when in rome part two

Friends Romans, countrymen.
Rome day two:
We woke up early ready and eager to explore Rome , after a dismal breakfast at the hostel we headed out on foot. First we returned to the area around the colosseum with the buildings tempio di saturno, via sacra, basilica giulia, I rostri, arco di settmio severo, la cura, basilica emilia, basilica di massenzio, tempio di Antonio e faustina, colesseo, palatino, colonna di foca, tempio di giulo cesare, arco di tito, tempio di vesta, casa dei vestalli, tempio di castore e polluce. (Deep breath) we went photo crazy as you can image, and took photos of the police on horses and of me hugging columns. We came across the ruins of some building that is full of cats I now understand why there are cats in the all the postcards, literally hundreds of them just prancing about it made me miss my cat tigga so much. We tackled the map rather unsuccessfully and headed towards some outdoor markets, people on the streets start talking to you and the easy answer is simply

‘no palo italaiano’

(I don’t speak Italian) however one such man (who I thought was drunk at ten am as he was waving a glass of red wine round) reacted very angrily when I said ‘no palo italiano’ and swore (I assume) at me in Italian. We later deduced he wasn’t talking to us but was perhaps praying or something and we had disrupted his prayers.
We came across an outdoor market (piazza novona) where we browsed at marzipan, street performers and various souvenirs. Next we headed to the pantheon, which is ridiculously stunning it’s almost too much to handle. There is a hole it the ceiling and surprisingly no rain gets in despite the fact it is about 4 metres wide in diameter. We passed the tempio Adriano and the st ignazio church which is literally the most stunning building I’ve ever seen and by far surpassed both st peters and the Vatican. Next, to the mall palazzo montecitorio a rather up market affair in a grandeur building, we got lost trying to find the Trevi fountain and I had to ask several times

‘dovet fountain trevi’

eventually we found it and its stunning, there was a momentary lapse in the rain that had plagued us all day so the photos from the trevi look almost sunny, naturally it was swamped by tourists such as ourselves but we did our best to get photos. Next to the Spanish steps, which unfortunately are not that interesting in the winter and certainly not one of my favourites from the trip. It was absolutely pouring by this stage. Luckily one of Rome's oddities is that men selling umbrellas pop up the second a single raindrop falls they walk around the streets arms laden with umbrellas of various colours, they make a mad dash when police drive by and jostle and hustle with their competitors. I haggled for a 3euro umbrella and headed up the stairs. With two umbrellas between three, taking photos was a very wet affair, but a kindly old man held his umbrella over me while I took photos. We hunted around for a cheap lunch in the poshest district of Rome with designer stores that surround the Spanish steps. Unsuccessful in our hunt due to the fact there are always service charges and on top of this many resturants require a further fee for a table. With the rain everything was packed but we found a darling little restaurant of average price. 16euros for a pizza advertised for two but big enough for ten. Vic and me tackled our pizza, which was a combination of eggplant (my new obsession), olives and many other exciting ingredients. We all had expresso afterwards to warm ourselves up in preparation for heading outside it was almost 3pm and already getting dark as we made our way to piazza del popolo which was my favourite site of the whole trip. It was twig light and gorgeous. Statues and fountains and small temples around an open circular stadium of sorts. We walked uphill in the near darkness to a small temple with gushing water coming down it and looked out across the view of the piazza and Rome. We had walked between 3/6 km I estimate and it had taken us 6 hours Vic and I had completely ruined our new boots on Romes cobbled streets. We headed back along Via Del Corso the main road that has lots of nice shops, some with funny names like ‘expensive’ and ‘ok’. I bought a tourist poster of Audrey Hepburn and Gregory peck in roman holiday (vacazione roma), it had to be done I couldn’t help myself. We swung by the trevi fountain again to see it at night when it is even more spectacular. It took us just over two hours to come back directly but we were exhausted and rested at the hostel for a few hours waking up around 11pm to forage for food. Because Rome seems to be open 24/7 we had no trouble finding an open nearby restaurant of a reasonable price. Not as spectacular as lunch but satisfactory. We had brushetta for 3 euros and expresso once again. We tried to communicate as much as possible in Italian but only achieved to say pepe (pepper) not exactly difficult. We browsed some of the boutique stores around the hostel before heading home just past midnight. Lili wasn’t feeling well so she settled in for an early night while me and Victoria headed once again to the libera café/bar. We didn’t know the guests this night so chatted happily to each other whist drinking margaritas that were literally pure alcohol, no ice! Which took us a bout 2 hours to drink just one. We started chatting to leather jacket guy and some other guys who were brazillain and worked in nearby hostels. Leather jacket guy’s sister is living on a marae somewhere in NZ – small world huh. He asked me confusingly why she kept calling him a pakeha and laughing at him. We had a very multicultural conversation for a few hours with people of various nationalities swapping travel stories and attempting to learn some Italian. The hostel workers laughed their heads off at my phrase book and wouldn’t stop teasing my pronunciation. I learned that Italian has the same vowels as Maori. (Ae ei I ow ou.), Vic believes I’ve become very patriotic. It was a really great-relaxed night out. We declined to go clubbing around 3am knowing we had a big day ahead of us.

