St. Peter square
A year ago I visited Rome and I decided to write a non-traditional blog about it. Rome is visited by many people and you can hear from them which buildings you have to visit or which museums. Or you could buy a travel guide or read some blogs about Rome on the internet. In my blog I would like to tell you my story. A story about strange, funny, nice and beautiful happenings I experienced in Rome, divided into many little stories.
Every Sunday at 12 o’clock the pope speaks to a crowd of people on St.
Spanish stairs
Peter square. Our first day in Rome was a Sunday, so we wanted to hear the pope speaks. In the morning we visited some churches and around half past eleven we hurried to be at St. Peter square on time. We were 3 or 4 km away from it and we hadn’t been in Rome before. We didn’t know exactly how to walk. At high speed we crossed the Piazza Della Rotonda area. We made slalom between the many tourists in front of the Pantheon. Piazza Navona we crossed without anyone noticing. At five to twelve we entered Vatican City. In the far distance we heard some bells ring and we knew it was almost 12 o’clock.
Unfortunately we weren’t at St. Peter square at 12 o’clock. We arrived at five past twelve and the pope was already inside his chapel. This is what we thought. Later we heard that the pope never spoke to a crowd that Sunday, because he wasn’t even in Rome.
View out of our hotelroom
It was a disappointment, because I wanted to see the pope. I’m not religious, but such powerful men I want see.
In the plane to Rome I met a Dutch guy who visited Rome to see some relatives. I spoke to him about Jan Wolkers, a Dutch writer. Wolkers died the day before I left, but I didn’t know. When the guy started reading his paper I saw it in the paper. We talked a bit about Wolkers and his books. But also about my and his plans in Rome. It was a nice conversation.
You may think now: “What the hell, I don’t care that Stijn met a nice guy on the plane to Rome”. A story is behind it. When I visited the Pantheon and observed this strange building someone hit my shoulder.
St. Peter square
I looked where it came from and you guess what I saw. Yes, I saw the guy I met in the plane. I was impressed by this meeting, because we didn’t have the plan to meet each other in the Pantheon. It was a coincidence I met this guy in such a big city as Rome.
In the evening of our first day in Rome we visited the Spanish stairs. In front of these stairs there is a street, called Via Borgognona. This street is filled with stores from Armani, Prada, D&G, Missoni, etc. It was very busy in this street, but hardly anybody entered a store. The reason for it was that you couldn’t enter these stores if you weren’t rich enough. In front of each store stood a big security guy. The security guy who stood in front of the Armani store was the most impressive one. I didn’t see anybody enter this store, because if you would enter the store the security guy would look you out of the store. He looked so aggressive and scary that you wouldn’t enter this store.
There was also a little bag shop in this street and somebody entered this store. The moment that this person entered the store the staff locked the door. A little paper told everybody that the store was closed, because the crew was too busy helping a customer. Very very strange.
