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Published: October 26th 2009
The colloseum
Talk about feeling the history!From Shell: Last night as a threesome in Rome. Marja booked us a fantastic apartment for the last 4 days - we each have our own bedroom and we all keep marveling at how you need to shout to be heard because there are walls separating us!
Rome has been a complete blast for all of us - we did a lot of research and knew exactly which bus to catch from the train station to our apartment. What we didn't count on was a bus strike on the day we arrived! We begrudgingly caught a taxi, expecting that we would get ripped off but our driver was great.
We've seen so many great things.... The Circo Massimo, where they used to run chariot races, the ruins at the Forum and the Palantino, the Colosseum, the Appian Way..... We've been down in catacombs and up in churches. Today we saw a 12th century basilica that was built over a 4th century church that was built over a 1st century Roman house that contained a 2nd century pagan temple - and for $5 Euros you could go down and see all of these levels excavated - one of the highlights
Centurion gossip...
A catch up near the Trevi fountain of the trip for me!
Rome has been a big surprise - I thought that rough, dirty, busy Naples would be a good prep for Rome but we all spent the taxi ride from the train station wondering where all the people were. I know we aren't here in the busiest months of june and july but the place is nowhere near as busy and packed as most other places we've been e.g. Paris. It's much cleaner than I expected and none of us have had trouble with pickpockets etc and we have been catching basic public transport. It's great! Cant wait to come back.
We had to have some flexiblity - I saw an ad in Milan for a Caravaggio/Francis Bacon exhibition in Rome and mentioned it to Marja. When we got here, we realised we were only 20 minutes walk from that Gallery. None of us considered that we would need to book for a large exhibition at a large gallery. Of course, it was sold out and my quest to see any more of Caravaggio's work continues. We also screwed up by not booking a Sistine Chapel tour before we came, so we decided that
New meets old
Modern sculpture in the forum Vatican city is going to be party of the next trip and went and saw a creepy crypt decorated with the bones of thousands of Capuchin monks instead!!
I think one of the best moments for all of us was the Colosseo, as it was the first time for all three of us. With a lot of the ruins in Italy, you are imagining what it used to be like but in the Colosseo, you can still feel it!
Tomorrow Steve heads back to Holland and we move to a hotel for our last night in Roma and a 6.50am flight to Africa - Yikes!!
Shell xx
Update: We moved to a hotel and tried to sleep above a room of very loud people. We needn't have worried about making it to the airport on time - our driver assisted by driving us there at 160kph - hee! Saw James Morrison while in transit at Zurich airport.
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Brian Akhurst
non-member comment
You're giving me the bug!
Marja Yours and Shell's blogs have kindled a little travel spark in me. It has been great to folow your travels and I'm starting to think that I should be planning a trip for Jan and I. All I have to do is convince Jan that it isn't such a terrifying a thing to travel OS. Brian