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Published: September 22nd 2007
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Leaving Florence for Rome we decided to pay the extra fare supplement of 15€ each (very expensive) and take the Eurostar Italia train in 1.5 hours rather than the alternative "slow" train which took around 3.5 hours. You could really tell we were going fast on this train as we parallelled a freeway for most of the route and we really zoomed past the cars.
When we arrived at Rome we found a huge terminal station and had real difficulty finding an information window anywhere within the station. We knew the place we were staying was near a station called "Roma Trastavere" but didn't know which train to catch to get there. With no information map all we had was the dodgy map someone had made up in the back of our Thomas Cook travel book. Eventually after stuffing around for well over an hour, Kerrie was able to work out that the station was on the line to Pisa (which conveniently was where we were going next). However, the platform we had to catch this train was over 400 metres from the main terminal building and we needed the full 10 minutes we had before this train left to
get there with our heavy bags.
Our stop was just 3 stations along the line and the location of the place where we were staying was very convenient to the main attractions of Rome as it was near the Vatican and we could get to the main part of Rome either by catching the train back or by taking a #8 tram.
That evening we caught the train back to the main station and eventually found a half decent map of Rome which was located a fair distance away from the station. We walked to the Spanish Steps and the Trevi Fountain which were both amazingly crowded with people. We then walked to the Pantheon which we were surprised to find was located in the middle of a very built up area. We were also surprised to find that the building is a church inside as we expected a more civic function. Rome is covered with narrow streets, most which also contain traffic and also has lots of Piazzas or Squares which all look kind of alike. Again it is quite easy to get temporarily lost. We met up with Ed and Ellen at a Piazza called "Campo
de Fiore" and had dinner at one of the many places to eat there. (There are no problems finding places to eat in Rome.)
The next day we headed off to the Vatican (One stop on our train line) where we joined the line for 57 minutes to go into the Vatican Museums where the Sistine Chapel is located. It is kind of like a big Ikea store where you have to go through all the other rooms of the museums before you get to the chapel. It was all very crowded and we passed through many different paintings and sculptures although you didn't have much time to look as the mass of people inside kept moving in the direction of the Sistine Chapel. When we eventually made it to the chapel we were a bit dissappointed as the room didn't really resemble a chapel at all but rather a large room cranned full of people looking up at the large paintings on the walls and roof.
The St Peter's Basillica was a lot more impressive with the massive circular courtyard out the front. We got to climb the 551 stairs up to the top of the dome
(although Kerrie counted 579) and got to look out over all of Rome from the top. Inside the basillica was also very impressive. That took up pretty much all of our day before we again met up with Ed and Ellen for dinner.
On our last full day in Rome we headed off to the Colosseum and the Roman Forum. As we approached the Colosseum we were confronted by some people advising us to do an English speaking tour which combined both attractions. The tour of the Colosseum appeared a bit disorganised getting through the entrance as we went in as a group rather than buying separate tickets and our guide was rather robotic, but we did gain a bit of background information to the Colosseum as there were no interprative signs inside. We were both impressed by the building however Ross was surprised that there was not an even surface in the middle. Instead what you saw were the ruins of the level below. The second tour was much more impressive however as we had a very enigmatic guide. He showed us the Imperial Palace on Palatine Hill from where we looked down on the forum below. There
was surprisingly a lot to see. He had this picture book he kept holding up with pictures showing how it looks now and then he turns over a partly see through page to show how each building once looked. In the end we decided to buy ourselves our own Rome book like Ed had done previously so that we could remember all we had seen.
We were generally quite impressed with Rome as a city as there is so much to see there. However, similar to other Italian cities we had had problems with the crazy motorists and motorcyclists. Another frustration we have been finding in each of the Italian cities is that there are numerous black men who stand around on street corners with sheets covered in rows of expensive looking bags, belts, watches, sunglasses and pens. Whenever a policeman walked past they would quickly gather up their possessions and dissappear only to return once the policeman had gone. It was all rather offputting.
One comment about the tram system in Rome that Ross was impressed with was that when you boarded a tram it was very easy to buy a ticket, all you had to do
was insert a single Euro coin into a machine and out came your ticket, valid for 75 minutes. No need to push any buttons and very easy to have the correct change. It was very similar to something that Jeff Kennett wanted to introduce in Melbourne but never did. The only thing that was hard was to buy day tickets. To do this you needed to go to small "Tobacchi" kiosks which were located on the streets near tram stops. Often the people at these places who predominantly sold cigarettes did not have a very good grasp of English.
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