When we arrived back in Rome from Sorrento, Mark, Ben and Gem kicked on for a massive night out with our new found friends. Poor little old me had by now picked up a pretty bad cough and went to bed feeling like poo. The next morning I woke up feeling worse, and so did the others in the self inflicted kind of way. We also woke up to a Roman heat wave. As promised by Ereni there was a crippling dry heat blowing in from Egypt, so none of us felt too guilty about spending the entire day at the campsite, laying next to the pool with frozen daiquiris in hand. It was pretty tough.

While bumming around the campsite I met our tent neighbour, the lovely Raissa from Brazil, a boxer who is living and studying gastronomy in Barcelona for a year, and who has offered us a tour of Barcelona when we arrive.

We also met another rather interesting neighbour, who bounded over to us the minute he spied Mark sitting on our doorstep with the laptop, trying to book our trains for Spain.

"Hi, I'm from Africa and I am a musician, big musician you understand, look I'll show you my YouTube, you have Internet?' Pop star tries to wrench the laptop from Marks hands, whilst peering into our tent.

Mark: "ahhh no sorry, no Internet..maybe later"

Popstar: "ok yes I show you later. I come here to Italy for four months for the inspiration, you understand, the inspiration. I am very big singer. I have family at home, but I come here and work, and relax, I go to work later at the beach but it's very hot now and I have a problem with the sun you understand, very big problem. Ok have a good day my children goodbye"

He disappears into his tent for about 30 seconds then reappears with a large stack of photos and proceeds to talk a mile a minute "You see this is my wife, and this is my baby, and this is my other baby, and this is my cousin, and this is me singing, see I not kidding you man, very big singer! Ok have a good day, bye bye."

Another 30 seconds pass before he reappears again, this time holding a big loop of bracelets and bangles. Uh Oh. He pulls a couple of beaded bracelets off and starts to walk toward us. A look of horror crosses Mark's face as Popstar approaches, his true occupation revealed and hand outstretched. As we learned from other's misfortunes in Paris, once those little pieces of string are on your wrist - bye bye euros. In my head the Jaws theme starts to play.

Popstar: "For you my friend, for you and your lady"

Mark: shakes head vigorously, "No, no thanks, really it's ok, no thanks!"

Popstar: "No, please it is for free, you are my brother and she is my sister, black white does not matter, we are all sisters and brothers so this is for you. You know I am a very big singer in Africa. Do you have food because I have plenty of food, if you need you can have some ok my brother? Ok have a good day, bye bye now!'

Another busabouter told us he was also given a free bracelet from a different tout, who after tying the bracelet on his wrist, said "Thankyou, now I just need a donation." So our Popstar friend is a nice guy and pretty harmless - later he sings the campsite to sleep with a beautiful African song.

After our day chilling by the pool, Ben and Gem had an early night while Mark and I met up with Raissa to go to a toga party. When in Rome, right? Well, who would have known a toga was so bloody hard to create. After a bit of a bed sheet battle and toga rage we finally got it figured and then had a great night at the campsite bar, dancing the night away and chatting to Raissa about life in Brazil, where we hope to head as part of a South American tour after our stint in the UK.

The following day was a few degrees cooler, so we caught the shuttle bus to Vatican city. We'd intended to do a guided tour but stuffed up the meeting point. Not to worry as this saved us 40 euro per couple and we are all for savings! So we browsed through the Vatican museums which hold the Catholic Church's massive loot - Egyptian artifacts and mummies, tapestries, artwork and so, so many statues. We saw the Sistine Chapel and Michelangelos famous 3D ceiling artwork which was pretty amazing - however apparently the church blackmailed him into painting it and he was dreadfully unhappy throughout the 4 years that it took him to paint it, and paint dripped into his eyes so he became half blind. So as a big up yours to the Church, he has painted little anomolies in the artwork. We didn't spot any unfortunately..guess we will have to google that one!

We then visited the biggest cathedral in the world, Saint Peters Basilica. Needless to say, Catholic church = mega, mega rich. This place is excessively extravagant, and amazing to see. Popey wasn't around to say G'day, only on Wednesday's apparently. Ah well. We spent a bit of time just wandering around and losing each other as we explored each unique section, including the grottos where previous Popes are entombed. (more tombs, hooray!)

After that it was a quick visit to the overcrowded Trevi fountain to throw a coin over our shoulder, make a wish and all that jazz. By now we were incredibly hot and dehydrated after walking through the concrete and stone jungle of Rome, but we pushed on to the Colosseum anyway and joined a guided tour for only 5 euro on top of the usual entry cost.

Remember the story about Nero burning down half of Rome to build his mega palace? Well, after Nero died the Romans wanted to erase his memory and start afresh..so bye bye pimping palace. As part of this process, a massive lake was filled in and this is where the Colosseum was built. You all know the rest thanks to old mate Russell Crow - lots of death and gore for entertainments sake, the Romans were pretty feral.

The Colloseum was very cool but we didn't stick around for too long as we were starting to hallucinate in the heat...Rome probably needs more time to do it justice, but I think we did ok. We dragged our filthy feet to the metro and for the first time had a faultless trip home, even a seat. Nawww, cheers and ciao Rome.