Vacazione Roma
Day three in Rome:
We accidentally slept in and were late getting to the Vatican; we headed to st Peters cathedral first which was a blessing (excuse the pun) as we arrived in time to see the pope on a rare appearance during winter. He was blessing what appeared to be the higher rankings of the Italian army. About 300 men in very grand uniforms. It was a beautiful ceremony, choirs, organs, orchestra, incense. Vic and me were both a bit teary from the intensity of it despite neither of us being catholic. St peters is almost scary there’s a glass case with one of the dead popes in it, But the architecture and such is breathtaking. We were disappointed to learns that the Vatican itself closed at 12 30 during winter so we were too late to go that day. But discovered instead the castel sant Angelo. A kind of fort/castle – it has a moat and runs along the river Fiume Tevere. The views are spectacular and its very fun winding your way through the tunnels and bumping into people you met at the hostel the night before. From the fort you can see the whole of Rome with st Peters in the forground. The weather was starting to brighten as we crossed a beautiful bridge the Ponte St Angelo. We walked along the river back to the hostel, which took about 4 hours. We went to many sites along the river like the St Giovanni dei florentini chapel, the palazzo spado and the synagogue. The best was the teatro Marcello that is very similar in architecture to the colosseum but less famous and therefore more tranquil because of the lack of tourists.
Just next to this is a small island in the middle of the river (connected by bridges to both banks) called Isola on which clusters of villas are built. In the sun it was very pretty, I have my future house picked out. By now we were back in the area of the colosseum and hiked up to Capitol Hill to look over Areo Di Tito (the collection of ruins). Stopping for more gelato we headed back to the Roma Inn for another late afternoon nap. Before heading out for our last night in Rome. We hit the tourist shops and gathered up a collection of junk. Then went and sat outdoors at a cute restaurant in a street that resembled an alleyway just a few minutes from roma inn. We had to fight off the hawkers from our table, men playing musical instruments, selling roses and other tourist junk. Some were nice like the musicians but others forceful and had to be shooed away by our waitress in Italian. We found a nice fair trade store and bought Italian coffee, pasta and hot chocolate at more reasonable prices than the tourist shops, and I believe more authentic. We couldn’t help ourselves and went again to get more gelato around midnight before heading back once more to the hostel.

We were all getting the flu from walking in the wet weather in damp clothing so
tried to get a good nights sleep.

When faced with poverty do as the Romans do.
Day four in Rome
The next morning we woke early determined not to miss the Vatican on our last day. We caught the metro and arrived at 8am even though it didn’t open till ten. We had a very expensive breakfast of pure melted hot chocolate with hazelnuts and pastries at a boutique café near the Vatican. We arrived at the Vatican at 8 30ish to discover the line was all ready around the block. The poverty we had seen coming into the city is most obvious around tourist spots like this. Beggars sit along the Vatican walls. In the rest of the city they are mainly scarved women begging on their hands and knees but here they are people with obvious deformities, amputees, with little clothing and no shoes, and one man who had what appeared to be tumours (about 3 or four and bigger than a tennis ball) growing out of his neck and head. The tourists- overtly cautious from guide books, try their best to ignore these beggars assuming that, like the beggars in London they do not need to be on the streets- that the government will provide for them. The Italians however give the beggars notes not just change and give their coffees or food to the beggars or even just say kind words which are obviously appreciated, I realise the tourists are naïve and that the Italians know that their government is not providing for these people who have to hobble away when the police drive by. Victoria and I both regretted not having Euro coins to give to these beggars and in retrospect I wished we had given notes. We had to que over an hour to get into the Vatican and I felt that it was not as beautiful as St Peters. Unfortunately flash is forbidden in most rooms but the tapestries paintings and especially ceilings were worth the whole trip. Michelangelo’s Sistine chapel is in our opinion not the best of the murals in the Vatican (see bebo or facebook for the ones we liked the best) but it is nonetheless very grand. It is very easy to get lost following the non sensical signs that eternally point to the Sistine chapel and you go up and down and up again on the levels. We left the Vatican around 12 and went to a nearby resturant for lunch. We had a wonderful reception there, the restaurant is run by a family who were constantly checking if we were ok, gave us free bread and olive oil a free pizza and free desert, no service charge no table charge. They are great I have the name somewhere if you go to Rome you have to go there it’s the warmest reception in Italy. Sadly we had to leave Rome and go sit at the airport for 4 hours waiting for our flight. In London we

literally ran

with our backpacks to catch the Gatwick express to Victoria station, we had just 5 mins to spare to catch the last train back to Rochester – dreading the prospect of sleeping at the station. We made it just in time and arrived home around 12 30 for some much needed sleep.