Rome

11th - 16th September 2009

Alright, I'm going to as a brief as possible, mainly because we've been busy little beavers in the 5 or so days we've been here.

Arrived into Rome's massive and busy Termini train station. We had awesome directions as to how to get to our accommodation, so we jumped on a bus and within 10 minutes we were there. We leased a little studio apartment off a nice lady. The place is in a great spot, not far from the bus and with a supermarket 2 doors down the road. Its got a loft style bed, which unfortunately isn't quite big enough for both Dan and I(its probably a bit smaller than a King Single), so I've had the pleasure of sleeping on the couch.

We decided to ease ourselves into Rome and not do too much too soon, so we just spent what was left of the afternoon strolling through the massive Borghese Gardens which are literally across the road from where we are staying. We ended up spending close to 2 hours just walking through. We missed the zoo opening hours by half an hour, but still were able to see some turtles and some cockatoos. The park was massive, and pretty leafy, but the grass was incredibly dry - not at all enticing for a lay on them. We made our way out, back past the Borghese Gallery, which is incredibly popular and reservations are required to get in to see the arty farty s***. We ended up just cooking dinner and spending some relaxing time in the apartment.

We slept in a little the next morning, but got organised and breakfasted quickly. We jumped on the bus to the Termini, and then onto the metro, which took us close to the Vatican. Dan was worried that we should've brought our passports, because we were officially leaving Italy. After walking the short walk down towards the museum, we'd found that line to the entrance was about 2 hours long. Neither of us could be bothered waiting for that long, so we decided to shell out for a guided tour of the museum and Sistine Chapel, which is direct entry instead of waiting in line. It ended up costing us about 20Euros each extra, but I think it was worth it. Our tour guide was really great (even though she was an American), showed us all the important pieces in the gallery, and why they wereso etc etc. We eventually found our way into the Sistine Chapel. It was crowded with people with their necks bent upwards. It was pretty amazing, but definitely difficult to take in. I found it funny that there is no talking allowed in there - supposed to be silence in respect to the religion, but every minute or so a big man yells out SILENCE in 3 or 4 different languages. Dan managed to snap a few dodgy photos of the roof, even though it is highly forbidden to do so (Something to do with copyright laws instead of damaging the work). After our 3 hour tour of the museum, we got straight into the biggie - St Peters Basilica. Because we came out of the gallery on a tour, we also skipped the massive line of people going in to see the biggest Christian church in the world. The place was huge. There is simply nothing else to say about it, except for MASSIVE. The statues which I took some photos of look not that big in the photos, but some were actually 5 m high. We were going to climb up the dome after we'd seen in the church, but as it was now late afternoon, we were both starving, so we headed out of the church in search of some lunch. That was a big mistake. We didn't realise that the queue was so damn long to get in (as we didn't see it when we skipped it), and we couldn't get back to the place where you climb the dome. So anyway, we found some lunch (the usual pizza) and headed back to the Vatican where we could jump on the metro back home. We ended up just picking up some stuff for hamburgers and made some massive burgers at home.

The next morning we slept in a little bit again, but before long were on the bus and then metro, headed for the Colosseum. Again, there was a massive line, but thanks to Jodie and her wisdom we'd purchased a "Roma Pass". Basically that allowed us into two different places of our choice for free, and it also let us skip the big queue. We walked straight in and picked up ourselves an audio guide. We plugged in my headphone adapter, which allowed us to connect two headphones, and we set off inside the massive arena. The place itself was a little more in ruins than I'd thought it would be. There is nothing left of the seating, and it takes a pretty vivid imagination to picture what it would've been like 1800 years ago. Anyway, we wandered around the two levels and took our photos then headed out.

We got lunch from one of the near by food stands. I had a 'pizza', which was pretty much just a Panini with tomato, cheese and mushrooms, and Dan had a salami and cheese Panini. They were meant to be warmed, but they were still cold and tasted gross. Not to mention how damn expensive they were.

