Rome Blog

Hello,

Ok now I'm ready to talk about my trip to Rome. It started off with a very early (3.45am) morning for me and Darren before heading down to East Midlands airport. We arrived in Rome at 10am local time and it was immediately obvious we were missing a vital accessory for this trip... sunglasses! We haven't really needed them here in the UK (surprise surprise!) but it was so bright in Rome! Once we'd caught the bus into town we picked some up for a street vendor.

Me having to eat every few hours otherwise I nearly die (did I ever mention I exaggerate) we went to a McDonalds like pizza chain for lunch. I ordered by number and Darren got a huge slice of pizza with fries, and I got a huge slice of pizza with mozzarella balls... which were delicious! I love mozzarella now! We found our b&b with not too much difficulty and it was lovely. The guy who ran it was so friendly and gave us lots of good local information which was so incredibly helpful!

The first afternoon we spend wandering around the streets by the Colosseum and Roman Forum ruins. They were about 10 minutes walk from our B&B. It was astounding just how much stuff there was to see all in one area. Just block after block of ruins... and every block you wandered around in town you'd come across a beautiful old building, or square, or monument. The whole place was so beautiful. But also a bit dirtier than normal. Like the parks weren't as nicely tended, grass gone to dirt etc, and pavements littered with dog waste!

We stopped and got a drink and a pastry which was yummy... pointing proved useful for ordering things! Then Darren got us lost which was funny as! Anyway we arrived back at the b&b and sort of collapsed. Then me being me, hunger got the better of me and dragged Darren out for pizza! It was funny we walked around for ages before finding somewhere I was brave enough to try and order it. It was weird as you didn't know how much it was going to cost as they just cut a slab and weighed it, and the cost was based on weight.

Day 2

Well we got up nice and early for our b&b breakfast then down to the Colosseum. We had got there quite early so the queues weren't bad at all, then we had a good long look around. It was pretty cool. Way bigger and way more... umm... technical than I thought! I had thought it was just a big round set of walls! But there's tons more to it than that, a whole underground system which Darren explained was used for trap doors etc. And pulley systems to get the animals up to ground level etc. Anyway it was pretty awesome. We spent a wee while at the Colosseum just watching the gladiators con people into giving them huge amounts of money to get their photo taken with them. We watched one guy get what must have been over 100 euros for one photo with a bunch of Japanese tourists! Anyway Darren decided it would be funny to see what they'd do it we didn't pay. We found out they chase you and then watch over your shoulder forcing you to delete the photos off your camera!

Next we went to the Palentine. This was my second favourite part of the trip. It was a huge mass of ruins, with ancient gardens and things all around. It was on top of a big hill. And the sun was out and compared to the bustle of tourists around the Colosseum this just felt away from everything, and it was so nice and peaceful, and imagining what the buildings must have been like was just breath-taking. From the Palentine it was onto wandering around the ruins of the Roman Forum. This was also very cool, very typical ruins with beautiful columns and lots of tourists again.

We then wandering in towards the Pantheon where it started raining. It was amazing, as soon as the rain drops came down out popped all these guys selling umbrellas (expensive too!). The Pantheon was great, a very busy tourist square though, it was absolutely packed with tourists.

We walked back to the B&B the long way and spent quite some time looking in some cool shops. And past a beautiful big Church, which I can't be bothered checking the name of sorry! Haha. Then we had pizza for tea (surprise surprise!).

Day 3

Today was the big one... the Vatican Museums. Darren and I decided to walk it, even though it was quite a long way away. It was a good walk though. I think it took us 45 minutes to get there. St Peter's Basilica Square was amazing. We found our way round to the queue for the museums, it was already around the block. This was at 9.25 still 40 minutes before the place opened! Whilst in the queue someone came round offering a tour of the place. We had already considered doing a tour so we decided to do it. I was very nervous leaving our place in the queue to follow the lady round the side streets to the tour office. But it was all legit and I needn't have worried, once all set up with headsets we got back in the queue (somehow jumping a large portion of it) then only had a 10 minute wait before we got through the doors. (Well through the gates then the metal detectors) Haha.

The tour guide was fantastic! He was an Italian called Massimo but spoke excellent English (albiet with an American accent), he also did art restoration as his other job and painting as a hobby so he had a fantastic knowledge off all the sculptures in the museum and the paintings... and of course the frescoes in the Sistene Chapel. The museums were amazing, my words won't really do them justice, just rooms and rooms fulls of beautiful sculptures, tapestries with 24 carat gold threaded through then, amazing paintings.

The highlight of the whole trip for me though was St Peters Basilica. Being the least religious person in my family, and often feeling a bit uncomfortable in Churches this came as a huge surprise. The place was just phenomenal! The scale of it - it was absolutely huge! And entirely made of marble. And there were amazing things in it, like dead popes in open coffins, and apparently Veronica's veil, and the spear head that speared Jesus. And amazing mosaics which were replicas of Raphael paintings. I wanna go back!

After that we took the afternoon easy. We had spent about 3 and a half hours wandering around the Vatican. We just walked back to the B&B getting some lunch on the way. We also walked past the triple fountain thingee on the way (sorry I'm tired and can't be bothered looking things up) it was where Saint Peter (or was it Paul) was beheaded and his head bounced three times and at each place a fount popped up and now there's a beautiful (huge) fountain there.

Very exhausted by now we half heartedly looked around for souvenirs and picked up some nice prints and Darren got a cool gladiator model.

Then it was back home to lay down again. I popped out again that night to explore a little bit myself and found a shop that sold really cool beads so I bought some of those to make a necklace to remember my trip to Rome!

Then we went to sleep and got up early and caught the bus then plane home again!

And that was our trip to Rome!

xxx