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Published: June 16th 2017
01 View
The view from our apartment window.Geo: 41.8955, 12.4823
Our trip started with a delay at Melbourne airport. The flight was due to take off at 10:55pm and it was about two hours later than this that we took off. Michael and I were sitting in economy, while dad was in premium economy. This was a long flight and I kept busy by watching movies, sleeping and eating. About fourteen hours later we arrived at Dubai. Just before landing in Dubai a message came over the speaker informing passengers about their connecting flights. Many of the European flights had to be rescheduled and some even diverted through London. Lucky for us, our flights were not being changed.
Michael and I met up again with dad when we got off. There were staff members holding signs of connecting destinations to assist passengers with their ongoing flights, but there was no-one there for Rome. Dad was flying straight to Venice to stay with his family and luckily there was someone to help travellers to Venice get to their gate on time. We said goodbye to him and went to find our gate.
We had to run to make it to our gate in time. We were taking off from
02 View
The view from our apartment window. the same terminal, but we still had to catch a train and walk a lot! This flight was the perfect length, only about six hours.
Everything went well at Rome airport, despite the large crowds. After collecting our luggage we bough train tickets and followed the signs for the platform. It was now just before 3pm and a train was due to leave any moment. We found the train and sat down. Then the announcement came over – another delay! We ended up sitting in the train for half an hour. Michael got in touch with our Airbnb host and told her that we were running late. I was getting excited as we were so close to our destination. The last time that I was in Rome was ten years ago and I was excited to be back and seeing the city again with Michael.
In the end there was a half an hour delay with the train. We enjoyed the journey to Rome as we went past churches, ruins and distinctly European buildings. We arrived in Rome at Termini Station just before 4pm. It was a short ten minute walk to our apartment. Here we met with Francesca. She
03 Buildings
Apartment buildings we walked past on our evening walk. took us up to the apartment and went through all the information for our stay. We said goodbye to her and then realised that she had only made up one of the beds, so we contacted here and she came back to make up the other bed. There was a good view from the living room and I took a few pics from the window.
We were a little bit tired but we wanted to make the most of our trip, so we freshened up and went exploring Rome! The sky was overcast, but not cold, perfect t-shirt and shorts weather. I had an idea of which way to walk to the centre and it was about two minutes later that we realised that we had forgotten to take our maps with us. We chose to continue on and slowly walk around and take in the sights of the ancient city.
At an intersection we looked to the left and the sight took our breath away – it was the Colosseum. I didn't realise that we were staying so close to it. We crossed the road and walked towards it. I forgot how huge and impressive it is. We were standing on
04 Evening Walk
The start of our evening walk. a road above street level and it was a great view. I could see the many different shaped bricks used to build this structure. Part of the forum was also visible from this view point. On the road below we could also see where they are trying to build the third underground train line. Construction started about ten years ago and is being slowed down by all the artefacts and ruins that the engineers have come across underground.
After a few photos we continued our evening walk. We then came across some ancient ruins. In some ways we had to use our imagination to see how it once would have been. There were signs informing us that we were looking at various emperor's forums. Some parts of the forum were quite intact and other parts were a pile of rocks. From here we could see an iconic, more recent Roman landmark - the Vittorio Emanuele II monument. It was built to commemorate the first king of a unified Italy.
Ahead of us was a Roman sight that I remember well – churches! I was actually surprised that we had been walking for so long without coming across one. Straight ahead
05 Glimpse
At the end of the this street we saw a glimpse of the Colosseum. of us was the Church of the Most Holy Name of Mary at the Trajan Forum. This church must hold the record for the longest name! Between this church and another very similar shaped church was a small palace. This church was called Santa Maria de Loreto. We decided that there will be many more opportunities to visit churches during our trip, so we didn't go into either this evening.
In Trajan's Forum, is the famous Trajan's Column. When I saw this many years ago I was quite excited, as I had learnt about it at university. Winding up the column are battle scenes of Emperor Trajan's victory in the Dacian Wars. It is a bit hard to follow the story as the column is so tall, but there are plaster casts in various museums for easier observation. We were now in front of the Vittorio Emanuele II monument, which is also known as the wedding cake and the typewriter. We could see tourists on various levels of the building and choose to visit it another day.
We continued our walk and decided to go down Via della Pilotta – only because it looked interesting with four little arches/bridges. They were
06 Colosseum
A view of half of the Colosseum. used to connect Palazzo Colonna with the gardens at Villa Colonna. This was a quiet street to walk along and about ten minutes later we came to a huge crowd. We had arrived at the Trevi Fountain. We were a bit overwhelmed by the crowd so we escaped into the closest church - Saints Vincent and Anastasius at Trevi.
This was a small church, but very pretty and beautifully decorated on the inside. We then prepared ourselves for the crowd and went back outside to the Trevi Fountain. After a quick look at the fountain we checked our online map and walked towards the Pantheon. Along the way we stopped to awe at Hadrian's Temple, or more accurately the columns from his temple which was incorporated into a palace and now a bank. There are eleven 15 metre high ancient columns that were built back in 145AD. The history here is incredible!
We then arrived at the Pantheon. In my opinion, it looks quite boring and plain from the outside. The front looks like a temple. Inside we saw the famous round hole in the domed ceiling. In case of heavy rain, there is a drain so it doesn't flood. It's
07 Other Half
A view of the other half of the Colosseum. quite dark in here which I assume is due to the lack of windows. There are famous people buried here, we saw the tombs of Raphael and some of Rome's kings.
It was now 6:30pm and time for an early dinner. We walked through Piazza Navona and stopped at a small restaurant in the side street. We were slowly starting to fade, but looking forward to delicious Italian food. Our pasta was yummy. We had been quite productive and seen quite a lot in the past few hours. I was glad that Rome still amazed me. Next door to the restaurant was a delicious looking ice-cream shop, but we were too full at the moment. The best thing for us to do was go back and sleep, then hopefully wake up tomorrow and be over our jetlag.
It was about a half an hour walk back to our apartment. On the way we stopped at a supermarket to buy a few things for breakfast and to snack on. The supermarket was quite small, but it still impressed us with its range of Italian food. On the way home Michael wanted to eat ice-cream, so we stopped at a little gelataria.
08 Ancient History
I am standing near the ancient Colosseum. He was very impressed with his ice-cream. We were exhausted when we got back. I was in my loft and Michael on the sofa bed. By 9pm I was asleep.
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