May 7, 2018 Rome to Sorrento, Italy

Popes Palace Formal Gardens

Popes Palace Chapel

Popes Palace Hall

Located about 16 miles southeast of Rome we visited the small town of Castel Gandolfo with about 9,000 inhabitants. This scenic community has served as a summer residence and vacation retreat for the pope at the Papal Palace of Castle Gandolfo. The Lateran Treaty of 1929, in which Vatican City was recognized as an independent country, gave the Villa Barberini Castle–along with the adjacent Villa del Morro and Villa Cybo–to the Vatican. The adjoining Lake Albano is surrounded by summer residences, villas, and cottages, many of which were built during the 17th century. The lake was also home to the rowing events during the Rome Olympics.

The grounds were expanded later by Pope Pius XI by acquiring some additional land as a small farm. Today the farm has many chickens, cows, sheep and other animals. The grounds of the villas are exquisitely maintained by twenty full and part time gardeners. There are fountains, statuary, boxwood gardens, and a huge variety of walking paths and terraces, plants and flowers. The grounds are approximately 135 acres in size.

The Pope’s residence is a three-story palace where the first floor is occupied by office space when the Pope is in residence. On the second floor are photos, vestments and memorabilia from all of the Popes. The third floor is the main living quarters of the Pope with many rooms where the Pope can have private meetings with parishioners, an office space, sitting rooms, a small chapel and a large bedroom. The current Pope (Francis) does not visit the residence and prefers instead to make visits to a neighboring monastery in the woods near the lake. The residence has been open to the public as a museum for the last few years.

During World War II it is said that Pope Pius XII opened up the grounds of the Castel to refugees escaping the fighting in Rome. On January 22, 1944, the first of what became 12,000 people began arriving, bringing with them cows, horses, mules and sheep. Included were many Roman Jews, and other non-Catholics. During the time they lived there, 36 children were born, many of whom were named after the Pope. It is believed that the Pope’s private apartment was converted into a nursery to house all of the new born children.

After our tour of the Pope’s summer residence we traveled by bus about four hours including a break for a quick lunch at a roadside stop. We checked into the Towers Hotel before heading out to see the town of Sorrento. The drive into town was along a twisting turning road along soaring steep cliffs jutting up from the sea. The town is very hilly and covered with homes, vineyards, citrus gardens, vegetable gardens and Kiwi vines. The town is very charming with many shops along a pedestrian street, cobblestone streets and window boxes with colorful flowers. Views from many restaurants overlook the Tyrrhenian Sea.

For dinner we headed to a very large restaurant overlooking the sea (although it had begun to rain and so we were unable to enjoy the outdoors and the skies were gray and filled with clouds). For dinner we started with an appetizer plate of cheese, prosciutto, salami and deep-fried pasta dumplings. Next came a slice of pizza before an entrée course of pasta and ravioli. This was followed by a shot of the local liquor Limoncello and a pastry similar to pound cake covered in a lemon cream.

May 6 Rome, Italy

 

Rome’s Spanish Steps

Altar Della Patria

Rome’s Trevi Fountain

Rome’s Colosseum

 

Rome is the capital of Italy with a population of approximately 4.3 million inhabitants. There is archaeological evidence that Rome has been inhabited by humans for at least 14,000 years. Everywhere you walk or drive in the city you come across historical buildings, remnants of walls from bygone eras, museums, monuments, fountains, squares and architecturally interesting buildings.

The buffet breakfast in our hotel was very plentiful. They had a selection of cereals and yoghurts, breads, cheeses, meats, bacon, eggs, fruits, coffee and more.

After breakfast we took the Hop-On Hop-Off bus tour around the city to refresh our memory of the city since it has been 20 years since we were last in Rome. The city tour took us to many of the main sites like the Colosseum, Trevi Fountain, the Spanish Steps, Castle Saint Angelo, the grand building of justice as well as many parks, fountains and monuments. Everywhere we went it was extremely busy with tourists from all over the world. The bus ride took more than two hours to make one loop of the city tour.

After the bus tour we walked down the Spanish Steps and visited the famed Trevi Fountain before heading back to our hotel. We stopped along the way at a small Italian café where we had lasagna and tiramisu for lunch. By that I mean Mark had the lasagna and Kent had the tiramisu.

