Easter Sunday morning J in St. Peter’s Square…….. Following an earlier breakfast, I headed over to St. Peter’s Square along with the thousands of other people. The Mass started at 10.30 and it was about 9.00 am when I arrived, already most people that had tickets for the seats were in there places and the square was filling up quickly – the side that the sun would shine on first was already packed. Yes after the rain on Saturday night, Sunday was a glorious morning with bright blue skies and the sun shining – I guess if you have almost an entire city praying for a beautiful day, including the Pope, Cardinals, Bishops, etc. there was a pretty good chance those prayers would be answered J. As I first walked into the square the choir was singing Jesus Lives – it was great!
I made my way to the steps over to the left of the center of the square and found myself quite a good spot to be able to see the big screen really well and the alter (although it was obviously easier to watch the big screen) and sat down to ‘save my spot’, because let me tell you if you moved your feet someone would sit in front of you so there was nowhere to place your feet – it was really busy, but I was really pleased that I had been able to get into the square as I had thought you needed a ticket even for that!
The arrival of the Pope at 10.30 am in his ‘Pope-mobile’ was announced by huge cheers from the crowd and many bells. The Mass itself was very good; they had someone read in about 10 different languages (a native speaker) and actually included some women in the service – the Catholics are finally moving with the times a little I guess (sorry any of you reading this). The Pope then served communion to a select few obviously representing different groups of people, nuns, monks, a family with two young children, a teenage boy and girl, etc., while many priests served communion to those in the reserved seating. The music throughout the entire Mass was wonderful. It was about 2 hours long in total before the service ended and the Pope went inside St Peter’s to go to the balcony to provide his Easter address to the crowd.
I managed to worm my way through the crowds to get a pretty decent spot on which to get a couple of pictures of the Pope as he appeared on the balcony, but then have to say after spending about 3 ½ hours sitting and standing on the stone steps headed away from St Peter’s before the main exodus would happen following the Pope’s speech. I had decided that I would go to the Traverstere area of Rome as it was supposed to be a much quieter area of the city with nice little places to eat and cobbled roads with very little or no traffic is some areas. The bus route was a little more difficult as it involved three changes and waiting for buses for a while, but I arrived in the area and it was well worth the effort. Finding myself another gelato for my late lunch, I walked around the little Piazza’s and found one little Osteria that looked to be serving delicious seafood so decided I would come back here later in the day for an early dinner. I walked across to the island in the middle of the Tiber and saw the oldest remaining part of the bridge crossing Ponte Rotto (214 BC) – it is pretty amazing it is still there after all these years!
From there I hopped on a bus to take me to the other side of town, back near the Spanish Steps as there was a doorway that was surrounded by stone carvings that looked like a face, having ‘hiked’ my way up a long street I found the house, covered in scaffolding – can you believe it!! But I took the photo anyway, hopefully you can get an idea through the screen J. From their it was only a short walk to the top of the Spanish Steps so I went on up and then headed down the steps for the Metro back to the area of the B&B. Again thinking that a short nap would be good, before heading out to the little Osteria I had located for dinner.I won’t dwell on the dinner as it was so disappointing – I clearly ordered badly! I had the set menu for the fish and it really was awful – the pasta with salmon was almost made with a salmon paste, the grilled calamari was just a big slab of calamari that had a little butter on it before being grilled – the only thing that was good was the crème caramel – what a disappointment. The plate I had seen at lunch time had beautiful looking calamari, shrimp, etc. L So to make up for it I went in search of another gelato J but it was still a shame especially after the previous nights’ dinner.
The remainder of my last evening in Rome was spent wandering through the streets back towards the hotel just enjoying the freedom of walking in the evening with no worries. It was back to Accra in the morning.
Monday morning in Rome (in all of Italy) was their equivalent of Independence Day so there were big parade’s planned and I knew that it would impact the bus routes I needed to travel on, so after a leisurely breakfast, I packed up and headed out for the Terminal Station where I wanted to pick up a couple of things before heading out. I was glad I left early as the bus was diverted and was considerably slower than usual. I arrived with about 40 minutes before my train, so headed for a supermarket to pick up some diced pancetta that I could use with my cheese and the pasta I can get in Accra. It lasts for ages so that was a good find, then it was time to find my platform for the Leonardo Express again, which is at the far end of the station.
My last little ‘excitement’ in Rome was at the airport; at the Gate waiting for the flight to Accra (which went via Lagos, Nigeria). As is typical for Africans’ in general they travel with a great deal of hand luggage, usually a minimum of two bags, and most at least three if not four. Well the poor gate agents were trying to tell (what turned out to be nearly all Nigerians) that they couldn’t hand carry all that luggage and then starting tagging things and said that they would have to pay 200 Euro per checked bag. It got crazy, they were all so mad, they had to call security to calm them down! Then when it came to boarding that was another whole stampede to get on the plane (so that they could find spaces for all their luggage!). Thankfully the gate agent had been kind enough to find me a window seat further back on the plane with the aisle seat next to it open – she actually blocked it for me to make sure that I would have the two seats to myself – I was so grateful J as I was tired and wanted to be able to sleep, which I did.
There ends my Roma Dialogue!
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