After we'd eaten we headed over to the entrance to the Palatino. The Colosseum ticket gave us entry into here as well as the Roman Forum. We spent the next couple of hours just walking through the ruins on the hill called the Palatino. That's just a collection of old palaces and special places. We then made our way down the hill to the Roman Forum. This is the old centre of ancient Rome. It is just littered with bits of marble, and buildings and columns and everything. It is pretty spectacular to see. From here we went up the big hill to the Piazza Campidoglio. Michelangelo designed this square and it is pretty cool - surrounded on 3 sides by palaces (One is now the council offices the other 2 are museums). We walked down and found a bride about to make a walk up some bloody big stairs to get married. Dan experimented with the camera taking photos of the Rolls Royce she'd turned up in. We turned the corner and found the massive memorial. It looks like a palace of sorts, but it is just a big white fronted building, with big sculptures all around it. It is a memorial to the first king of Italy, and also has the Unknown Soldier's tomb (Continually under guard by soldiers). Apparently the locals hate the building and have nicknamed it the "Wedding Cake" or the "Typewriter" - not to sure as how the typewriter fits, but it does sort've resemble a wedding cake. This had filled up our entire day so we headed back to the apartment for a bit of relaxing time and dinner.

Day 3 of Rome, and the weather wasn't looking that flash. We'd been woken numerous times by the deafening thunder and lightning that was right above us. We were going to keep it pretty simple and easy today, and just check out the sights in the city centre. First stop was the 2000 year old Pantheon church. We were able to see the tomb of Raphael, and a few kings. It was a pretty impressive church, amazing considering how long its been standing up for. From here we walked up to the Trevi fountain. This is when the day got fun….

The fountain is massive, and it was surrounded by hundreds of tourists. Dan and I started taking some photos of each other, when we had been asked by about 3 or 4 different men of Indian or Pakistani type decent if we wanted to pay 5 Euros to have them take our photo together on the edge of the fountain. We'd politely said "No thanks" to each of the men before and they'd strolled onto the next victims. However, we were again approached by a man, we did the usual no thanks and he kept asking. We just shook our heads, said no and looked away - the usual things you do. After he asked us again, Dan decided to tell him to 'f*** off'.He obviously took offence to it and started calling Dan a "Son of a Biks" - I think he was trying to call him something else but the language difference made it almost funny. He repeated that Dan was the Son of Biks about 10 times, before I jumped in and told him to leave, as he was getting really aggressive towards us. A few people had started to watch by now, and Dan also copped a mouthful from me because he swore at the man. I was pretty pissed off with the photo man,I wish they'd learn to take no for an answer, but still no need to have Dan swear at him!!! We threw our 3 coins each into the fountain and left. (I did read that over 20,000 Euros are thrown into the fountain each week - whatever money is not stolen by the desperate is then donated to charity)

Anyway, we left the fountain and headed towards the Spanish Steps. It was a short stroll, but we were in need of lunch by the time we got there. We find a nice little café and ordered lunch. While we waited we had to listen to a group of 4, way to loud Americans. Dan and I have penned a new insult when either one of us is annoying the another "Dan, don't be so American", because they just really are that annoying.We heard them almost make the same mistake that we made whilst in Assisi. (I forget to put this in the Assisi blog, and its quite funny so I'll put it in here. When Dan and I were having breakfast in our hotel, the waitress asked if we'd like some café (Coffee). We just replied with "yes please, latte's". She asked if we wanted them hot or cold, we responded hot, naturally. We were served up two glasses of hot milk. We forget to mention that they were café lattes, not just latte, which is obviously the Italian word for milk!!!)

After lunch we climbed up the Spanish Steps, and into a park. We got lost in the park - I think it was the same one we were in on the day we arrived. We ended up finding our way out onto Via Veneto. A very rich and elegant street, which was well known in the 60's as all the celebrities used to hang out here. Apparently the Italian movie "La Dolce Vita" was also set here. We checked out the menus of a few of the restaurants - I saw soup for 23 Euros and continued to walk on. We actually wanted to head to this street to check out a church - St Maria of Immaculate Conception. Just as we were trying to find it, it started to rain. Rain drops the size of golf balls pelted us while we tried to find umbrellas/shelter. Within 5 minutes we were pretty drenched, but we'd also managed to find the small and relatively unheard of church. The draw card here is the crypt. Entry was 1 Euro donation and we were able to walk through about 7 or 8 rooms filled with the remains of 4000 Capuchin Monks. They were completely decorated, some rooms just with pelvises or other rooms just with leg bones. The jawbones and skulls made decoration on the roof and doors. It was bizarre and really creepy. We only stayed about 10 minutes in there as we'd walked the length of the corridor and back, and Dan was a little weirded out.

