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Other entries in Rome

Rome

People say it would take years to explore every corner of the Eternal City and as we only had a couple of days, we tried our best to fit in the most essential parts.

Having set up camp alongside the Tiber River, at the awesome Tiber Camping ground, set with its own restaurant, bar, pool, pool-bar, supermarket and internet cafe, we decided to spend a full day basking by the side of the pool.

With a day of sun under our belts, we ventured into Rome, in a sweltering 31 degree heat. We decided that Rome was in fact HUGE, so we bought tickets on a hop on/hop off open-top, double decker bus. This proved to be trying at times as it was so popular and it seemed they were a few buses short, with everyone forcing their way to get to the top. Jen had to use her elbows a few times to fend off pushy foriegn women who kept trying to jump the queue at the stops.

Speaking of queues, we 'accidentally' found ourselves at the front of what seemed an endless queue, for tickets into the Colosseum. Once in, as impressive as this structure was, Adam seemed to be more impressed with the arena floor, where Jen had to fight to stop him doing his Russell Crowe impression from the movie 'Gladiator.' This was one massive structure! Every where we went, there seemed to be muscly italian guys dressed up as Roman soliders, trying to get you to take pictures with them and then demand Euros for their time.

Also on the tour we took in the Pantheon, which is one of the oldest standing structures, the Baths of Caracalla, the Roman Forum and Palatine Hill, the Monumento Vittorio Emanuele II and countless other awe-inspiring Roman structures.

The following day we travelled back into Rome, as one day was just not enough and we still needed to check out the Vatican. We caught the earliest train into Rome hoping to beat the oppressive mid-day heat and the queues that might await us, as it was the last Sunday of the month (free day into all Museums.)

Vatican City is impressive in its own right given it is the smallest country in the world with its own Postal Service, Newspaper, Radio station, Train Station and Army of Swiss Guards.

We started with St Peters Basilica and Square. St Peters is the worlds most famous Catholic Church (it used to be the biggest in the world) which stands on the site where St Peter was buried and was truly a phenomenal building. From here we again 'accidentally' found our way a quarter of the way into a 500m queue for the Vatican Museums and ventured our way through the endless hallways and chapels containing art and antiques. The walls and ceilings were covered by impressive paintings by the worlds most famous artists. The climax of this tour was of course the world famous Sistine Chapel, where thanks to the Canon A80 and its adjustable screen we didn't need to lie on the floor to take pictures of the roof (unlike the Patterson siblings before.)

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