Rome

Well we rocked into Rome a few days back now, sorry about the delay in updating this page but internet access points seem to be few and far between throughout Italy... Actually it seems as if Italy doesn't have the internet yet, the whole country is not what you are led to believe with from the tourist brochures. The overwhelming impression that we have of Italy is one of dirtiness, everything is filthy, the buildings obviously haven't had any maintenance done to them since they were constructed, and even all the public buildings like train stations are dirty.

We arrived in Rome in the early evening after riding down from Venice on the train, its quite a long journey and not overly scenic so was good to stretch the legs, the hostel wasn't too far from the station, about 4 blocks, but it was only when we were about to go in the door that we remembered that we had to pay in cash, and the nearest ATM was back at the station... so 4 turned into 12 blocks but we finally made it. The hostel we stayed at had most probably the smallest shower cubicle that was ever manufactured, you could barely pick anything up from the floor because you became wedged between the sides as you tried to kneel down, was good to have a private shower in the room though.

The next day we decided to get a ticket that allowed us to use all of Rome's public transport for the day, we hoped onto the subway line 'B', this was more than obviously the B grade line as the train was completely covered in graffiti, the walk down to the tunnel was past the most dirty roughcast plaster you have ever seen, the dust and grime was hanging off all the tips of the plaster... Anyway it got us to where we were headed (the Colossium), well almost. It shot straight past the stop that we needed and left us down at the next stop, Circus Maximus. This wasn't so bad, or so we thought as we were going to walk down to there anyway. Once we were on the surface things started going downhill though, the street we needed to head down was blocked off and there was half the city of Rome lining the sides watching what seemed like the entire Italian army march along. We had a map so thought we could circumvent the blockage, after walking for kilometers we were stopped at our final crossing point when we ran into the other end of the parade route... After walking all the way back which we'd come (taking a short cut over Capitole Hill sic) we managed to cross the street that had earlier been blocked and finally after about 2.5hours of walking we caught a glimpse of the famous structure. After having a picnic lunch we walked all the way back to the Circus Maximus metro stop and headed in the direction of the Vatican...

Arrived at the metro station that was closest to the Vatican and walked for about 10 minutes till we were suddenly in St Peters Square, as the queue for entry into the Basilica wasn't too long we joined it and after about 20 minutes we were being metal detected and allowed to head inside. The inside is absolutely massive, what at first appeared to be the inside of the church was in fact really only the first wing of the entire thing. There were four of these wings centered around the massive, soaring cupola. Every surface was covered in carvings, frescoes or mozaics, amazing We then exited the church via the crypt under the building, walked out and back into the scorching sunshine...

So we still had plenty of time left in Rome and nothing else planned to have a look at, we had decided not to queue for the Vatican Museums because from what we'd heard the line was massive (a few days earlier it was around 3 blocks we'd heard from Chris and Jo that were there) As it was around 3 O'clock we thought we'd go and see how long it was, as it turned out there was no line and we walked straight into the Museum and about 30mins later after walking through the labyrinth of passages we were standing in the Sistine Chapel, if all the other churches we've stood in were decorated, this one was the next level, but it was only painted, every part of the room was covered in paintings, obviously they'd got a bit cross eyed by the time they made it down to the bottom sections because all around the bottom they just painted some curtains Although you'd think this place would be peaceful some Italian dude on a power trip standing keeping watch keep bellowing out, no photos, shhhhhhhhh, quite please this is a holy place... and clapping... It was ridiculous, it couldn't have been less holy if they tried, all the other churches we've been in have been respected by the people in there and just have a quiet murmur much nicier that some dude yelling and screaming.

We headed back to the hostel via the Trevi fountain, this fountain is wicked, if only there weren't so many people, it was absolutely packed in the tiny piazza where the fountain is, beautiful all the same. We watched an american woman try and through a 2€ coin over her shoulder into the fountain (it means you will return to Rome), she failed miserably and hit another woman in the head, and the coin was eagely snatched up by some little kid As we didn't really have any great wish to return we forwent tossing in a coin and hoped back on the metro and retired to our room.

P.S. Due to a minor technical hiccup (clearing the memory card) we no longer have any photos of our day in Rome... oh well