Rome – Arrival and National Museum: Palazzo Massimo

Ugh, early flight. We woke up at 1:30am after falling asleep around 7pm in order to sleep some before our 5am flight.

Arriving in Rome was fairly trouble free. We got our passports stamped by an extremely bored looking guard. I don't even think they scanned it. There was a minor snafu getting off the train at the right time (the tourist between us and the door didn't realize you needed to press a button to open the door), but the next stop worked fine too. Finding the hotel was difficult, as it was actually a tiny B&B in a flat that was poorly marked (and on this street 130 is across from 257), but we did eventually find it. Our room wasn't ready, so we looked over the sights we wanted to see in Rome, and picked up some lunch at a grocery store: bread, olives, cheese, and Chianti. Evidently the Chianti and sleep deprivation went to our heads, as we were a little woozy for a couple of hours.

Since it was a Sunday evening, we decided to get out in time to see a museum that was described as under-appreciated, so as to not be crowded. The museum was very well laid out; the quantity of items was good, and they weren't crowded. A lot of the museums we've been to take a warehouse approach to museuming, which makes it difficult to appreciate the better pieces, as you don't know which they are.

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The first ground floor contained mostly statues, and some other things like this nice alter.

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The first floor had more statues. Including one that looks like a good friend of ours.

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There were also lots of ancient copies of famous ancient originals.

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The second floor contained some awesome frescoes, one of which was displayed in the round (they built a room in the size and shape of the original room the fresco was taken from). Many other frescoes were displayed in partial rooms (two or three walls) in the same way. There was also an excellent selection of mosaics. And an incredible frieze on a sarcophagus. It seems that the second floor of this museum is normally much bigger, but a large section was closed off as they are redoing the museum to display more of their frescoes in rooms of the appropriate shape and size.

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The basement had coins, which are cool, but never really make good museum exhibits, at least for us. There was also a Roman mummy, and the stuff she was buried with.

It's really great being back in a part of the world where you understand the stuff you're looking at. And signs that I can read (or fake reading).

On our way out, we noticed an ad for another piece that looked awesome, and asked the info people where it was. As we headed off to it, they hassled us about going back through the entrance (they must have thought we hadn't entered yet as we hadn't checked our bag), our ticket didn't work a second time, and we raised a stink. They let us in, but it left us in a foul mood. We probably need more sleep. This piece was apparently only recently returned from the Getty, but we don't remember seeing it when we were there.

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Dinner was a good gnocchi rusticana. Alas, the $2-$4 meals have disappeared :( We'll need to spend more time cooking in Europe, but not here (no kitchen).