We made straight for the subway, out of the rain, and back to the Termini and back home again. We decided we'd try one of the nice restaurants in our area for dinner. So we ventured out and looked around at all the menus. We eventually settled on a place, sat down and ordered. Just as our pasta's arrived it started raining. We were seated outside, under big umbrellas, so we didn't' get that wet. Although, by the time Dan was finishing his pasta I had my drink and bag scooped up and was heading inside. Dan was annoyed that I wouldn't let him finish mopping up his sauce with his bread. It was raining so heavy everything under the umbrellas was soaked. We went inside and finished our meal and waited for the rain to finish. The walk home was done quite quickly, with lots of thunder and lightning around.

After being woken again many times through the night because of the loud thunder, we slept in the following morning. We'd decided to buy tickets onto the local sightseeing buses and head out to see the Appian Way - the first ever road made by the Romans. Long story short, the Archeobus, arrived 30 minutes late, broken and needed to be fixed, another 30 minutes of waiting. Then when we were on it, we were told to get off it before we wanted to as they needed to pick up a group. We were left out in the wilderness at some catacombs, which weren't even open.We strolled up the road and found a big Mausoleum. We used our Roma Pass to get in and have a look around. It was pretty disappointing and you couldn't see much, but we were more interested in seeing one of the other sights that was with the combined ticket. We walked back to the catacombs which were again open, and headed in. We did a 30 minute guided tour of the San Sebastiano Catacombs. They stretch for over 7 miles and various levels underground. There are no remains left in them, as they were all shifted out many years ago. It was cool to see some fully intact mausoleums, which were almost 2000 years old, completely preserved underground.

We got back onto another Archeobus, to take us to the Baths of Caracalla. The bus didn't stop there on the way out because of some festival that was taking place, but we were promised that it would stop there on the return journey. It did not. We got off at the following stop, and decided to head to the Trastevere Area (reputedly the cheapest and best food in Rome) for a late lunch. We wandered through the streets finding heaps of restaurants and pizzerias, sadly none of them open. Not one. We had to opt for McDonalds. An older guy in jeans and a t-shirt served us, whilst he was talking on a mobile phone. The least professional Maccas we've seen ever. After lunch we made the long walk, past Circus Maximus, to the Baths of Caracalla.

It was just after 5 when we arrived, and we showed our Roma Passes for free entry. We wanted to purchase an audio guide but we were rudely told that we were too late - even though they didn't close until 7 - and that the couple that arrived less than a minute before us got one. I was less than impressed. We walked cluelessly around through the baths that apparently could've catered for up to 6000 bathers at a time.

We walked back out to where the Archeobus should've picked us up from, but it didn't, so after 40 minutes of waiting we headed down to the metro and caught the train back to the termini.

I was pretty pissed off with the company by this stage after all the stuff up's and was going to let them have it when we got back to the main centre, but for some reason I didn't. We enquired about what time the last normal open top sightseeing bus would leave, and then headed off for some dinner. We found a nice cheap restaurant, ate our pasta and headed back to the Termini. We jumped on the regular open top tour bus (Which our tickets were also valid for) and went around the city for just under 2 hours, seeing all the sights lit up at night.

This morning, the final morning, we got back onto the open top tour bus and went around until we almost reached the Vatican again. We jumped off and headed for the Castel Sant Angelo. We paid our cash to go and have a look in the place, which connects to Vatican City through secret passageways through the walls. Once at the top we had a nice view around of the city.

We grabbed some lunch nearby, it was really good, then made it on foot upto another Piazza. This one had another Egyptian Obliseque, over 3500 years old. We then walked down one of Rome's major shopping streets, and we didn't even stop to look in windows! Once we'd found our way out at the other end, we found the Ferrari shop. Incredibly overpriced merchandise, including an 800 Euro jacket, and it also has the Kimi Reikennen's 2004 F1 car. Very cool and very red and shiny! I was pretty warn out so we jumped back on the bus and headed back to the apartment around 4ish.

And here we are now, about to cook dinner and relax before heading to Sorrento, via Naples tomorrow. It also might be the last chance we have internet before reaching Sicily, so I'm making sure we have all our directions and trains (and an overnight ferry!) sorted out.I've also started the search for somewhere for us to live in London when we get back. I thought I'd found a great place until I got an email saying that the landlord was on the "Scamlist".

Good luck to the Saints this weekend, I wont have internet access, so can someone who has my UK number send me a text to let me know of the result. Please!

Love to you all xoxo