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Published: August 15th 2008
Finally, we've made it to Rome! Perhaps the highlight of the tour, the cultural pinnacle. It's hard to describe Rome, because there's just so much there. With a history from at least 753BC, and an incredible amount of remains from Roman times still intact, it's hard to know where to start. Or at least, it should have been. We arrived on Sunday evening, and discovered that on Monday, Rome is closed. We got ourselves a tourist brochure listing all the sights, then hunted through for something that would let us in. Did the Roman's take Monday off when invading Britain? I think not. Things have gone downhill - I blame that Brutus.
Fortunately, Rome is good enough to look at from the outside. It surprises around every corner. You pass a clothes shop, then a couple of ancient columns, then a couple of restaurants. Somehow it feels wrong that it's all packed in this working space, when I'm used to seeing this sort of thing in a museum.
We started at the Pantheon, which provided another surprise. Surely ancient ruins should be, well, ruined? Here they seem to like them still standing and in use. At first I though
Church ceiling
I've already forgotton the name of this church, there were so many! The false perspective painting was incredible, even if not to my taste.I was in the wrong place. It just seemed too good. Our concrete buildings from the 60's are falling down, yet the Romans managed to build the worlds larges unsupported dome using 125AD concrete and it's still there. The only disappointment is that someone felt it necessary to fill it with Christian junk. Still, it enabled it to survive, so it's not all bad.
Having got in the mood for Christian worship (OK, maybe a slight exaggeration there), we pottered over to St Peter's for afternoon tea with the pope. Unfortunately, he was delayed elsewhere, so we made do with a tour of the cathedral instead. It was very impressive. Heather saw the light - it shone very nicely through the top windows. The art was also impressive, if about as far from my taste as is possible. I'll stick to the Roman sort from now on.
After our slow start from 'slacker Monday', we then tried to fit in the rest of ancient Rome on Tuesday morning before our flight back. Needless to say, we failed. We could have queued for two hours to go around the colosseum, but we'd have missed our flight back. Still, it
Fontana di Trevi
If only you were allowed to paddle, this would be my favorite fountain ever. looked great from the outside. Having lived down the road from Old Trafford, I can confirm that Man U have quite a way to go yet, despite their apparent popularity everywhere we've been (where are you from? Manchester. Ah, Manchester United!, they all exclaim. No wonder City fans look so miserable all the time).
Despite the grandeur of the colosseum, the forum seemed much more interesting to me. Certainly less blood spilt - although as the centre of power there was probably plenty of time spent planning for war there. Its main purpose though was trade, and as a city marketplace it's certainly impressive. Most of it has collapsed now, but (and I found this particularly incredible), plans of the original layout were found among the remains, and it's easy to see where old courtyards and buildings were. Incomplete lines of columns span open excavations and continue towards the road, sticking out of modern pavements.
We certainly didn't spend enough time in Rome, but then to see it all I think you'd have to live there. I'm sure we'll go back one day, probably when it's not so warm!
However, my favorite bits of Rome were easy
to identify. The food and wine were fantastic (especially the cold bits), and the view of the aquaduct from the train was stunning - because we were in air conditioned comfort. Yes, it was hot.
We then promptly got on a flight to start the next leg of our trip, via a significantly colder London. See you in Bali!
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Matt Young
non-member comment
Looking good!
Looks like you guys have been having a great trip. Glad to see it was pictures of Heather in a dress not Ross! Enjoy the sunshine in Bali and let us know what NZ is like. Did you get all the paperwork sorted? Have fun, Matt