Rome the Final Days

On our last day in Rome we finally visited its most famous attraction. The Colosseum!!!

We declined a tour this time preferring to look around at our own pace. It is massive and in really good condition considering how old it it. You can really get a good feel for how it would have been in classical times and how it would have al worked. Obviously all of the seats and staircases and the floor have gone but you can see where they would have been and se where all of the animal cages under the stage would have been. It actually looks just like it does in the pictures which was really cool!!!

After getting our fill of that we looked at the Arch of Constantine which I studied at high school. It was (like everything) amazing to see it in person so to speak. Again it is amazingly intact and the carvings are so detailed.

We then headed into the ruins of Palatine hill which mythology has it, is the hill upon which Rome was founded, Romulus and Remus and the wolf and all that. There are the ruins of impressive imperial palaces there as well as a Stone Age village. We had our lunch amongst the bits of ancient marble which is littered around everywhere. Its crazy that you are just allowed to sit on bits of old columns and they are piled up in corners.

It was the same litter of columns and brick in the Roman Forum. This was the heart of the Roman Empire but not much remains. There are a few columns standing and some ground level ruins of the temples, buildings and courtyards. We had out guide book which was really useful to figure out the importance of what we were looking at.

We walked up from the Roman Forum and found more ruined forum areas. I was particularly excited to see Trajan’s Column which is a huge column with elaborate carving depicting the victories in the battles spiralling all the way around it as it was another thing we studied at school. It was spectacular even surrounded by a building site.

By this time having looked at a lot of roman ruins in one day we were a bit over it so briefly visited the Victor Emanuall Monument which is a huge white marble building that we didn’t really appreciate the significance of, and then got some gelati to refresh ourselves. Even, raining and cold it’s still yummy, we sat on the steps by the Trevi fountain again to eat it. They have so many yummy flavours and the texture is soo good. I think ( unsurprisingly) that one of my highlights of the trip was the food and especially the gelati!!! Even cheap train station pizza was yummy and restaurant food was amazing. The best pizza I had was the anchovy one, the pizzas are so simple compared to the ones we make at home, one or two toppings where we would put as much as we could fit and with really thin crispy bases, mmmm I’m getting hungry just thinking about it!!!

In the morning we said good bye to Rome and caught the train north pack to Pisa. Despite pouring rain we decided that we couldn’t miss the leaning tower so we battled the weather down to the Piazza dei Miracoli, the Field of Miracles, so called apparently as it contains not just the Famous Leaning Tower but an amazing Basilica and Baptistery, as well as souvenir shops of course!!!

We were completely amazed by how much of a lean the tower is, you can really see it. Climbing up it was quite an experience, the stair case winds around the inside of the wall so sometimes you were leaning to one side, sometimes to the other and sometimes walking more or less steeply up. A very strange sensation. When we got to the top it was a bit scary as the marble was slippery from the rain and its quite a lot slanted!!!!! The whole experience made Jeremy a bit seasick feeling. This was another highlight for me as I wasn’t expecting it to be on such a lean and to see something so famous that actually exceeds expectation was (shall I say it again) amazing!!!!

And that ended out wonderful Italian Holiday. We really enjoyed it. For me the highlights were the Sistine Chapel, the Leaning Tower and the food. And really just the chance to actually see things that for so long we’ve been looking at pictures of and hearing about.

Now, after such a great trip, we’ve been bitten hard by the travel bug so have gone out and bought a giant map of Europe and are thinking about where to go next. And beginning to plan our big adventure for the summer!!!