I awoke to cloudless blue skies with the promise of an excellent day’s walking. Unfortunately I had to leave Riomaggiore and spend 5 hours on the train to Rome,
where I was meeting a couple of Uni mates for four days of culture, pizza and
gelatos. I discovered that was “culture week” in Rome, and as such all the museums were free. Sweet! More money for gelatos. I
used the remainder of the afternoon to walk down to the Colosseum and explore the Forum. Which I
could happily return to with my friends since it was also, yes the backpacker’s
favorite word, FREE.
I met Ben & Hannah just after 8am for an early morning
visit to the Colosseum before all the hordes arrived. Unfortunately a couple of
wrong turns meant that we took a little longer than expected to find it. I may
also have jinxed us by saying, “It’s a great big bloody stadium, how could you miss
it?” Apparently quite easily. After tramping up and down the stairs pretending
to be gladiators, we then visited the Forum and Palatine Hill. Not so difficult
to imagine the senators crowding around back in Roman times, especially since I
was conveniently reading a “History of Ancient Greece & Rome” as well as a
Patterson (James, not to be confused with the guy who plays a vampire in a series of crap movies) novel about Cicero!
Our first fail having breakfast in a
little café and not double checking the prices, as the difference between
takeaway food and having it at the café can sometimes be almost double! First and last time I will ever pay 5 euro for a coffee!
We decided to have our picnic at the Trevi fountain, which turned out to be our second fail as it was absolutely PACKED. We
could barely get near the fountain let alone sit down. Talk about pickpocket
central. We stood around for a bit people-watching and trying to spot
pickpockets, before hunger pangs drove us on a massive wander through the city
fruitlessly looking for a bit of a park (or at least a bench)that wasn't taken up by alcoholics or homeless people where we could
sit and have lunch. Finally, with Ben
suffering from some serious “hanger” (hunger anger) we ended up squatting at Palazzo Chigi near
some government buildings , but only got half way through our lunch before being told to
move on by a guard with a big gun. Apparently you can’t sit for more than 5
minutes there or you look like terrorists plotting world domination.
So, grumpily with only half our lunch eaten, we headed for
the Pantheon which was suitably impressive. Though the hole in the roof would
be a nightmare for the leaky buildings commission. After stopping at the Piazzo
Navona for the first of many gelatos, we headed back to their hotel room to
enjoy a few cheap supermarket beers while playing cards, before heading out to
a little recommended pizza place for dinner. Although the pizzas took over an
hour to reach us they were worth the wait. Delicious!
We started out on my birthday bright and early (well, early
anyway, I wasn’t feeling too bright without my coffee) in order to arrive at
the Vatican
just after 7am to miss the ridiculous crowds. Tip of the day: Book your tickets online as you can then enter at
8am, rather than wait for the office to open at 9am. This meant that we were in
the Sistine Chapel with only around 15 other people, and the peace and quiet
made it an even more amazing experience.
We spent the morning wandering through the Rafael
Rooms and checking out just some of
the vast amounts of artwork stashed away in the Vatican
museums. When we left around 11am the line for entry wound around three
sections of the wall and seemed to go on for miles. I still can’t fathom why
anyone would stand in a line like that when it is so easy to book ahead. The
line to head up the dome of St Peter’s was even longer so we decided to leave
it for another day (thus setting up our most epic fail of all…wait and see).
Instead we headed to the Castel Angelo where, once we’d
managed to fight our way through the crowds of annoying teenagers, we were
treated to some great views of the city and the church. And there was a lovely
little park for us to eat our lunch in, to the melodious tunes of a local
busker who thankfully was NOT playing a recorder.
After lunch we accidentally climbed the massive hill up to
Monument Garibaldi (now we were surrounded by parks) where we were treated to
yet another amazing view of the city…and the less amazing view of a couple making out in their car.
On the way back we stopped in the Trastavere neighbourhood,
which is supposed to be the “happening place” of shopping etc, but seemed
pretty run down and quiet to us. The Santa
Maria in Trastavere church was pretty impressive
though and worth the visit. Walking back through the Trevi fountain area that
evening, we tried to have dinner at another recommended little restaurant. I
say “tried” because they want to put the three of us at a massive eight-person
table (despite there being at least 4 free smaller tables and a no reservation
policy) which we were then expected to share with other people. Since I was
already sharing a bedroom and bathroom in the hostels, I drew the line at my
birthday dinner, and we left for another, more modern restaurant down the road,
where we spent a little too much on mojitos and an amazing lasagna dinner (but
hey, you only have your birthday once a year, and how many times in Rome?). We
were tempted to go back to the first restaurant just to show them our bill and
what they had lost!
