A Roman New Years! (inc Pompeii)

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Vini Vicci Vidi

To help me break out of this blog writing lull I'm in, I've decided to regale all 4 or 5 of you lucky readers with tales from my New Years trip of 2011, where I was joined by my brother Stewart and his lovely girlfriend Katie. They were out from New Zealand for a few weeks and made the rather interesting decision of relying on me to organise a 9 day trip through Italy. As it was also the first ever trip with more than one destination that I've planned by myself, the pressure was on!

It all started on the 30th of December 2011, at 3:40am (When you're the one planning the holiday, you get to make the decision to save £15 on flights in lieu of a decent night's sleep). When wakefulness finally kicked in we found ourselves wandering the warm streets of Rome, mere hours later. I recognised the train station we ended up at from my previous visit 4 years before, where I'd stepped into the taxi of a madman who screeched his tires around corners on purpose and laughed maniacally while suggesting in a thick Italian accent that he was just like Schumacher. We decided to walk to our hostel from there. We got really close too, but couldn't quite figure out where to go once we got to the 'x' I'd marked on the map. And that’s when we made our first error and asked an Italian for help. If you're reading this and thinking of visiting Italy, then here's a piece of advice: Never ask an Italian how to get somewhere. You'd have more luck playing direction charades with an armless foreigner who doesn't speak English. It's a well known fact that Italians in general, upon being asked for directions that they aren't sure of, will just point you in a completely random direction while disarming all doubt with their incredible Italian smiles. We finally bumped into an Italian that did help us though - one of the staff at our hostel! While the hostel turned out to be pretty sweet, there was no way in hell we were finding it without some help from staff.

As usual, I'm going to do the mandatory comparison to life in London. And as usual, the place we were visiting seemed so much friendlier and livelier! The people are just so much more passionate, with fast talking and gesticulations galore. You sometimes don't realise that London, for all its awesomeness, can actually get quite stifling after a while. When I went to Rome previously it was on one of those "1 bazillion countries in a week" kind of tours, and as fun as it was, it's always better under your own steam. Fortunately I'm still just as awestruck by all of the amazing history and structures that beg for your attention around every corner (I've said the same about London before, but Rome is like London on steroids in this respect). And then I saw the Colosseum again. 2000 years old, and still at least as mind boggling as the current size of the Twilight fanbase. Add to that the fact that it used to be covered in white marble with a roof cover, and you've got the makings of a reality that no sparkly gay vampire story could ever compete with. If you keep reading you might even hear about my rendezvous with the same ancient arena in the middle of the night with an American girl we affectionately nick-named Chicken. But more on that later.

We went on to do a free walking tour through the insanely bustling streets that night, starting at the Spanish Steps. I really can't recommend free walking tours enough. I remember being fascinated by how ancient Roman aqueducts are still operating and feeding the many free drinking fountains around the city, as well as the Trevi fountain. We visited the 2000 year old Pantheon (also the final resting place of Raphael – the artist, not the Ninja Turtle), and walked past countless ancient artefacts while locals went about their normal business, seemingly oblivious to the incredible history that surrounds them. As per my last visit to Rome, we still had to avoid a torrent of annoying foreign guys selling novelty junk, forcing flowers on unsuspecting passer-bys, and throwing spinny lit-up things in the air that infuriate everyone with technology that somehow guarantees their appearance in every photo. There's nothing like having an awesome shot of a mystical Roman temple under moonlight with some cheap crap from China floating in the foreground. Despite the freezing temperatures we ended our tour with a round of gelato, and shivered our way back to the hostel, quietly agreeing that it was worth it.



Pompeii

Ever since hearing the story of the doomed city of Pompeii as a child, it's always been a source of intrigue for me, possibly one on par with that of the Great Pyramids. A whole ancient city, frozen in time due to a catastrophic volcanic eruption that its largely high-status Roman citizens had no chance of redemption from. No matter which Gods they prayed to. Unlike Rome, and the rest of the itinerary for that matter, I'd never visited Pompeii before, so the chance of a day trip from Rome was too great to pass up (If anyone's interested in following suit, it was a quick and easy 2 or 3 hour journey from Rome with a change at Naples). I believe it was just as we saw the iconic Mount Vesuvius in the distance, the destroyer of Pompeii, that we got a drunken “cock” call from New Zealand in the year 2012 (If you don't know what a cock call is... don't ask). It was December the 31st 2011 after all, and they'd just ticked over into the new year on that side of the world. We wished all our mates a Happy New Years in New Zealand while watching the mountain grow on the horizon (Which was a lot further away than the misty haze of an horizon currently being offered by the English countryside as I write this on a completely different train journey to Edinburgh).

