Roma!

Hi there! Our latest adventure was (or should I say was to have been) a 4 day weekend in Rome. Our curse of attracting European industrial action continued... so with the Italian Air Traffic Controllers off the job we had half a day to kill at Heathrow. Once we found the 'free cocktail' bar, this actually got our trip off to a pretty good start. "Cocktails made with love"

This was not a holiday - it was more like boot camp for tourists.... early starts, busy schedules and late finishes... but it worked very smoothly and due to Michelle's planning we packed a lot into our 3 days in Rome.

You can probably guess most of them... but for what its worth the highlights for us were probably the following.......

Colosseum, Palatine and the Roman Forums
Our first day in Rome was a beautiful clear winter's day and we spent most of this exploring the Colosseum, Palatine and the Roman Forums. The Colosseum was pretty amazing and to have been in it in when it was still complete must have been incredible. Fortunately for me it was easy to picture being there, as with Michelle constantly quoting lines from 'The Gladiator' it felt just like the real thing..... hmmmm.

Anyway - next stop was the Roman Forums a basin filled with various buildings, columns and arches in various states of disrepair..... here we did gazing at the sights(interspersed with more quotes and references to the Gladiator). In fact - the only person to take the Gladiator thing further than Michelle - was a 4 year old boy who dressed up as one and proceeded to attack his father with a sword!? From here we climbed up onto the Palentine - sited on a hill overlooking the Colosseum, Forums and Rome - this is the site where Rome is said to have been founded. Today it is a nice, relatively peaceful park, scattered with ruins and offering some great views. A great spot for a picnic (not that we had one).

Trevi Fountain
This amazing fountain is on everyone's must see list in Rome (as was apparent by the crowds and hawkers) - but once you see it you can understand why. Today tossing coins into the fountain is the thing to do - coins must be tossed over one's shoulder into the fountain. 1 coin - means you will return to Rome one day, 2 - means you will fall in love with an Italian, 3 - means you will marry one.


Unshrewdly we had arrived with only 1 euro coins in our pockets..... it took a lot to convince me that I should participate in this phenomenon - but eventually agreed to part with my 1 euro, as Michelle did not want to come back alone. Strangely, I think I might have caught a glimpse of her chucking another 2 over her shoulder as we left.... but must have been someone else..........?

St Peter's Basilica

For both of us this was a real highlight. To stand in the Basilica felt like you were in a far religious place than to stand in the Sistine Chapel. We wandered around and took it all in for quite a while, as a mass took place at the main altar. From here we went up into the main dome of the Basilica. First this gave us the chance to look done inside the church from the inside and to see some of the incredible detail in the mosaics that line the interior of this huge building. After this you head on up the narrow stairs to the top of the building and the outside of the dome (not a walk for those who are uncomfortable with confined spaces). At the other extreme - we went into the Vatican Grottos which are situated under the church and contain the tombs of numerous Popes. We paused briefly by Pope John Paul II's, but it was a fairly busy and (unfortunately) less than peaceful place to be due to noisy tourist types.

Wine
Its not Ross and Michelle on holiday without some wine thrown in - and in Rome we were reminded that there is far more to Old World wine than the French wine which we tend to drink at home in London. We visited a cool little wine bar called L'Angolo Divino (just off Campo de Fiori) and enjoyed a few drinks. Our favourite was one of the house wines... a Montepulciano from Abruzzo.

On our last day we set off in search of a few bottles of it to take home with us. This took us into the Tridente district which looked very cool - kind of what you would expect from Italy - little wine shops, delis, small restaurants and winding twisting streets. To our amazement when we found the wine it was a 6 euro bottle..... (hmmm perhaps we may have had one too many???) but we stuck to our guns and got as much as we could carry (not that much when you have a day of sightseeing ahead of you). We have since tried one... YUM!

Vatican Museums and Sistine Chapel
We did the compulsory trip to the Vatican Museums. The sights here were interesting, although at times (particularly in the Sistine Chapel) it was fairly crowded. Some of the sculptures and fresco ceilings were particularly spectacular.

The other gallery we visited was Galleria Borghese. It sits in the park area on the hill above the Spanish Steps and was the home of a Cardinal who collected art. Some of the sculptures here were incredible - in particular the Bernini Apollo and Daphne.

Buildings and ruins....

We enjoyed just walking around the city and the amazing buildings and/or ruins around every corner. Particularly grand was the Pantheon viewed from the square outside it - it looked just like something straight from an Asterix's comic.

Coffee

We once again dabbled in Italian coffee - and enjoyed a visit to one cafe called La Tazza d'Oro which is said to make a great coffee and also a special mix of coffee and cream (eaten like an ice cream) that even the Italians are said to travel here to try. Around the corner, we found a 1940's coffee grinder in a shop - so decided that it would be a nice souvenir of a great trip here.