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Published: April 11th 2007
Welcome to Rome. Two words Tourist Trap.
Day 1 we definitely loved the city and man did we do some walking!
Highlights included the Trevi fountain, Coliseum my favourite the Pantheon - which I modelled (appallingly) as a 13year old.
Day 2 we went to Vatican City.... nice and early to avoid the queues. We were stoked to wait only 10minutes!! People were saying it took up to 3hours! We walked inside and found ourselves in another queue - to the top of St Pauls Basilica dome. It was really hard to tell where we were due to the masses of people. Apparently this was not the queue for the Sistine. We opted to take the 600 steps up a spiralling staircase. The top half of our ascent was a narrow and followed the curve of the dome. This ended up being a great find. The view from the top of the dome was amazing. The main draw cards, such as the Coliseum, were clearly visible on the horizon.
We finished up at St Peters Basilica and realised that the queue for the Sistine Chapel was on the other side of Vatican City. We found
it easily the second time, as it spanned 3street blocks. We gave up quickly, with the game plan of hitting the queue early the next day to avoid the line.
We set forth instead navigated the narrow winding streets of Rome. Hunting for the various gems embedded amongst the old architecture. The river was impressive and we even visited a micro community balanced on a delta.
Tired from walking it was nice to reward ourselves with ridiculously good waffle cone ice creams.
That night we checked out the Coliseum at night before indulging in a fantastic Italian cuisine adventure - covering all the basic food groups and 3different types of meat (including baby veal).
Day 3, we were up with the sparrows... well it was a good effort for us! We arrived to the Sistine queue once more, accepting a position one more block back from where it was yesterday! So our plan failed miserably. However, that was half the experience.
3hours later….
We made it in! We got off to a slow start observing the masses of religious art, Egyptian relics and some nice stone heads. The place was a lot bigger
than we thought. The mainstream of people was an ebbing flow of lingering guidebook possessing freaks. We joined in, retiring our personal space. It swept through the intricately decorated interior with a varying speed.
Already this was an epic experience!
The dizzying amount of rooms leading to the Sistine Chapel kept on. Rafael had his thing going on.
Eventually we entered the room which millions had queued to see before us. It was not the largest chapel but the ceiling and especially the wall behind the altar were unforgettable.
We exited via an impressive spiral stair case, relieved that it was all over.
Dan and I headed out for a quick pizza, before it was time again to bolt for the train to the airport.
Chewed up and spat out in Rome. What a spectacular city.
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