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Rome
St Pietro's BasilicaIt’s not true, all roads don’t lead to Rome; we found one that didn’t and had to make a U-turn! It was a pretty easy drive though through some lovely countryside along the scenic route (avoiding the autostrada again). It seemed to take us a little longer than we thought but we were in no hurry and we reached the campsite at about 4.30. It was a great campsite; huge but with not too many people and located a bit north of the city. They provided a regular free shuttle bus to the local train station at Prima
Porta (2 min), where you could catch the train into the city (20 min, €1) and then take the tube to anywhere in the city. The €1 ticket gave you 75 minutes of travel by any means so you could reach anywhere with ease. The next morning we started our tour of Rome with the northern part from the Piazza del Popolo (where the train stopped) up the Pincio hill and down to the Spanish Steps. From there we wandered down some expensive shopping streets to the river and along to Castel St Angelo, the fortress built in 135AD as a mausoleum for
Rome
St Pietro's Basilica the Emperor Hadrian and his family. (we heard about him when we were in Scotland) The Pope now has an apartment there and a long passageway links it to the Vatican Palaces. We crossed the river at Ponte Vittoro Emanuele II and took pictures of the angels before walking up to Piazza St Pietro and the grand Basilica which was amazing. We joined the long but fast moving queue to go inside, passed our bag through the scanner and moseyed on in. The place was massive and the walls were adorned with works of art in the form of statues and paintings with memorials to past popes everywhere and in the centre stood a huge bronze gazebo (for lack of a better word), the Baldaquin, which crowns the pontifical altar and is 29m tall. It was strongly criticised when it was built partly because the bronze had been taken from the Pantheon and partly because it was thought to be too theatrical and in bad taste. But it does fit in with the gigantic proportions of the Basilica. The huge dome above the altar, designed and partially built by Michelangelo, was yet another stunning feature of this magnificent, gold encrusted,
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Part of the walkway up to the top of the dome of St Pietro's Basilica (dare I say ostentatious?) monument to the Catholic Church. We walked back out and around the side where I paid €5 to climb the stairs to the top of the dome while Jac sat and waited for me. It was quite amazing how the narrow, leaning passageway wound it’s way around the inside of the dome, culminating in an even narrower spiral staircase before reaching the viewing balcony. The view was quite spectacular but it was really crowded on the balcony, luckily there was a different route to go down so it was always one way traffic. When I reached the bottom I found Jac again and we went down into the mausoleum where many of the past popes and a few foreign royals are interred - a very sombre and austere place, but very interesting. By the time we had finished at the Basilica we walked around to the Vatican Museum but it was closed so we decided to wander down to the Piazza Navona which was quite a lively place with street performers and local artists selling their wares. From there we strolled back to Piazza del Popolo where we sat for a while in the last of
Rome
The view from St Pietro's Basilica with the huge Vittoriano monument in the centre and the Colosseum off to the right. the sunshine and watched the hawkers trying to give roses away then asking for a donation; then watched them scatter when the police wandered past. It was a continuous game of cat and mouse and quite funny. We caught the train back to Prima Porta and the shuttle back to the campsite and decided to have dinner at the restaurant.
The next day was, quite thankfully, fairly overcast as we headed off back to the city. We were going to start our wanderings at the southern part of the city which is the really old part, but we had some unfinished business at the Vatican and the Sistine Chapel. After catching the tube and walking the extra distance we joined another big but fast moving queue to enter the Vatican Museum. All we really wanted to see was the Sistine Chapel but we had to go through most of the Vatican Museum to get there. The garden area was quite cool with a awesome moving sculpture in the middle, and we filed past hundreds of sculptures, paintings, tapestries and relics, trying to keep one step ahead of the tour parties. When we filed into the Sistine Chapel it was standing
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View of Pazza San Pietro from the Basilica room only and a little gloomy but Michelangelo’s ceiling was amazing, and the paintings were not just on the ceiling, all the walls were adorned as well including above the altar with the Last Judgement. The size and detail of the work is astounding and it’s no wonder it took him and his students four years to complete, even excluding the Last Judgement. Apparently he used to be supplied corpses on a regular basis for his studies on the human form. After the Sistine Chapel we found our way out of the Museum and caught the tube down to the southern part of the city which includes the Colosseum, the Palatino and the Roman Forum. After having lunch we started with the Palatino, as we had read that the queues for tickets were shorter there and you could get a combined ticket for all three sites - we were pleasantly surprised to find that it was free this week. The Palatino is a hill centrally located to the Colosseum and the Forum where the Emperor Domitian built his Imperial Palace and wealthy Romans built their homes, it was also the place where Romulus and Remus were discovered by the wolf
Rome
Vatican guards and it was Romulus who founded Rome - legend has it. There was not much left of the palaces - a private stadium, a few rooms and courtyards but there was a good view over the Roman Forum, the political, religious and commercial centre of ancient Rome. The amazing thing about the whole area of the Roman Forum is that there are relics built over relics which span hundreds of years - an archaeologists dream, or nightmare. We decided not to take the walk through the Forum as the Colosseum was in the other direction and we went there instead. With ticket in hand we avoided the queue (even though it was free you still had to get tickets) and walked into one of the most famous landmarks in the world. At 527m circumference and 57m high it was certainly an imposing structure which supposedly seated 50 000 spectators. Maybe not as big as modern stadiums but being built from stone and brick almost 2000 years ago with box seats, toilet facilities and refreshment stands it must have been the marvel of all Romans. The underground warren beneath the arena where they kept the animals was most interesting and they
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Cool sculpture in the Vatican Museum even used to have a huge awning over the top of the whole thing to keep the sun off. It really was a stadium for the people and every citizen had a free numbered ticket to attend the games. (the lower classes had to sit right at the top!) It was all quite fascinating and I think I might have to watch Gladiator again! We left the Colosseum and headed north past the huge white Monumento a Vittorio Emanuele II - the 1885 monument to the first King of the united Italy, Victor Emanuele II, and on to the Pantheon. This temple/church conversion dates back to 27BC but rebuilt by that man Hadrian again. (he sure was a busy man). We just had enough time before it got dark to walk to the very popular Trevi Fountain which was very crowded but quite beautiful. By this time we were feeling quite peckish so we stopped at a sidewalk restaurant for a pizza and a bottle of red. Once again we were amused by the unlicensed hawkers selling bags and watches playing cat and mouse with the local police. It started to rain for the first time in ages and while
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The Colosseum all the other diners scampered inside we just got an umbrella from our bag (good boys scouts that we are) and stayed put - it only lasted for 5 minutes anyway and at least it got rid of the hawkers. The pizza was great and when we finished we wandered off to find the nearest tube station and made our way back to camp where we finished off the night with another bottle of red at the bar while we checked our emails. We covered a lot of ground and saw a lot in Rome and could have spent more time there but I think we did pretty well and enjoyed every minute.
Next morning we were off again south to Pompeii.
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