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Published: November 27th 2006
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The train ride to Rome was quiet, I chatted to an australian girl who had lived in and loved Italy for 3 years who recommended a few things for me to see in Rome and an American Fisherman on a 2 week bender through Europe. I was reminded once again why i liked train journeys, the scenery is quite mezmerising, it's very easy to watch it slide by while listening to music. Its quite late when I finally arrive and I'm glad to see the american girls I'm staying with who after giving me the worst directions ever come to meet me near the metro.
Anh, Roxy and Judy are all studying Roman History doing a semester abroad from the states and have a sweet place literally across the road from the Vatican, perfect place to be based, and I can stay for free which is even sweeter! My first day in Rome is a Sunday morning so i head to St Peters and am lucky enough to see the Pope speaking. Quite a strange experience, he is treated like a rock star by people from all over the world, cheering when he speaks in their language for no other
reason than that he is the pope, same could be said for anyone famous though i suppose.
There is just so much to see all over the city its amazing, best thing to do is just to walk around and soak up as much as you can, this morning my camera makes a horrible grinding sound and now the lens doesnt close properly, I have a sneaking suscpicion it might be something to do with the sand that got into it (oops!) and it just kept crashing and corrupting images, incredibly frustrating since I had to restart my camera and take the batteries out all the time to get any photos! Everywhere i went was so impressive, just to suddenly come out of a street into a huge square with huge beautifully detailed old buildings was quite spectacular. The Pantheon was particularly cool as were the ancient ruins of Areo de Tito and Palatino.
I had such a good first day but really hadn't seen much so the next day was more of the same, wandering around being wowed. The queues for the Vatican museum that morning when i was leaving were crazy long, like probably about 1km
so I knew I'd need to be up early to brave them the next day. The amount of tourists here is incredible, you literally cannot escape the beaten track and as such everything is expensive and I still cannot believe the amount of guys selling the same stuff every 10m, I'd love to know who is buying all this crap (sunglasses, handbags, scarfs most common here). Another thing I noticed is that the roads here are terrible and traffic is intense, everyone of course rides scooters. The Trevi fountain is spectacular and probably my favourite site of the city, i sat here for ages just watching before going for a bellissimo cappuccino and writing my diary.
The girls cooked dinner and we sat around talking geek (thanks Roxy and Liz :D) it was quite funny to watch these guys studying and really reminded me of what it used to be like to be at university with readings and assignments due! It was actually a good time out to stay with these guys since it was school nights we didn't go out so I saved some money and got some sleep!
Tuesday and it was time to hit the
Vatican, I got there early but still had to queue for an hour to get in. Its quite sad to see the beggars showing off their deformities to milk the catholics going in. They have some amazing stuff here, and lots of it, though the whole place is geared towards people going to see the Cistine chapel. I found the rooms before the chapel to be the most amazing and the chapel itself felt quite dead just due to the amount of people in it. I had to laugh at the 'shush' guys trying to keep the place 'respectful' a bit late for that i think. I was pretty sick of seeing religious paintings by the end but was impressed with some of the modern religious art. I sent a few postcards from here since the Vatican is actually treated as its own country!
Later that afternoon I met up with Sasha and Miranda from Venice and we hung out for the afternoon eating yet more pizza and gelato. From 8 days in Rome I had eaten pizza for 6 and gelato 7, its that good! That night i watched some crazy italian TV show, it was kind of
like a reality show, game show and dating show all combined, and it took me about 2hrs to figure that much out!
Wednesday was a day off, I wrote a whole bunch of postcards (despite the never ending sirens in this city) and actually sent them this time, did some email and blog. For my last night in Rome it seemed appropriate that we get pizza for dinner and do some Grapa shots, why every european country needs to have a uniquely foul tasting liquor I'll never know.
For my last morning in Rome I said goodbye to the girls (Thanks for an awesome week guys!) and headed to see St Peters before I left since it was so close by. Now if you are into christianity then this is the place to be, a huge and very impressive church to say the least. It was also quite amazing to feel the heavy emotion from everyone just walking past the late John Paul II tomb. Views from the top were quite spectacular over the city and well worth the 320 steps up!
I'd have to say Rome was one of my favourite citys just for the sheer
amount of spectacular visuals, definitely a well recommended destination for any traveller. I'll have to go back one day to see some more and with a history book in tow.
Leaving the city was another classic example of 'travellers mojo' if you will. Sometimes things just work out if you let them. I jumped off the metro in the main station, but instead of heading to the long tickets lines to get an airport transfer i thought i'd just head straight to the train platform, sure enough there was an unused automatic ticket machine, just as I hopped on board and sat down the doors closed and we were off. I arrived at check in at the aiport just as the last people in the queue finished, grabbed a bite to eat, walked to the gate just as it opened and straight onto the plane, timing couldnt have been better! Next stop; Barcelona!
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