SO after a not very exciting series of flights from santorini to rome, and a very expensive train ride into the centre of town (but what were we to do? not go into rome? ha!), we arrived at Termini Station and realised we knew the name of our hostel and little else (excellent planning as usual). i sat on our bags and ate our remaining supplies of kinder chocolate outside the world's seediest internet café while vivienne attempted to figure out where we were meant to be going, a pursuit in which she succeeded as a short while later we found ourselves being introduced to the weird swedish boy we were sharing a room with at the nice but bizarrely named Legends Hostel. and that was a very long sentence.
our demands of rome that afternoon were pretty straightforward- we wanted to see harry potter. however, even cinemas in italy close for siesta and so we had to wait until the evening (although even italy has a stronger work ethic than greece, where shops would open when they felt like it in the mornings and close around lunch time until the next day, when they would do it all again) but it was definitely worth it. 'a good use of time in rome', you may say (and people have), but we were a bit sick of feeling like the only people in the world who hadn't seen HP6 yet so we got pretty excited when the opportunity finally arose.
ANYWAY, rome is a really beautiful city, full of little cobbled laneways, vespa scooters and attractive italian people, as well as gelato stores everywhere which made for five days of fairly unhealthy but oh-so-delicious desserts (and breakfast dessert and lunch dessert now count as official meals, not to be missed).
we spent our first full day doing all the tourist sights, all of which are permanently packed with american tourists, it seems, but also definitely worth the crowds because every sight we visited was great. the colosseum was fantastic, although it actually looks cooler from the outside, and the trevi fountain is really spectacular but a bit of a hazard as there are so many tourists cramming to get a perfect photo that vivienne almost fell in when a pushy italian woman pushed her a bit far. but then i managed to fall partway down the spanish steps at the piazza di spagna so i guess we're just making fools of ourselves everywhere we go.
the next day we went to the vatican to see st peter's basilica and the musei vaticani (with the sistine chapel), both of which were absolutely incredible, even for two non-catholics. by some massive fluke we didn't really queue for either of them, which was nice.
THEN, thanks to the kindness and generosity of vivienne's lovely nanna, we checked into a very snazzy hotel called the Westin Excelsior (sure beats Legends Hostel), where we lay in bed in the airconditioning, eating kinder and watching gossip girl. now before you say that was a terrible waste of time in rome, we'd actually already seen the best sights and we did spend a morning wandering around the designer boutiques at the foot of the spanish steps, pretending we were incredibly wealthy and could easily afford a 9000 euro valentino dress (although neither of us were brave enough to try it on). i don't think we fooled anybody.
we also had a really great meal beside the colosseum on our last night (although we kind of over-ordered, oh well) that saw us get down to our last euro between us, due to the fact that we couldn't make my ATM card work, which was kind of worrying until we found out they have really low withdrawal limits in italy- but basically, we stood around colosseo metro station looking a bit pathetic, having eaten a really great dinner but being a euro short of a metro ride home, until a helpful italian guy donated to our cause. a very desperate man in the station the next day asked vivienne for a euro, which she gave him, so it seems that what goes around does indeed come around. and we will never again assume that a whole lot of money will be easily obtained by putting a card in a machine, because it seems it doesn't always work like that.
so, after two days sightseeing and two days relaxing, we left rome a bit sad to be gone so soon because it really is a great city... but florence awaited us and having bought the cheapest ticket possible to get there, moving it back a few days wasn't really an option. sigh.
i'm afraid the hilarious photo of vivienne having almost fallen in the trevi fountain is on her camera so i can't put it up, and hopefully nobody photographed me tripping down the spanish steps, so you'll just have to enjoy the kind of posy ones instead. sorry.
much love to one and all
iona and vivienne