Our first meeting with the Globus tour group we are traveling with met in the breakfast room for a meeting at 5:00pm. Out tour leader is a gentleman from the Sorrento area by the name of Giacomo. Our group of 40 is a bit larger than we are used to traveling with when we travel with Vantage Travel. Most of the Vantage Travel tour groups are only about 24 guests.

After our initial meeting we were taken by bus to a local restaurant called Ristorante Mino where we enjoyed a welcome dinner. The dinner started with a lovely plate of melon and prosciutto and a bruschetta (a large thick slice of bread grilled with olive oil and topped with chopped fresh tomatoes, celery and basil). Next, they served us a pasta course consisting of a slice of lasagna and a scoop of tube pasta with mushrooms and peas in a cream sauce. The main course consisted of two slices of pork roast with roasted white potatoes. For dessert they served a berry ice cream with a fresh berry sauce. They also served unlimited bottles of red and white wine, soft drinks and bottled water.

Kent and I sat with three ladies from Adelaide, Australia who are traveling together. They were very friendly and were having a lot of fun chatting over dinner about most everything.

May 4-5 San Diego to Rome, Italy

St. Peter’s Basilica

St. Peter’s Basilica Altar Made of Bronze

 

 

St. Peter’s Basilica Statuary

Our early morning flight departed San Diego at 6:15am bound for Newark, New Jersey, we had about a three-hour layover before departing for Rome, Italy. We arrived in Rome about 8:00 in the morning local time. There were a tremendous number of visitors and very little supervision in the custom’s hall where we needed to wait in lines for an hour or so to have our passports stamped before entering the country. My brand-new piece of “It” luggage guaranteed for life against breakage was dented but survived the airport baggage service. We took a shared taxi into Rome to the Della Conciliazione Hotel just a few blocks from St. Peter’s Square and the Vatican. The hotel is fairly small with only 67 rooms but it is neat, clean and has everything we could need for our short visit here.

As our room was not yet ready, we took the short walk to St. Peter’s Basilica where we had a small wait to go through metal detectors before entering the spectacular cathedral. Marble covers nearly every square inch of the massive cathedral, from statues to the floors and walls. Thousands of visitors were roaming the church snapping photos everywhere. They call St. Peter’s the largest Christian church in the world as it covers 5.7 acres of land, 448-foot-tall dome, 163,200 square feet of floor space.

We stopped at a local restaurant near our hotel for a bite to eat before returning to our hotel. Many of the local restaurants set up tables and chairs under umbrellas in the streets and alley ways for guests to dine al fresco. For lunch we tried the pork sausage filled olives breaded and deep fried. Interesting flavor and texture but not necessarily something to rush back for. Kent had the gnocchi with pesto sauce and Mark had a very dry and a bit flavorless four cheese pizza. The pizza had a small amount of cheese melted on a nice piece of dough but no sauce and not much spice. We were sharing our plates so the waiter asked if we were brothers: if you are men and you eat off the same plate you must be related!

We were able to check into the hotel about 2:00pm and immediately collapsed on the bed and were fast asleep for about three hours. After our nap we took a nice walk to the Plaza Navona in the center of town by crossing the Tiber River on an ornately decorated pedestrian bridge. All of the railing posts had elaborate sculptures of dragons and gargoyles. It was lightly raining but lots of people were out walking the streets, eating in the outdoor cafes and restaurants.

For dinner we stopped into a very small pasta shop near our hotel. This small shop only has a license to sell a very limited number of items like pastas and drinks and is not allowed to serve food on real dishes. They serve the pasta in plastic bowls and the drinks in plastic cups. The owner was very welcoming and happy to chat with his guests. He said that he felt his beautiful city was now in a state of decline and he found it very frustrating. He was concerned about things like the poor condition of the roads and the fact that young people are too busy on their cell phones to speak to the people around them. When we told him that this was the same in San Diego, he could not help but translate it into Italian and tell some other guests at a nearby hotel. He was surprised that in America we might have problems with our streets.

We returned to our hotel by 9:00pm and retired for the night.