ROME

Rome...we came, we saw, we conquered...

(in rough chronological order)
- Santa Maria degli Angeli
- Plazza della Repubblica
- Fontana del Tritone
- Trinita del Monti (and the Spanish Steps)
- Fontana de Trevi
- Piazza Colonna
- Palazzo Chigi
- Palazzo Montecitorio
- Saint Ignazlo dl Loyola
- Tempo Adriano
- Pantheon
- Palazzo Madama
- Palazzo Navona
- Colosseo
- Arco di Costantino
- Palatino
- Arco di Tito
- Monumento a Vittorio Emanuele II
- Colonna Traiana
- Mercanti Traianei
- Campidogilo
- Arco di Giano
- Circo Massimo
- Saint Maria in Cosmedin
- Isola Tiberina
- Piazza Trilussa
- Campo de Fiori
- Area Sacra
- Chlesa de Gesu
- Palazzo Venezia
- Palazzo delle Esposizioni
- Palazzo di Giustizia
- Castel Sant’ Angelo
- Musei Vaticani
- Basilica Saint Pietro
- Ponte Vittorio Emanuele II

And we enjoyed them all.

THE END


So that’s Monique’s blog entry, let’s see what I can add:

The first thing that struck me from the train ride in to Rome from the airport was the amount of graffiti on, well, everything. Al l the buildings, the bridges, the station platforms even the trains themselves were covered in it. Once we got off the train and in to the city, it was much less but there was still a bit around. The second thing that struck me about Rome was how much warmer it was than good old England. However, much more like England, it was hosing down within 1.5 hrs of us being there and boy did it rain!! We thought it best to take refuge in a cafe/bar and have lunch. Eating in Italy is great, well eating anywhere is great mostly, but eating in Italy is especially good because their food is really nice. Lasagne, pizza, spaghetti, Panini’s yum I’m getting hungry. Anyway, the rain stopped soon after we left the cafe and it was stunning, sunny, weather for the rest of our time there. Basically we spent the three days that we were in Rome walking from old building to old building to very old building to very, very old and down right huge building. You get the idea (when I say very, very old I mean BC old). It wasn’t hard to know that you were nearing another ancient sight/attraction because there were always masses of other tourists already there milling around. The amount of tourists in Rome is truly astounding!! It’s like Queenstown on steroids. Things that stood out in my mind about Rome were:

1/ The Colosseum, (I think that standing on the sight of so much hugely famous/infamous history were so many people fought and died to satisfy the Roman thirst for blood sports is quite amazing/sobering/humbling/all of the above. It’s hard to express what it was like for me. Similar in some ways to the concentration camp. Anyway, that’s what I thought, I know Monique didn’t really feel the same so everyone’s different

2/ the unbelievably ornate churches, (being the centre of the universe for the Roman catholic church I suppose this was to be expected)

3/ the sheer size of St Peter’s cathedral at the Vatican city, (seriously, this church is absolutely HUGE. I’ve seen aircraft hangers smaller than this thing and I’m not joking)

4/ the art work in the Sistine Chapel (the three dimensional effect that Michelangelo achieved with his work is impressive)

5/ they really, really like statues in Rome,

6/ how no one stops at pedestrian crossings (kind of a Italy thing really, not just Rome)

7/ how nearly everyone seems to smoke (Yuck)

8/ the strong feeling of amazing history that the place has (it has a way of connecting you to its history that’s very real).

So in summing up, Rome has a lot of old stuff and is rather impressive.

THE END

Oh yeah, hang on there’s one more thing to mention, Easy Jet managed to be delayed again on the way back to England and so once again we didn’t get back to Gatwick airport until after the last train had left at midnight. Truly frustrating and nothing short of piss poor!!

THE END....again....no truly, this is the end now so go home or something.


(ps - for those less computer literate, don't forget to click on 'next' to see all our other photos. Daniel went camera made so I cut down 500 odd photos to this selection, which is still a lot larger then our other entries).

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