Italy 2011 - Day Two, Rome.

After drinking a bit too much the day before, i decided to skip breakfast in order to get an extra half hour in bed (which was totally worth it) and then we headed to the metro station, which was just next to termini station, which was actually a lot closer than it seemed the day before. it was a bit of a rush, but we managed to get on the metro before the strike started, and the ticket only cost €1 for 70 minutes of travel anywhere! shocking compared to the underground in London. we were on our way to the Vatican when a man stopped us and sold Vikki and Eliot tickets to a tour for €40 which Dan and i declined for a few reasons; i was in a pretty bad mood (i'm not good with mornings) and had taken a personal disliking to the man talking to us, i didn't really want to pay €40 for something i wasn't really interested in, and Dan had seen it before, so we decided to spend some time looking around Rome instead, and then to meet up with them later to continue with the plan we'd made earlier.

and then this happened.

So i took the opportunity to find breakfast in this small cafe where we sat outside playing the 'fuck or chuck' game, at which point i realised that there weren't as many attractive Italian men as i thought there'd be, and actually quite a lot of them were just sweaty old men. after breakfast we found an amazing comic store where i got to read One Piece and X-Men in Italian, which was kind of cool. we found a market too, which smelt like fish and was super disgusting, so we made a pretty quick exit. i also found a tourist shop where i bought some postcards to send back to the family, and then we sat out in the square under the trees to watch the swarm of traffic (both people and cars) swimming around us. the heat was kind of killing me at this point, and i'd made the stupid decision to wear flip-flop sandals, so my feet were killing me.

Giordano Bruno

Unable to get hold of Vikki or Eliot, we decided to start walking towards the coliseum, but we got a bit lost so it ended up taking about four hours. this was actually really good though, because we got to take in a bit of the culture and see some of the things that tour books are constantly writing about. it also gave me the chance to buy some batteries for my camera, which ended up being broken anyway. so that's something i'll note for next time - buy batteries before you go and check that the camera actually works. but i could take pictures on my phone, so it wasn't the end of the world. i also should have bought some tooth paste then, because i hadn't brought any in an attempt to leave room in my bag, and ended up spending the whole time borrowing toothpaste from Vikki. 

Campo dei Fiori

We managed to stumble upon Campo dei Fiori although at the time i didn't really realise what it was or that it was significant in any way. to me it was just a funky looking market with a statue that looked kind of like Altaïr from Assassin's Creed. (i was told later by Lele that it was the statue of Giordano Bruno, and was located on the spot where he was burned alive in 1600. apparently before he died he said 'maiori forsan cum timore sententiam in me fertis quam ego accipiam' which means 'perhaps you pronounce this sentence against me with greater fear than I receive it' which kind of blew me away. it turns out that the market itself is actually pretty famous, but unfortunately we got there during closing so didn't get to see it in all it's glory, but it looked pretty amazing all the same.

We also wandered past Torre Argentina which is the place where Julius Caesar was killed in 44BC, but now it's turned into more of a cat sanctuary. it seemed kind of strange to see cats crawling all over these super ancient buildings, but mostly just unfair that they were allowed to touch it and we weren't. 

Altare della Patria

Next Dan took me to Altare della Patria which i think is now my favourite place in the whole of Rome. he made me shut my eyes, and brought me round to the front; i had no idea what was going on, so i sort of just went with it, and then when i turned around it was just there - a massive white beautiful building that almost literally took my breath away. it was incredible, and i promise anyone who goes, take the time to shut your eyes and walk to the front, because it totally blows your mind. but be careful, because there's a lot of busy traffic so you probably shouldn't wander around with your eyes shut unless there's someone to guide you. it took decades to build, and was finally completed in 1935 as a monument to honour the first kind of unified Italy, Victor Emmanuel. if you ask me, it was completely worth the massive amount of effort it obviously took to build.

