Day 22 - Rome

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Up early for Derek to drop us at the station at 8:30am. We had to catch two buses to get to the Colosseum for our guided tour at 10:00am. As it turned out we were about 20minutes early which was good because it gave us time to get some water as it was already about 35degrees. The Vatican Tour was good. we went trhough the Sistine Chapel and St Peters Basillica. The whole thing probably went for about 2hours, the only thing was that the tour lady had a very strong Italian accent so at times she was hard to understand. Also, because it was so freakin hot we got to the point where we almost got over it. In saying that, at the end when everyone decided to head to the pizza shop for lunch with Leona, Mary and I decided to head up to the dome on top of St Peters. This was amazing. It cost us 7euro to go up. We jumped in a lift then after that made our way up 320 stairs in a corridor that wasnot even a metre wide! Thank god we weren't clostrophonic!When we got neally to the top there was a woman there gasping for air. She had four other woman fanning her and tipping water on her. Poor thing. The thing was, if she'd gone maybe just 10-15 more steps she would have been at the top. The view from the top was incredible. You could see all of Rome. Stunning. We stayed up there for a while trying to cool off a bit with the wind before making our way down the 320 steps and the lift.
After this we took some pictures in St Peters Square before making our way up the street to the subway, stopping at a couple of clothing stores on the way. We jumped on two trains to get out to the Colosseum stop. When we got there the heat was almost unbearable. We walked for a bit trying to find the entrance to the Forum to jump the queue for the Colosseum as they are the same ticket but we walked about 500m in the wrong direction in 38degree heat so we gave up. I had been inside the Colossium back in 2006 when i was here but Mary hadn't so i was happy to do it again but she deide she couldn't bring herself to do it in that heat. We took some photos instead from the outside and moved on.
We walked down the road to the Victor Emmanual II memorial which is such a stunning building. We then jumped on a bus back up to the Colosium to catch the 2 trains back to the station oto meet uo with Derek, Leona and the rest of the crew.
We were taken back to the hotel where we could shower (and it was definately needed) before jumping back on an hour and a half later to be taken to the train station by derek.
We were headed back into the the city to for dinner at Canpo di fiori at a place called Sloppy Sam's. It sounds like a bit of a dodgy place ut the food was pretty good and it was nice to sit down with every one and have a meal and take in Rome. After dinner and a few drinks a group of us headed round to a club. By this stage it was about midnight and the club was dead, there was about 10 guys in there and that was all. About 10minutes later though, in strolled all the people; seems things here dont kick off til early morning. We stayed here for a few hours before myself and two others caught a cab back to the hotel. Mary strolled in about half an hour later.

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Comments

[Carl]

Sounds like all the decent weather has been following you, cos it sure as hell hasn't been here since you left London! lol Bring it back with you won't you?! x x