Day 8 - RomeAuthor: jawapro
Date: Fri 30/01/2009 05:19 PM
These Romans are Crazy!
Been waiting all trip to say that. Tis true though - the Romans are insane. Traffic, pedestrians, everything - just crazy.
Well - today was the first of the two night stops (we only get 2 on the tour) - so the whole day was spent in Rome. First up - we went to the Vatican and took a long walk through the paintings and statues and things.
Sort of pretty I guess - but far too fancy for me, and actually quite boring.
The Sistine Chapel is very famous - but even it was over-rated in my books. Just an over-complicated pattern on the roof.
In it’s defense, some parts look impressively 3D, but on the whole it was just another painting.
Not really supposed to take photos of it - but they seem to turn a blind eye as long as you don’t use a flash.
Emma demonstrating our love for the Pope - by punching him in the head.
St Peter’s - part of the Vatican.
The cop cars over here are mostly Alpha Romaos. There are also Lamborginis - but I didn’t see any.
After the Vatican we met up with the group to go and have pizza. It was nice, and pretty cheap too.
Being Australia Day back in Aus - we decided to celebrate it. Half the tour is Australian - so there were a lot of people wearing temporary tattoos and things like that. I’d brought along an Australian flag - which I wore for the first half of the day (until it got soaked).
We had quite a few people stop us in the street to talk to us about Australia and Australia Day (the Italians are having a party tonight to celebrate it, but we all refused because we’re tired.
Possibly the ugliest cars I’ve ever seen.
The Coliseum!
Defiantly one of the highlights of Rome - but before we went in, we had a walking tour with a local guide that took us through the Roman Forums and the Coliseum.
The Forum Tour was great (although a lot of the group got bored) except for one thing. Half way through - it started raining, and raining hard. Completely drenched most of us. I’d bought 2 umbrellas with me from Tassie (one small, and one large) and forgotten both today - so I got soaked too. My jacket stopped the rain for getting my top half - but my trousers soaked up an awful lot. This made most people get sick of the history lesson and give up.
I stuck with it - and got to see things like Julius Caesar’s tomb. And eventually...
The Coliseum.
For those who don’t know - the original floor has been long gone - but a small section has been reconstructed (far end of the area in the photo). The original floor was all at that height, and the ruins you can see were beneath it - to allow trap-doors to bring up animals etc.
One of the things NOT to do in Rome is take a photo with these guys who are wandering around - they charge you lots for the privilege. They conned some of the girls last night - so we were all aware of them today.
For that mater - there are lots of gypsys and other folk who are constantly trying to sell you things. As soon as it starts raining - there are a hundred black guys trying to sell you umbrellas. I managed to talk one down from 5 Euro to 3, and bought one (my third umbrella!) because I wanted to keep the rain off.
Me in the Coliseum.
Emma on the Spanish Steps (apparently quite famous).
We did a bit of a walkaround - including going to a church run by some Cappucin Monks - where they use the bones of the dead monks as sort of decorations. They make these sort of displays with some bones wearing robes and looking like monks, while others are used to make beds, pillars, or patters on the walls etc. So many skulls! It was very interesting, and very different. I think we were the only Contiki guys who went there - the rest were too disturbed by the whole idea. But hey - you know what I used to do for a buck...
I don’t have photos of the monk crypts - because we weren’t allowed to take them. Unlike the Vatican - I wanted to respect it here, and didn’t try and take sneaky photos. I did get postcards - so I will upload them when I get to a scanner. Remind me, or I’ll forget.
You know - the church filled with bones was actually more appealing than the whole Vatican in a lot of ways.
Thanks to Google I now have a photo I can share. That's the church.
As today was offically a 'coach free day' for our driver - we'd caught another bus to the train station, and received a day pass on the Rome Metro (thanks to Contiki) and caught the trains around. We had to be back at the closest station to the hotel in order to catch the Contiki shuttle back to the hotel. We started heading back early because we'd finished in Rome - and good thing too! We ended up going the wrong way on the Metro for 6 stations. We didn't realise, and thought it was the right station, but couldn't find the other line we were supposed to change to. We eventually discovered the problem, and backtracked to the correct station, and only just caught the connecting train (less frequent). It was the last one we could have caught - as the bus was departing as soon as we arrived. Far out - that was close.
That’s it for now - just to leave you, here’s a spot of parallel parking.
Told you these Romans are crazy!
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