Bed in Trastevere 2 Rome

... collection on its own.

No place knows culture like Rome. Beijing, Athens, Cairo, Istanbul have their depth, but no place commands influence in art, architecture, history, politics, military and style like Rome. The City learned to bury its treasures during times of war, having been sacked dozens of times. With lots of treasures and lots of sackings, Rome’s subsoil is still a gold mine of culture. Populations were often ...

... over before taking the train to Cassino and the start of our last week in Italy with family. We had reserved an extra night at the Bed & Breakfast Bibi & Romeo on via Andria Doria. Nice little place in the heart of the Vatican neighborhood and close to everything by subway (2 Metro stations within a 5 minutes walk). Within a few blocks distance we have all kind of restaurants, grocery stores and the open market across the street. The ...

... seafood starters and then some wonderful pasta, followed by some more small fish and prawns then some lemon liquer for a dolce. Liz called us just as we were finishing eating and we all strolled together the short walk to Licia's flat. I will be living in Licia's flat for the next 3 months and it was nice for Liz to see where I will be. Meanwhile, the views were great...first fireworks from the left...then ...

... to keep me up to date with all the different cars here... Our accomodation is in another campsite similar to Venice, but probably 400 x better. I was sharing a 3 person cabin with only one other guy, Franco from Sicily. He was up in Rome to have a test for a job. Apparently there are absolutely dibolical ammounts of un-employment in the south, so alot are forced to move further north or even internationally. No wonder Melbournes full of wogs. As soon as i got into Rome i had ...

... them another room to sleep in after hearing the dueling snorers through the door as he approached the room. After getting dressed we headed out around 9am to repeat the path I had done two days before. This time we stopped to go in the places though. We went to the Vatican first. The interior of the church is absolutely amazing and is so huge. It was Sunday morning so we saw the procession and ...

... our hotel, an hour and fifteen minutes later, we arrived with all our baggage at the Hotel Palmerio (I made that last word up, I have no idea where we are staying).

If you really are amused by nerds getting excited about something nerdy, just take ten architecture students with you to see the Pantheon. We were all awestruck at the surreal environment of ...

... We did a lap around it, not bothering to pay the admission fee to get in and continued on our walking tour of the city, trying to find the buildings that had been awarded cool-looking graphics on the map. And that's all we did for the next few hours, meandering endlessly and finding one cool place after another, the highlight being the former Senate (I think) a huge marble building with loads of important-looking war statues. By the time we had ...

... subway was watching this whole thing go down. People in all the subway cars that could see were watching. It was quite a seen with lots of commotion. Finally the old man just turned around and walked off. What else could he have done? With all that going on for at least 5 minutes, no cops showed up or anything and everyone just watched. No one tried to help. It was crazy. I started walking back to my hostel and I stopped at the grocery store and bought cheese and crackers for dinner and ...

... will not be there:) We met some kids from England and Estonia last night, which was kinda cool, and a girl from Canada in England. We also met some people from CA today, so we are making friends and getting by with no Italiano - parla inglese? Overall, Rome is looking up. It is dirtier that we thought, but still a very cool city. The cities here are so much more interesting looking because the archieture is so cool.

... out with Rich from Colorado before long. There were a group of lame German teen-agers sitting closer to the Fountain singing the worst American songs I could possibly imagine. "Be With You" by Mr. Big? "That is so 1991." *Ralph Wiggum. Everyone took turns purchasing bottles of wine which we then split among the posse. At the beginning of the night, we were paying 20000L per bottle but were constantly bargaining the corner store down and finally got 6000L for each of the last ...