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Published: June 14th 2017
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Geo: 41.8955, 12.4823
this is one of the cities i never really cared about visiting and it ends up being the one i am most wrong about...Rome is absolutely wonderful and stunning to walk around, and the convergence of past, present and future is the greatest i have ever seen...it is now one of my most favourite cities in the world, and seeing as i loved florence as well, it seems i adore italy (i'll just pretend that venice doesn't exist)
the vatican - they should stop people at the gate and ask them weirdo religious questions to prove they are catholics before allowing them in, because really, the whole of the vatican was just lost on me...i was so bored i started to take self-shots making faces...big, grand, bourgeois (i thought they were meant to be humble??), i just didn't care...by the time we got to the sistine chapel i just thought "is that it?"...what a bad bad tourist i am!
the pantheon was one of my favourites...the massive columns at the front (a.k.a. acopolis poles) are monolithic, meaning they were built from 1 stone, and the majority of the structure is still standing after having been built 2000 years ago...there is a
hole in the roof of the dome in the main building left there as a sun dial (or the see the stars, or something) and when it rains the rain just falls right into it...it even snowed in there once!
but the COLOSSEUM was definitely my Rome highlight and possibly the highlight of my entire trip...Mel had heard that for a limited time you could do tours that included the underground levels so we got on the internet and just kept searching for one...there was conflicting info on when it would be closed to the public, on whether you still could attend, blah blah blah, but in the end we managed to find one (at 6 times the price of entry), but i can say with a smile on my face that i would have happily paid twice as much
there were just 4 people on our tour and an archaeologist from the colosseum staff who let us into areas no one else could get into....as well as the underground layers, we were taken to the top tier and onto the reconstructed stage...it was so incredible being able to be there and hear the information of how it all worked and why
the structure was built the way it was, and be in utter silence and not having to fight other tourists...we were in there for 2 hours and most of it was our own private little tour...it was one of the best things i've ever done
and then to top it all off, our last night here we had a fantastic meal at a restaurant we found on tripadvisor...i think i had the best pumpkin ravioli of my life
>>onto the rest of rome:
-road rules are just 'suggestions'
-crossing the road actually means walking out into traffic and saying "stop motherfucker, i'm
walking over here!!"
-not all pizzas are created equal...a good pizza is DIVINE
-not all hop on/hop off buses are created equal
-turns out i don't dislike italians at all, i just dislike italians travelling in groups
-you can walk around all of rome quite easily, but i dare anyone to do it more than once
-there are two types of taxi drivers here, ones who are awesome and offer you tic-tacs, and ones who are nutjobs and you don't make eye contact with
-rome has a lot of obelisks
-the italians refer to the northerners who came to rome during the early middle ages as "barbarians"...lol, ok
>>stuff pertaining to the id:
-the panorama setting on my new camera is WIN
-i'm looking forward to sitting in athens for the next month with my most favourite cousin in the world (maria), while waiting for her to pop (she's due on 4 november)
you won't hear much from me for a while, i'm now officially on holiday mode rather than tourist mode...take care everyone 😊
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Laura (onetruefriend)
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Totally jealous- I'd love to go to Rome! Stay Safe! Love, Laura