Dan and 'a Roman'

Right next to Altare della Patria is Colonna di Traiano which is basically a massive column, with pictures showing the battles that took place during Trajan's military campaigns hand carved in a spiral the whole way to the top, where there's a statue of Trajan. it's pretty amazing to look at, and to think that people carved the pictures in such detail. just down from there was a man dressed as a roman who asked if we wanted our picture taken with him - be careful of these guys, they were everywhere and they'll charge you €20 for three pictures where you pose (and feel) like a complete idiot. and if you ask them too many questions about the price before they'll just pretend they don't understand English, but trust me, they understand perfectly what you're asking. 

The Colosseum

So the Colosseum is basically just down the road from there - a ten minute walk, so after getting hold of Vikki and Eliot, we discovered that they were on their way to the Colosseum and that they'd be there at any minute, but after waiting for twenty minutes we couldn't find them, so decided to go in without them. we took a tour because the queue was quite long, and as we were students we got in cheaper than we would have if we were adults not taking a tour - it was only around €7 (i think) so we got to skip the queue and save about 30 minutes waiting. the tour guide was quite difficult to understand, partly because of the accent and partly because there were a lot of people and she was quite far away, and to be honest i just got kind of bored and ended up wandering off. the Colosseum itself was amazing, although a lot of it seemed like it was just rubble, it was amazing to see something in person that i'd seen in films and pictures so many times. 
We went outside to get a taxi, but they said it would cost us €30 to get back to Ape Latina so although my feet were killing me at this point, we decided to just walk back. it turned out to be a five minute walk, so watch out for dirty taxi drivers like that. once we got back, we realised that Eliot and Vikki had the keys, and after a phone call discovered that they were now in the Colosseum taking a tour and wouldn't be back for about 40 minutes, so we ended up just sitting outside in the sun. it was strange; it was around half five and yet as sunny as if it were 2pm. this was also the moment i discovered there was an internet connection that i could tap into for free, so i logged onto facebook to let my parents know that i was alive, and that everything was fine. 

Me, Eliot, Vikki

Once Vikki and Eliot were back, and we'd all rested and showered we went out to a restaurant that was kind of underground, where we had made reservations for the day before. today we had pasta instead of pizza, it sounds clichéd, but that really seemed to be all there was on the menus everywhere in Rome. then we went back to Druid's Den where there was a male bartender, as well as JJ, and again, we ended up drinking until 3am, however at this point it was a Friday night so we decided to go out and explore what Rome had to offer. apart from Eliot, who decided to go to bed.
The original plan was to go to the Trevi Fountain but we ended up making a quick detour to see the Colosseum at night, and then going in ompletely the wrong direction to the fountain, and following some music to what seemed like a drag queen/gay pride festival. me and Vikki loved it, but i'm pretty sure Dan found it super uncomfortable, so after ten minutes of me and Vikki doing crazy dances to Brittany Spears we made a swift exit. at which point it started to rain. luckily it only lasted for a few minutes, and despite the rain it was still relatively warm. after dancing with some random strangers in the street, and asking other random strangers for directions we started heading towards the Trevi Fountain but despite our efforts by 4,30am we were still lost, literally wandering around in circles until we bumped into a short Australian man with a dead rose who kindly offered to take us there. so, he got us to the fountain okay, and we sat on the side throwing coins in. personally i wanted to go swimming, but there were policemen watching (at 4am?!) and JJ assured us that swimming in the fountain will land you a night in jail, and we had a train to catch the next day, so 

Me, Vikki, Australian

there simply wasn't time. when it got to the point of leaving, i happened to still be holding that guys dead rose, and he said that i wasn't allowed to have it unless i kissed him. now, i'm not going to lie but this is sort of a low point for me - not for the trip, but just for me in general, but i must remind readers that at this point i was still pretty drunk, so kissing this guy seemed worth it for a rose that turned pretty gross before the end of the trip. so then we took a taxi back to our hotel (only €5!) getting back at about 5am to try to get a few hours of sleep before we had to wake up and get a train the next day.

So we were done with Rome, and although i was sad to leave, we'd certainly seen quite a lot considering we'd only been there for a day and a half -