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Published: June 17th 2011
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Gare de Austerlitz
meeting with Mum & Hughie who were on their way back from Italy... I'm in Rome and have just had a mega sightseeing day in sweltering heat, despite not much sleep last night on the wobbly night train. Yesterday's journey was slightly more stressful than it should have been due to a breach of security at Kings Cross. Everyone was waiting for the train to go when they told us all we needed to take ourselves and all our baggage off the train so they could check there were any evil entities on the train. At that point I started to panic that I'd miss my connection to Rome as I'd only allowed just over a couple hours to change. However they were pretty slick about the whole thing in the end, so we were only 1 hour late. I didn't much enjoy the journey to Paris as I was sitting next to a man who was either talking loudly on his phone or snoring and when I finally managed to dose off some bugger trod on my toes.
I just had time to meet Mum and Hughie who were on their way back from Italy (also by train), but it was a rather uncomfortable wait at Gare Austerlitz as it seemed all
the trains were delayed and everyone was standing there with no news to find out how long we would have to wait, but still it was lovely to see them anyway.
The night train wasn't bad - my travel companion in the compartment turned out to be about 100 years old, but I charmed her with my witty French conversation (actually was quite proud of myself for being able to hold a conversation) She was obviously impressed as she offered me some sweets. Or maybe that was just her cunning plan to shut me up...
But here I am in Rome and it's really been quite a day. My accomodation is on a lovely old street and its a bit spartan as it used to be a convent - but it's clean and the shower works and seems pretty quiet so far. There's also good acoustics for my ukulele which had gone really out of tune in the heat.
When I arrived I was very tempted just to fall asleep, because of afore mentioned night train wakeful night. But knowing that time is of the essence (isn't it always) I just went out in the midday heat
and headed for the Colosseum. Everything is walkable to from where I'm staying so I ended up visiting nearly everything. But here's the main highlights because you already lost interest 4 paragraphs ago:
Colosseum - didn't go in but its impressive enough from the outside and I don't much approve of what used to go on in there back in the old days anyway.
Palatine Hill - loads of amazing Roman ruins even more than I could ever imagine when I was doing Latin GCSE - et Metella sedes in atrio...
Pantheon - also Roman and impressive
Trevi Fountain - it was quite nice there was this massive crowd of people sitting there watching as if it were a gig or something, really nice atmosphere.
I made it back to my room after over 6 hours of walking in the baking sun, with only one tea stop en route (with the strongest goddam tea I've ever supped - yow!). So I'm now off to refuel with either pizza or pasta or possibly even pizza.
Just so you know I'm actually coping very well with being on my own - not started talking to myself yet, but did give
my ukulele a little cuddle when I got in...
Clare xxx
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