When in Rome...

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When in Rome, do as the Romans do!! So we did....21st Century style!!
8th December, a Wednesday all around the world....and we were in Rome by 9:30am!! Gotta love over-night trains. We made our way with our backpacks to our hotel by foot, it was A LOT hotter than Paris (we were dressed for snow), so by the time we got to our hotel, we were sweating & smelly. Luckily, our room was available by the time we got there, so we decided to have a shower, freshen up, and then do a bit of sight-seeing!!
Jess had a plan, but the due to the public holiday for the Immaculate Conception of Mary, the Pope was making a visit to the square near the Spanish Steps at 4pm, so we altered the plan to coincide with this!! Everything is easy walking distance in the city centre, just around the corner from our hotel is the Quirinale Palace (where the Popes used to live). There are so many nice gardens/parks as well as churches around the place, we saw a few of these on the way to the Roman Forum (meeting place). We walked down the hill to the start of the forum, right here is a massive monument to celebrate King Vittorio Emanuel II. We would have explored further but there were mass crowds moving along the streets towards the Spanish Steps so we decided to follow (sheep, we are). On the way down Via Corso, we saw signs for the Trevi Fountain, so we made a quick stop there and then on our map we found an ad for the Time Elevator experience, which is one of those simulator shows. As the Pope wasn't coming til 4 we decided we had some time to kill. This one was really good in that it explained the history of and origins of Rome. The She-Wolf is the well known symbol of Rome, because back in the day Romulus & Remus was raised by the she-wolf, these two were twin brothers sentenced to death as babies because their mother was supposed to remain a virgin, anyways they were taken into the woods and abandoned near a pack of wolves and the story goes that one of the wolves raised them. Later in life they decided that they wanted to build an empire but one wanted it on the hill and the other next to the river, in the end Romulus killed his brother to win the fight and built the city next to the river Tibre. Would recommend this to all visitors to Rome, gives you great background, and some sights to then go see! The show finished around 1pm so we headed to the Spanish Steps for some photos and to try and find lunch...
We picked up a guide book on Rome that had several itineraries to follow with great explanations of the sights. At the Spanish Steps, EVERYONE had Macca's, so that sounded good so we tried to find it....very un-successfully. On our adventure though, we headed towards Piazza Mignanelli with the Column of the Immaculate Conception (where the Pope would be speaking - with lots of security), then the other way to Piazza del Popolo which is totally symmetrical, with the Fountain of the Flaminio Obelisk in the centre, 2 churches that look exactly the same, .... From here, we headed back the a different way to the Step, still looking for Maccas. We ended up back without anything to show for our efforts, so grabbed a toasted focaccia from the top of the Spanish Steps, walked back down and grabbed a good spot to see the Pope. After waiting for 1 1/2 hours, he did turn up!! We got some good photos of him arriving, but we couldn't see where he was going to stand, so we headed off to finish looking at some of the sights.
We went back to the Terrace of the Pincio Gardens which had a beautiful sunset view. From there it was a nice stroll through the gardens to a popular street, unfortunately one wrong turn took us around them instead!! We did find the street though, Via Veneto, and went to the bottom of that where the Fountain of the Triton is. By now, it was time to work out a plan for the night, so we headed back to hotel to try and organise something.
After a few minutes on the internet, we found a place doing a nice Illumination tour of Rome, but they weren't picking up their phone, but there was plenty of time, so we decided to walk to the office. It was a bit further than we thought, and when we got there, there was no office!! It had obviously moved (why they weren't answering the phone!!), and by now it was too late to do anything but find a restuarant for dinner, so we headed back to Via Veneto to Hard Rock Cafe where we had huge, but very satisfying, burgers (and thickshakes). When we got back to the hotel, we organised with the concierge (Alberto - fantastic) a Segway tour and night tour for the Friday as we were off to Naples and Pompeii tomorrow!!
Thursday, 9th December
