before our hotel street so that we could browse in the shops dotting them, and cooled off with Italian ice creams before walking back to the hotel to rest our tired feet. At night, we took another stroll down our street to partake of our final Italian meal, and bid Rome adios.