Today we planned to visit the Ancient Sites of Rome but ran into a very unexpected problem. Massive street protests were planned in protest of "corporate greed" and "government cut backs" and were considered to pose a big enough threat that the Colosseum, Roman Forum and other big sites were closed for "security reasons". Police in all forms dominated the streets as they attempted to confine the protest to a small area. After speaking with a heavily equipped policeman he assured us that if we simply avoided the "hotspot" there would be nothing for us to be concerned about.

We've both been into the sites of Ancient Rome before so it wasn't a major issue for us that they were closed. However it would have been an enormous shame for anyone who had set aside this day in their trip to visit them. From the outsides you can still appreciate the greatness of the Colosseum and the Roman Forum so our day did not go to waste. We wandered the streets of Rome admiring its vast history before deciding it would now be safe to make our way back towards Termini station to check on train times to Florence for tomorrow. The huge policeman, in the almost military style uniform, we spoke with earlier said the protest was set to run from 2-5pm

It seemed police of all shapes, sizes and uniforms were on every street corner as we walked, increasing in number anytime we were near a major bank or government building. Clearly they anticipated the potential for trouble.
When we reached Termini it was a mess! Broken bottles and rubbish were scattered in every direction, it seemed the protest had escalated. In the streets around the station small pockets were still in full voice and marching defiantly with their banners while the street cleaners and police worked hard to restore order, Termini is after all the gateway to Rome. Whether you come to Rome on the Rails or the Planes you'll finish with a train ride to Termini, so it was clearly important to get things back to "normal" as fast as possible.

Away from the "hotspots" tourists went about their sightseeing, blissfully unaware that the protest had in fact escalated into small pockets of violence. However it was truly a case of "if your not involved, you don't need to worry" and so for us it was simply another thing to have experienced on this trip.
So after buying more books to read we headed back to Camping Roma to cook up a nice pasta dinner, put our feet up and set ourselves for tomorrow's train to Florence.