Pompeii did not disappoint. It's huge. We spent the whole day walking the ancient streets until our legs ached, first with an official guide person (which I highly recommend if you want to appreciate what you're looking at), and then by ourselves on some random exploration. We still only managed to see a small part of what there is to see, and considering they've only uncovered about 10% of the city from under the volcanic ashes, you might get some idea of how big it is. It's comparable to any modern day city out there, in both facilities and size. They had pieces of marble in the road which helped chariot drivers find their way at night (aka cat's eyes), fast food joints, shopping malls, and brothels with McDonald's style picture menus where you could select the “combo” of your choice. You can walk through ancient dwellings which still have some furniture and colourful paintings on the walls. You can see the tracks in the roads where chariot wheels have worn down the stone. And you can see real Roman citizens, forever trapped in stone, doing whatever it is people do when they're about to die. We stayed to watch the last sunset of 2011 over a spooky ancient auditorium, when the whole place was plunged into the kind of twilight that I am a fan of. It was easier to let my imagination run loose in the dark, and I half expected a chariot to come careening around the corner at some point. A perfect last day for a stunner of a year for me.



New Years in Rome

I was ready for a 2 hour sleep on the train back to Rome, however the ride back turned out to be even more eventful than the day's activities! First we met a couple of Ozzies who needed a place to sit, and spoke to them most of the way back, in the process realizing that was almost 9pm on New Years Eve and we had no booze! Further down the carriage was an American girl, a friend of the Ozzies, who was being serenaded by a bunch of drunk Italian guys. It was cringe-worthy as they were laying on the charm thick (I was taking notes!), but eventually it got too much for the American, who decided to come and join us. The Italians kept on partying and more and more of them joined in until there was a rather large group of drunk people in the section between the carriages, which released an intensely sweet marijuana smell whenever the door was opened. They were hot boxing in there! In between their makeshift dancefloor we also spied a few of them snorting cocaine. That's a first for me - a high speed cocaine fuelled rave on a train! Entertaining to watch through the glass doors anyway!

Teegan the American decided to join us for our New Years eve activities (and subsequently the next 2 days in Rome), so we all went back to our b&b where we found complimentary new years bubbly and cake in our room! Amazing. We finished the bubbly and took the underground train to the warzone that is Piazza del Popola on New Years eve. There were fireworks going off all over the show – And large ones at that. It was like every man and his dog had a few sticks of dynamite to casually set off wherever they pleased. I got a little drunk from a bottle of bubbly we bought from the thankfully present street vendors, and enjoyed an atmospheric but fairly chilled New Years eve wandering the streets around the Piazza (Making a return cock call to New Zealand in the process).



2012

Ah, the year the world is supposed to end. Fortunately my head didn't feel the same, and I saw Stew and Katie for the first time that year after just missing the pope at St Peter's square with Teegan. It was a nice lazy day after this, just walking wherever we pleased and checking out the old ruins that litter the place. We passed the Colosseum again too - I reckon if I was to do new years in Rome again, this would be the place to come. There was a big stage set up with the remains of what must have been a great party.

For dinner we made our way to the Traviste area, where there are supposed to be more local-friendly restaurants and prices, and I mixed things up by having some gnocchi even though I was still quite full on the ravioli I'd had for lunch. Not to mention the home made penne pasta I'd had for breakfast! Who needs normal food when you have pasta??

At 9pm or so Stew and Katie decided to call it a day, so I instead went back out to the Traviste area for some chianti red wine and snacks (sans pasta!) at a neat outdoor restaurant with Teegan. We talked philosophy until midnight, and decided to walk back after missing the last underground train. We eventually found ourselves standing outside the Colosseum at around 2am with barely a soul in sight, which was something truly special to behold. I laughed as we passed a pretty standard late night takeaway pizza place except for the loud music and dancing people. We also passed another heaving night club that we almost joined until we noticed the complete sausage fest out front, and the rainbow on the door!

After a solid 4 hours sleep it was a struggle to get up in time for our appointment with Vatican city the next day. I remembered the queues from last time I was in Rome, and it hadn't changed a bit - literally half a km or so of queuing if you haven't got tickets! Stew and Katie were fortunate as I'd come prepared, and we breezed past the queuing plebs and got inside in no time to check out the Vatican museum, with the breathtaking Sistine chapel and immaculately decorated hallways, packed with ancient treasures from Egypt and various other places around the world. Then it was on to the once again breathtaking St Peters square and basilica. Seriously, there is so much breathtaking in Rome it's a wonder peoples' lungs don't explode. The size of both St Peters square and basilica are beyond belief, and simply cannot be conveyed in a 6x9" photograph. I'm not a religious man, but for once I am thankful to religion for inspiring such impressive and age-defying works of art from our ancestors, even if it is unwillingly sponsored by charitable donations from good people around the world.

I was quite happy to have 2 hours of downtime on the train on the way to Florence that night, where we flopped into bed at 10pm after a cheeky kebab - our first non-Italian food in days!

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Photos

My Awesome New Boxers
Best midnight purchase ever

Looks Like a Warzone
But it's just Piazza del Popola at New Years

The Colosseum
An incredible site with nobody around at 2am.