Rome - I Feel I've Been Here Before
Trip Start
Jul 27, 2007
1
30
31
Trip End
Oct 22, 2007
Rome,
Italy
Saturday, October 20, 2007
For our full day in Rome and the final full day of the tour we got the Contiki bus to drop us at the closest Metro station and then caught the Metro into the city getting off at the station at the Colosseum where we met our local guide for a walking tour of the ancient Roman ruins. After walking through the excavations for the ruins we met our tour manager, Franco and a few of us headed over to the Vatican where we lined up to go into the Vatican museum. Now this line was about 1.5km long so it seemed we would have a fair wait but the line moved very quickly. This I found out when I did a quick run across the street to get some drinks for the group I had lined with. When I came out my group had moved about 800m up the line and up around the bend of the street. On average about 15,000 people go through the Vatican museum each day and we found this out quite well when we finally got in as every room was full of people. The museum had many different parts including a section of Egyptian artefacts but was mainly religious themed paintings and sculptures. Near the end of the museum is the Sistine chapel painted by Michelangelo which was very different to what I expect with the ceiling being a collection of many smaller paintings instead of the one famous scene everybody knows. I thought it was quite ironic that they asked for silence in this chapel and the most noise was being made by the attendant yelling out silence. There is meant to be a way to get into St Peter Cathedral from here but we couldn't find it and ended up heading back out on the street. As we had missed lunch we decided to grab a quick meal near the Vatican before heading back to the Metro station near the Colosseum. We took the Metro back to the station where our bus picked us up and took us back to the hotel to get ready for the farewell dinner. For the farewell dinner (which is one of the optional activities on this tour) we had dinner at an Italian restaurant (fancy that) near the Vatican so again we got to see St Peter's cathedral lit up at night. As I was staying an extra day I didn't need to go to bed early so I stayed up and had a few beers with some of the group and said farewell to those that had early starts the next morning.
The next morning was unlike any on the Contiki tour as it had no early wake-up call and no set times for breakfast or departure. Staying at the hotel for an extra night were two groups of girls from Tasmania (the Ness Sister - Emily and Sara and the 4 Tassie Lawyers - Kara, Liz, Nadia and Jillian) who were keen to head back to the Colosseum to actually tour inside it. We first stopped off at an internet café as we all had to sort out something (for me it was my banking) and after that we grab some lunch before heading over to the Colosseum. Now anyone who has been to the Colosseum will know that there is always a huge line out the front of it. This line is for tickets and not to actually get in so you may ask how you skip this ticket line. Well it is easy go across to the excavated ruins and you can (for the same price) buy a ticket that gets you into both the Colosseum and onto Palatine Hill which is the part of the ruins you have to pay to see. There is never a line up here but very few people know about this. After we grabbed our tickets we walked rather smugly past all the poor souls waiting at the Colosseum ticket booth and straight in. Inside it is quite amazing as you can just see how big it was plus all the effort that went into making it an engineering marvel for it time (i.e the rooms under the floor where the gladiators/animals entered from). After the Colosseum the girls wanted to do some shopping (I know that would surprise most people) so I headed over to Palatine Hill to use the other half of my ticket and even though it is in ruins these buildings in there day would have been massive. After there I had only one more place I need to visit and enter to complete my visit to Rome and that was St Peter's cathedral. Now as some of you might remember the last time I was in Rome (April 2003) I was not allowed into St Peter's as I wasn't wearing appropriate Italian church dress. This time I was prepared so I hurried over to the Vatican again hoping I wouldn't be too late to go in. Usually there is a long line to enter the cathedral but it was quite short this late in the afternoon and after waiting 10 minutes at the metal detector I was straight in. The main hall of the cathedral was massive and much bigger then any cathedral I had been to (and that includes all the most important churches in England and my other stops in Italy and Eastern Europe). You could tell that this was the home of the Catholic Church as everything was spotless and the marble statues were bright white. After the Vatican I grabbed a metro and headed over to the Trevi fountain where I was meeting up with the Tassie connection and a few other people from my Contiki tour for dinner. As I approached the fountain I noticed that the crowd was large then usual and were staring at something in the fountain. As I got closer I noticed that the police had roped off the area where people usually go down to throw their coins. Then it hit me, the colour of the water was bright red like someone had come along and turned it into wine (I couldn't help myself throwing in that biblical reference). I never found out the full facts but someone had come along and thrown some red dye in the fountain just before I got there. After a while the rest of the group showed up and we headed away from the fountain to find a restaurant for dinner. This part of Rome has plenty of restaurants so finding somewhere for dinner wasn't a problem. After dinner we headed back to the metro and then after a quick train trip waited for a bus. Once back to the hotel I headed up to my room and packed my bags for the final trip back to Australia.
The next morning I said goodbye to the Tassie Lawyer Group as they were heading to France and myself and the Sara and Emily grabbed a hire car to the airport. After a rather painful wait in the check in line I said goodbye to the remaining Tasmanians and had for my plane destination Singapore and then Sydney.
