Advertisement
I didn't know much about Rome before going there. I had not even seen Gladiator or Troy. No idea about classical history and the gods or anything. I knew small parts about the history of religion, but not being catholic but a protestant, I missed a lot of things i think.
It was an early morning start on transit from florence to Rome. We were made to get on the bust at about 6am. The biggest time pressure was the early closing time at the vatican city due to it being saturday. A somewhat stressfull endevour for our bus driver and tour mates asking if we get a refund if out tour didn't manage to see all of the countries. The last admissions to the Vatican were at 12.20, arriving at 11.45 and the line in extending around 3 walls of the city there was a lot of nervousness (as it is not open on a sunday).
The line moved relitively quickly and we were in with 5 minutes to spare. Once in it was obvious that fire legislation wasn't enforced in the pope's own country. The way in and around the world's smallest country was a sea of
people, having to basically move with the crowd for the hour it took to get to get to the sistene chapel. God help you (because you were in the right place) if you wanted to stop to look at anything. The Golden hall with elaborate paintings (possibly al fresco) took my breath away. but blink and you will miss it. When you made it to the chapel there was a "are we there yet?" moment, then a "wow" then a sudden urge to scream "stop killing michaelangelo's masterpeice by flashing the colour out of it all for a crap photo".
My first impression of Rome was that it wasn't the cleanest. and there were way too many vespas. I really really liked the trevi fountain (and so did all the other tourists - getting a good photo as difficult as being able to toss coins over your shoulder that actually hit the water). The Pantheon was another "wow" for me - it seemed so ancient (because it is was oringally built it 27BC). Colloseum was quite cool - quite brutual history. Had a tour through the roman forum, exacvated in the 18th century, very cool standing in the worlds
first republic
Advertisement
Tot: 0.121s; Tpl: 0.01s; cc: 7; qc: 44; dbt: 0.0359s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
