Just a note: I'm no longer uploading photos here becaause it's to much of a pain in the ass on the tablet. If i get some time on a real computer then I might upload some then.
I took a high speed train from Venice to Rome, the journey itself was pretty uneventful, though once we left Florence the driver finally put his foot down and we were moving at 250km/h for a couple of hours.
The hostel, Hostel beautiful 2, is in a good spot, right next to the train station. Unfortunately the hostel itself wasn't that good, similar to my first hostel in Paris, it didn't promote interaction between guests, with nothing but a shitty common area that played Italian tv and housed a weird Italian guy that I'm pretty sure was the cleaner, at least in the mornings, in the afternoon he would sleep on the couch.
Roma itself is fucking amazeballs. Quite large, but small enough that you can walk around if you want to, and full of things to see and do. I walked mostly, the only transport I used was a hop-on hop-off tourist bus that visited the major sites.
Full day one; I did the coliseum, the roman forums and surrounding ruins. The line for the coliseum was long but moved fast enough that I didn't want to pay extra to do a tour and skip the line. These monuments differ from anything in most other counties due to their age and offer a change from the stuff I'd already seen a dozen times.
Full day two; visited the Vatican, I payed (considerably) more to join a tour here, not just because the line was long, but because there's a line for everything. The tours skip all the lines by going in the back way. The Vatican museum is vast and it's collections rival that of the Louvre in Paris, plus the tour guide is able to provide information on a lot of the rooms and what's in them. The other parts of the Vatican were good to, like the Sistine Chapel, but I liked the museum the most.
Third full day; visited Trevi Fountain and the Pantheon and had one of the highlights of my trip thus far. Upon entering. The Pantheon a choir were doing a performance, instruments and all. You wouldn't realise it without the choir, but the Pantheon's acoustics are unlike anything you've ever heard. The music from the choir is amplified and projected in such a way that it is all around you. I have about 6 minutes of video of the performance, however I don't know how it turned out, as my tablet doesn't have the grunt to play 1080P video. I spoke to one of the girls there, Beth, turns out they are a visiting choir from England.
Forth full day; left via train early in the morning to visit Pompeii. The journey is 3 hours long and passes through Napoli(Naples). Pompeii is pretty good, but by day four I'm getting sort of ruined out. I miss-calculate how much time I'd spend in Pompeii by about 4 hours, so decide to visit Napoli on the way back. I get there and i knew which direction the water was from the station but lacked and sort of map for guidance, I head towards the water and make it there about an hour later. Napoli is pretty nice, it's got a very coastal town feel to it, with hoards of people heading to the water to hang out. I refrain from saying beach because their isn't one, just large rocks. When heading to the water you find a giant rock that suits you and setup camp there. I find and climb a castle with some good views and take a view good photos. As I had no idea where I was at this point I take a taxi to the station, that was an experience in itself. Before we even get moving we agree on the price as per the guys chart, going from the castle to the station is 13 euros, always, I pay him up front. We dodge and weave between cars and people on scooters as he leans on the horn every few seconds. The craziest thing I saw, and I wish I was fast enough to catch it on film, was a guy on a scooter, no helmet, cigaret in his mouth, ~6 year old boy just holding on to his back, the boy had no helmet either. It blew my mind. I get back to my hostel at 9 ish and find out my roommates, who I've thought we're French for the last four days are actually Swiss. Sorry Noe, if you read this, French and Swiss sound the same to me :).
The next day I jump a midday train to Firenze(Florence).
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