8th May 2000 Rome
Trip Start
Apr 27, 2000
1
12
81
Trip End
Aug 09, 2000
Rome,
Italy
Thursday, February 27, 2003
Didn't rise till around 9.00 am. We went to the laundromat, two blocks away, and discovered that the street is closed to traffic and stalls are set up the length of the street. Mainly clothing and fruit and vegetables. I left Ches with the washing, and headed across town, again!!!! Had to find the bank to collect our wire transfer of money. Became instant millionaires-5,6000,000 (lira). All conducted with no language and only hand signs and waving photocopies of documents. All bank tellers in Italy have been trained in Australia. They slowly walk to their counter. Sit. Light a cigarette. Look around the room. Observe that there are fifteen people waiting, each with their numbered queue docket clutched eagerly in their hand-and getting soggy after three quarters of an hour of waiting. Press the button to light up the next number over their counter, and wait indifferently for the eager customer to rush the counter. Witnessed one customer; an immaculately dressed late thirties woman, take control. Both hands on hips, pushing back her leather jacket, and lecturing the teller until she got her way. All I could do was mime and wave bits of paper. Fairly painless. I returned to the laundromat after an hour and a half, and Ches was just finishing. We bought a shirt and pair of shoes, both red. For me. Some super ripe tomatoes and some bread, and returned to our room for a quick lunch, before we headed off for the Colosseum. Again on foot for several kilometres.
Spent a wonderful couple of hours at the Colosseum; most of it sitting in various spots around the inside upper level. It was a warm sunny day. Even though it has been completely stripped of it's marble, its still pretty spectacular (and I will avoid all references to the G). Inconceivable that it was opened with a 100 day games at which 55,000 people per day watched the slaughter of 9,000 wild animals, or that some years later they held the games for around 130 days and 6,000 gladiators died.
We moved on to the Palatine, which is on the hill overlooking the Colosseum to the south, and the Forum to the north. While we enjoyed Domus Flavia, Domus Augustana and the Stadium, the visit was a little disappointing. The signage is non existent, and we wasted an hour or more trying to align our map in the "Eyewitness Guide to Italy", to what we could see in the way of ruins. Even when we got our bearings, they don't indicate what paths link the various parts of the palatine. The House of Livia, and the House of Augustus were both closed, and after a very long walk around the back of the Stadium, to try to see the Palace of Septimus Severus (which is the biggest structure on the Palatine), we discovered that the path was blocked by a cyclone wire fence, and we would have had to retrace our steps and approach from the other side of the hill-at least a half hour walk. We gave up on the Palatine, and had a much more enjoyable stroll through the Forum. Didn't really have enough time to do anything more than walk through the Forum, and begin the two kilometre walk up Via Cavour. It had been a huge walking day. This was the night we went for dinner at Gemma al Lupa, which we had sourced in our Eyewitness Guide, and was only three blocks away-BIG MISTAKE!!! But enough already, we've already covered this disaster.
