Meeting with the Pope - Rome

the pope travelin round the crowd b4 his address
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Rome was my final stop in Europe before flying to Egypt, and was one of the places on my trip which I def wanted to visit. Everyone's heard of the saying when in Rome, do as the Roman's do, and I wondered before I went there just what that meant.

I pretty quickly learnt. Since it was about 15 euro cheaper and up til now all public transport had been generally excellent, I decided to take the local bus rather than the direct airport bus into the centre of Rome from Ciampino airport (about a 1/2 hour drive). Big mistake! The bus stopped many places, once for the driver to talk to one of his mates - and the journey took just over 2.5 hours!

the pantheon
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I stayed in Rome for 4 days, which was long enough to see all of the main sights, but like in London and Barcelona I was busy the whole time!! I stayed near the colloseum so that was my first port of call. It turned out to be even bigger and more impressive than I imagined and I also did a tour inside it – all I can say is the romans were amazing engineers! It is a bit of a shame tho b/c the colloseum today (like the roman forum and other really ancient roman buildings) are left with holes all over them, where they were once adorned with marble – until it was all pillaged by chrisitans to make eg St Peters Basilica in Vatican city and many other wicked churches around rome.

victor emanuel II monument - massive!
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I really enjoyed visiting the Roman Forum, Palatine Hill, the Circus Maximus and the Roman Bath Houses as well, because you get a real sense of nostalgia there, with ruins dating back so many thousands of years.

I also visited Vatican city and did a tour of the Vatican museum and Sistine chapel, and of course St Peters. I even got to see the pope before he gave his weekly address there, as he went round the crowd on the back of his white golf cart thing. I’ve been reading Angels and Demons since I went there tho, so I’d quite like to go back and see if the stuff they mention in the book is real!

the colloseum
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Other than all the sights rome was an interesting place to visit, just because of the culture there, and the traffic! There are loads of cars there and the drivers are nuts. They park absolutely anywhere, including parallel on street corners, and with the pedestrian crossings – it’s up to the pedestrian to be brave and just walk, because cars do not stop unless you’re physically in their way!

My time in rome disappeared all to quickly in rome and on my final night I went out with some Australians (they’re everywhere!) for a big night out at one of the local irish bars (appropriately called the drunken ship).

inside the colloseum
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Unfortunately this was not conducive to me waking up on time for my flight in the morning! Luckily I caught an express train out to the airport and it was due to leave exactly when I got there, so I arrived at the airport right at boarding time! The good people at Lufthansa told me it was no problem and there was actually a couple there to book in after me (they then proceeded to leave my bags in rome as I flew to Frankfurt, and then cairo, so they got their just desserts).