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Published: October 26th 2010
Day 10 - Rome
An early breakfast this morning at the Topdeck Cook Tent. This is the second place with a cook tent, essentially Topdeck have a permanent tent which they use all season long for all the tours which pass through and staff who stay there all season. We had a cook tent in Lauterbrunnen, one her in Rome and one at our next stop Venice. The food from the tents is usually pretty tasty.
Anyway, we get dropped off at the tube station and we travel to our first stop, which is a whole different country. The Vatican City is the smallest country in the world and is of course home to the pope, who funnily enough was in London when I left there. We have a guided tour around the country with an American tour guide, who provides us with headsets so we can all hear her as we may get stretched out during our tour. We pass through customs (who just check our bags and we pass through a metal scanner). We head upstairs and chat about the frescos on the ceiling in the Sistine chapel, which was created by Michelangelo. We then head to a cafe for a brief stop before the main tour.
We pass through many corridors full of artwork and sculptures. The mass amount to take in is overwhelming, everywhere we go. Our guide tries to explain as much as possible but everything is just so amazing. We then hit a main corridor which has three rooms to it at the end of which there is the staircase down to the Sistine chapel. We pass through these corridors and we pass a tapestry with a picture of Jesus, which we are told is so advanced that his eye’s follow you wherever you are in the room, given it was created hundreds, if not thousands of years ago, is amazing. We then are warned about the Sistine chapel. The rules are silence and no photos, as photo’s can disturb the frescos. As we enter the room you can feel the history of it, the ceiling is amazing. Instantly a few people in the room are told off for using a flash on their cameras, stupid gits. I take a few sneaky photos with my camera by my side so it cannot be seen by the guards (with no flash). We leave the Sistine chapel and head outside onto the balcony looking over St Peter’s Square. The view is amazing, you can see the place where the smoke comes out when a new pope is elected, the square is amazing, I remember seeing the square in the film ‘Angels and Demons’ and it just seems amazing being here. The guided tour ends here but he head back in to the huge cathedral. There is a service going on inside but the cathedral is huge. I take the opportunity to bless myself with the holy water, not that I’m religious, but it seems like the thing to do. Today I hang around with Lucy, Brendan, Annaliese, Mel and Mel. Annaliese and the 2 Mel’s came on the trip together whilst rumours are that Brendan and one of the Mel’s have got together prove to be true from what I have noticed today.
We head to the tombs of the popes below the cathedral, there is quite a gathering around the John Paul tomb, as he has only just recently died.
As we are in a separate country, we head to the Vatican post office and I buy a philately product (for those who don’t know philately please google it). I also send a postcard back home.
We leave the Vatican and find somewhere for lunch. We stop at a restaurant and I go for the pizza (again), but have a lovely Cappuccino with it. Afterwards we have the customary gelato (I love gelato, it’s the best thing about Italy). We then hop on the tube and head over to the Colosseum. We were told yesterday that to get a ticket for the Colosseum we would be better buying a ticket from the roman forum, as the queue is shorter plus the ticket covers both attractions. We do so and I benefit from cheaper entry due to being a citizen of the EU, jackpot. We head around the forum and I’m amazed by the age of the ruins. It’s difficult to imagine how the stone was brought here, pre transport and machinery. Plus how was it assembled. Our group also have a lovely chat about where we were when famous people died/world events. Such as 9/11, Michael Jackson, Diana and Steve Irwin (clearly not as famous but an Australian hero).
We then pop over to the Colosseum, it’s a great feeling when we jump the queue as we already have tickets. As we head in the view blows my mind. The place is huge and still quite substantially there given its age. I have a similar feeling in my stomach as when I first went to Bramall Lane and when I first view the pitch at New Wembley. I’m a huge fan of visiting sports stadia, and to think this was an ancient sports arena, and is still standing it’s amazing. I take loads of photos. We then decide to pretend fight with drink’s bottles. The other visitors must think we are mad. As we walk around the colosseum Brendan spots some fake swords. Jackpot, we redo our fighting scenes and then head for the upper tier. The view from up top is amazing. We bump into Brit and Jacqui from our tour plus the girls from Brisbane (A group of four girls, Amy, Ashleigh, Sophie and Katie who I haven’t really spoke to yet, as they keep themselves to themselves, not an issue, it’s just I’ve not really had the opportunity to speak to them yet). We take photos of their group whilst they do the same for us.
We finish up at the colosseum and grab the tube back home. When we get back to Cornelia station, Brendan leads us the wrong way out of the station and we end up miles away from where we are meant to be. We eventually find our way back and get the bus back to our camp site. As we get off the bus we pop into the Panorama supermarket. The beer is sooooo cheap. I share a six pack of Peroni with Lucy and it cost €2.40, that means each bottle costs about 33p in English money.
We head back to the cook tent for tea (or dinner if you aren’t from Yorkshire), I can’t remember what we had but I’m sure it was good. We then sit outside the cabins and drink our beers (which were nicely chilled in the fridge in mine and Trent’s room). Whilst there I am treated to my first experience of Jon Lajoie, who sings rude songs which are funny, thanks Paul. We play my daft hot air balloon game which winds Brendan and Kiwi (Gerard) right up. It’s quite enjoyable just relaxing and chatting with all the people on the trip.
After a while we head over to the bar, it’s a bit crap and full of Germans, one of them is huge, the tallest man I have ever seen. The music is crap so I head to bed.
I have enjoyed Rome imensely, I think the ancient history of everything is interesting. I remember studying the Romans at school and the city just lives up to all expectations.
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walks of italy
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nice post
Hey, great post, your story is something different and it's really very interesting , i also like traveling tour in Italy , but much like to rome .. thanks for sharing the information.