Sights around every corner, and 3 big nights

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  Roma, Italy
Sunday, May 14, 2006

The heart of the Roman empire did not fail to disappoint. We managed to combine ridiculous quantities of sightseeing with three big nights on the town (including my birthday) like we had never done before.

One question, why are the Spanish Steps and Piazza de Spagna so talked-about? It's an ordinary italian plaza with some pretty boring steps from another bloody fountain up to another bloody huge column in front of another bloody church (which is under reconstruction, like the rest of Europe). Right, now that I've let that out, there are possibly the world's largest concentration of fountains and columns within a 1km radius in Rome. It is quite ridiculous. Every corner you walk around, you either bump into a fountain, a column, or some other really old thing (like the Pantheon, the Colosseum, ruins of the Palatine, ...). Pretty cool to walk arond initially, but enough columns already.

One thing off most Roman sightseeing circuits is a crazy church which has a crypt next door where a bunch of monks, called the Capuchin monks, decorated the whole place out with the bones of 1400 or so of their deceased brothers. There are human bones all over the walls, as part of the light fittings and picture frames, and surrounding tombstones, in crazy patterns. It was pretty unique, but somehow quite disturbing! Unfortunately no photos allowed so you just have to go.

St. Peter's Basilica, in the Vatican, was pretty amazing. We all decided that it was the best church in the world, now there's pretty much no need to go to one every again. Huge bloody thing, we walked up the 600 steps to the top of the dome, walked around all the dead pope's tombs, and wondered why the church would spend so much money on churches like this when they should be thinking of their followers who have nothing.

The partying was, for the first two nights, at the hostel's bar, with a bunch of Canadians (we seem to run into Canadians and get on wherever we are) and an American. Noticed the presence at the pub of an extremely large chin with man attached. Didn't talk to him then. The last night was my birthday, and we decided to go on a pub crawl - which happened to be free on your birthday - with the Canadians and chin guy, amongst a whole bunch of randoms. Actually spoke to the chin tonight, and he turned out to be Aussie. Wouldn't have thought that in a million years, he totally looks like one of those All American Quarterback types. Anyway there's a photo with him. We smoked our last remaining Cuban cigar (the rest have been sent home), and Cam became a little unwell overnight - I think his travelpod tells that tale. But it was a great few nights and days, it seems that the cities we party the most in are capital cities - Madrid and Rome have been standout winners in terms of volume of beer consumed.

Post your own travel photos for friends and family Pictures

01 At the Colosseum	02 Cam and Brooks with pay-per-photo gladiator	03 Brooks throwing coin into Trevi Fountain	04 Cam and Brooks next to impeccably dressed cop
05 A "quiet night" in Rome	06 Roman column #2754683	07 The Pantheon	08 Me in the Pantheon
09 Roman Fountain #2754638	10 St. Peters Basilica, home of Catholicism	11 Swiss Guards	12 View from top of St. Peter's Dome
13 Yet another huge monument	14 Bunch of old Roman stuff (the Palatine)	15 Partying for my birthday with big chin guy

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