Today was an early start as we had a pick-up at 6:45am, so we grabbed a banana and crossiant at the shop across the road and headed off to Naples first, then Pompeii with our tour bus. It was 3 1/2 hours to Naples, but the countryside was beautiful (when we were awake) so it went quick enough. Upon arriving, we met our tour guide for the day, Fabian. We went for a quick walk (50mins) around the main sights of Naples, seeing Maschio Angioino which is an awesome castle overlooking the bay, Piazza Del Plebiscito which also is surrounded by the National Museum and the Palazzo Reale (Palace of the Bourbon and Savoy Kings), the Galleria Umberto I and finally, we were privelged to see the Statue of the 1st King of United Italy being transported into the Museum for restoration, which was right next to the path!! After Naples, it was onto the bus for 20mins to Pompeii where we had lunch at a nice Italian restuarant with another young Aussie couple from Brissie before heading into the ruins of Pompeii city.
This city was destroyed in 3 days by the ash and pumice stone from Mt Vesuvius in 79BC, but was preserved very well because of there being no lava. 2,000 out of 22,000 residents perished. Inside the ruins you can see many buildings, artifacts and preserved bodies. Some of the places we visited include the Public Baths, the Restuarants, houses (incl. mansions), temples, brothels and the Forum (where everyone hung out!!). The tour went for 2 hours and we got to wear funny headsets listening to the audioguide. We had enough time afterwards to grab our compulsery magnet souvenier and gelato. After that, we went back to Rome by bus, and got back earlier than we thought. This allowed us enough time to do a few loads of washing, grab a very quick bite to eat, and then bed.
Friday 10th December, 70 days in...
Today was a full day in Rome, with a lot on the schedule incl. the Vatican City, a Segway Tour (Mischa was very excited) and then the Illuminations tour. So, it was up early enough, some breaky provided by the hotel, then off to the Vatican. We jumped on one of the very full public buses there, and made the rest of the way on foot. Once there, you can see why people come (and did they come!!). It is a very impressive building from the outside, and once inside the artwork, detail, statues, alters and vastness of the church is breathtaking. Thankfully we had our little Rome book, so we guided our own way around the church (there was a service happening for servicemen), and then made our way up the top of the Basilica for the very impressive view over Rome. After climbing 300 steps, and some very small corridors, you finally arrive at the top, and you can walk all the way around, seeing as far as the eye can see!! As the day was so perfect, the photos turned out pretty good too!! After that, we headed back to the centre of the Rome where the Coliseum is to jump on our Segway tour. On the way, we stopped at a few '2nd-hand' shops to look for ski clothing, but to no avail. We had a very quick bite for lunch at "Coming Out", a restuarant on gay alley, before going up the road to Rome by Segway.
A little mix-up with the tour being booked for the previous day, but the guide came back to take just us two around for a few hours around some of the major sites. It was fantastic, and Marco our guide was great. The segway's themselves were very fun (Mischa wants one now), using just a slight lean forwards or backwards on your feet to make them move, and getting up to 8k/hr we flew past walkers. It was very fun (and got lots of looks)!! We went to a number of spots, including riding up a number of the 7 hills of Rome, viewing Circus Maximus (where the chariot races used to be held), the Forum and Coliseum, Palatine Hill, the National Museum of Rome (not Vatican City), and some surprises we don't want to ruin for others going on the tour!! It's a must. Another good feature was using Ipods to view videos of what some of the places looked like in their hey-day, and some interesting, and funny, facts about famous places you would never know!! The tour finished with plenty of time to make the night tour, but as we had finished the Segway tour at night, we thought best to save our money and skip the Illuminations tour. So we grabbed some Macca's, checked the movie timetable (nothing on we wanted to see), so headed out to walk around, grab some nice photos of the Trevi Fountain lit up, get some gelato and then made it back to bed about 10pm. Our trip to Rome a successful, fun one, another thing to tick off the list!!

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Comments

[mum]

beautiful photos
Wow you are still producing great blogs and photos. Thanks heaps. By the way, do you get the blog comments? And your photos are amazing considering you have no camera!!! (Do you?) Love to you both xxxxx

[Cheryl]

Segway!
Hey, maybe I can come with you next time. I've been practicing on my Wii!

[Grummitts]

yes, we get them
Hi mum, yes, we get the comments, thanks for them. we have our video camera, and we bought a mini-tripod to take photos on it, but Mischa is just a pro!! :) Thanks, still having fun, are you getting any text messages from us??

[Grummitts]

Hi mum, yeah, well, if Mischa can convince me, we will have one in Mount Isa you can come and use. And it's a bit easier than balancing on the wii...it balances itself!!

[Tanya]

Thanks
Amazing photos. Thanks for posting them. You seem to had a lot of fun. Regards from Hotels in Rome