After our final farewells to a few of our group and our tour director still lingering in the hotel reception it was time to transfer to another hotel that would be our home for the next four nights. We had already decided that taxi was our best option as it was a bit of a distance and dragging our 20kg plus bags plus over the ancient pavement and cobbles of Rome seemed a bit tricky. We arrived at our hotel, Albergo Cesari, which was incidentally in a lovely cobblestone street halfway between the Trevi Fountain and the Pantheon. To fill in some time until our room was ready we left our bags with the concierge and strolled up to see the famous Trevi Fountain. It truly is as magnificent as you imagine, the only problem being the hundreds of tourists. Holding on to our bags, wary of pickpockets, we lingered for a while, took some photos, bumped into some people from our tour then decided we would come back again in the evening thinking there may be less people. Well, it must have been 10pm when we returned and to our surprise there was probably twice as many tourists at the Trevi. It was Trevi Mania alright, would hate to be there in July, the real peak of the tourist season.
Experience 41. Are we in Greece or Italy? Rome. 23 June.
Obviously we are in Italy but every time we walk past or visit the Pantheon, I always manage to call it the Parthenon. Maybe not as awesome as the Parthenon but still pretty impressive. It sits at one end of a piazza, not on top of a hill like the Parthenon. It has columns at the front with a domed building at the back. When you are inside and you look up at the ceiling there is a big circular hole in the middle of the dome. The sun shines through and creates a sun dial effect through the room. Quite amazing. According to my Lonely Planet guide it is a great place to visit in a summer rain shower. No chance of that today, still mid 30's here and not a cloud in site - CL
As a matter of interest it is close to the oldest roman building that is still functional, the current version being built around 150AD. That is fair craftsmanship by any measure...there is also a very nice fountain out the front, oh yes and it is usually on our way home from eating dinner - JL
Experience 42. Colosseum.
We decided on a guided tour of the Colosseum and the roman ruins. The timing was bad as the tour was scheduled to start at 2:00pm, which was the time any sensible roman was heading for siesta. The heat was pretty intense but what do you do when you are on a timetable. There were plenty on our tour and many others groups. It is fair to say the place was packed. Probably more people in the Colosseum than would have turned out for Rome gladiators v Pompeii gladitators firsts and reserves.
The Colosseum was pretty impressive, the emperor would have had a good view and even the women up in the bleaches would have been able to see the blood trickle without difficulty. I mention this last point in passings as this is the only part of the Colosseum where women were allowed to spectate...who would have thought the American movies would have got this wrong?
It would have been interesting to be able to explore the under ground parts of the structure, where the gladiators prepared and the animals were housed. When the arena included the wooden floor and sand covering, the bowels would have been dark, hot and claustrophobic....bit like the old change rooms at Endeavour field I imagine.
The ruins of the senate and what have you were ok, but there was no shade anywhere and the tour group enthusiasm was waning rapidly. It didn't help that our guide was an old fella who was very hard to understand...or hear through the squawk box that is all the fashion now when taking a tour. An American gent on our tour was constantly interrupting the flow of non sensical ramblings by the guide to get him to speak more clearly, speak more slowly, stop the horrid feedback that was blowing out our ear drums or some other issue. It was good of him, but made no actually difference to the outcome...we still couldn't understand the old man who was getting more and more flustered with each interruption.
When the tour finished we handed back our squawk boxes and headed down town for a well deserved gelati.
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