Rome

They say that Rome wasn’t built in a day, but we tried our hardest to see it all in a day. Last time we were in Rome we visited the Trevi Fountain and tossed our coins into it. It seems to have worked so Claire was determined to give it another shot. We didn’t have our cameras with us before so we decided the fountain would be our first stop in our whirlwind tour of Rome.

We had mapped out a path from the Trevi Fountain to St. Peter’s Basilica that took in all the things we wanted to see. Lots of people had told us that the queues for the Basilica were much shorter in the afternoon so we were trying to finish up there.

From the Trevi fountain it was a short walk to the Pantheon. It is fascinating the number of ancient places of worship that have been converted to Christian churches.

Restoration work is being carried out on the facade of the Pantheon.

Inside the Pantheon.

Next we went to the Vittorio Emmanuele monument. We had seen the top of it from our tour bus last time, but it is well worth seeing up close.

The road from the monument to the Colosseum passed by the Trianao Forum, a very large area of ancient ruins.

We arrived at the Colosseum to find it surrounded by ‘barbarians’. We had decided not to go in this time and the volume of visitors confirmed the decision.

Our path then took us past the Forum Romano and the Mouth of Truth. We didn’t join the queue of people lining up to put their hand in it, but Peter managed to get a photo through the fence.

We crossed the River Tiber and found a nice restaurant for lunch. Breakfast of brioche and coffee is fast losing its appeal so we have taken to eating fruit salad for lunch. We long for a bowl of cereal and a cup of tea!

Old bridge over the river.

After lunch we explored the Traversere? an area of narrow streets and interesting shops. Claire found her ‘Rome’ earrings here. We gradually made our way to the base of one of the hills of Rome, then started the climb. Luckily the view from the top was worth it.

There was a gradual descent down the other side which brought us back to the river. We were going to visit the Castel Sant’Angelo but it was closed on Mondays. It houses the tomb of Hadrian and is another of the old buildings which have been converted to Christian worship.

After a short rest we headed off to St. Peter’s Basilica. The queue wasn’t too bad and we were soon inside. Claire’s main interest was to see Michelangelo’s ‘Pieta’. Despite being behind glass after an attack a few years ago, the beauty of this sculpture is still obvious. Claire was not disappointed.

The photo does not do it justice.

Even after walking all over Rome we decided to climb to the top of the Basilica. We cheated a little by taking the lift. It saved us 230 of the 550 steps, so we still had 320 steps to climb.

About half way up you get to look down inside the Basilica.

The climb becomes very narrow and claustrophobic but it is worth it. It was made more difficult by the couple who decide about two thirds of the way up that they couldn’t manage to get to the top and headed back down. As with most of these climbs there is one way up and another way down, so it is not designed to take two-way traffic. The guy managed to tread on both of Claire’s big toes and she nearly let fly with some inappropriate language considering her surroundings.The view from the top overlooking St. Peter’s Square and the Vatican is spectacular.

Luckily our B & B wasn’t very far from St. Peter’s so we didn’t have far to go at the end of a very busy day.