ITALY Part II: Rome/Roma

At 8.30am, we had our tea/coffee and biscuits for breakfast like usual. At 9.30am, I left to walk through the streets of Florence one last time on my way to the train station. The highlight of this walk was a church recommended to me by Elisabetta, called 'Orsanmichele'. The outside is a huge hulking building, but once you find the entrance, you find yourself in a small square room, with beautiful old delicate paintings covering the walls. The main attraction is a sort of ornate stone altar with a roof, and there's a painting of the Virgin and Baby Jesus, with shining gold halos, set into the back of it. Beautiful. Definitely worth seeing.

The Roman Forum

My Alta Velocità (High Speed) train that took me to Rome was brilliant, whizzing me past the hills bordering the  green valleys. After arriving, I had to take a metro and then had a short walk to my hotel. Again, the Italians need to sort their signs out. I walked down the street. No sign of a B&B. I asked at the florist, and they said I needed number 19. I found number 19's large wooden doors firmly locked and in my way. I looked at the doorbells for the various apartments, and couldn't see any for the B&B where I was apparently spending the night. A nice lady let me into the building, but she let herself down dramatically by telling me to go four floors (with all my luggage) up the wrong staircase. Another four floors up the other staircase and here, I did actually find the B&B.

I knocked on the door and popped my head around the corner. A smiling young Italian man appeared.

The Pantheon
Rebuilt circa 126 AD by Emperor Hadrian

'Andrea, right?'.... 'Er, no, Suzie', I replied. 'Andrea' persisted the Italian. 'No - Suzie', I maintained. To be brief, il centro italiano had booked my hotel room through an agency who had not then relayed the room booking to the B&B. Smooooth. In the end, my tour guide arrived at 4pm as previously organised and took me to a new hotel. In the two hour wait I tried to visit the Sistine Chapel, but failed because a German man was visiting the Pope and the place was absolute chaos. Nonetheless, my guided tour was excellent, and I was showed many interesting things tucked away in Rome's backstreets away from the tourist masses. These sights included beautiful churches (stunning on the inside, but very plain on the outside), tranquil piazzas / courtyards with carved fountains, and viewing points over ancient Roman remains.

The three hour tour finished at 7pm. I had seen a lot, but not understood a great deal of what she was saying. We parted ways and I found a trattoria (family-run restaurant) where I had pork with prunes and potatoes. In the hotel, I watched Italian 'Deal or No Deal' which has an equally annoying presenter as Noel, and then had the worst night's sleep of my life on a bed seemingly made of asphalt.

The Colosseum

Sunday dawned sunny and hot. I then spent the rest of the day getting lost in Rome in the vain effort of 1. trying to re-find some of the places I had seen yesterday and 2. trying to find anything not on a main road. In the end I gave up, hoisted my heavy baggage onto my shoulder yet again, and set off for the Colosseum. Which was awesome, but the novelty of old crumbly buildings was beginning to wear off...

I caught my afternoon train to Naples, again enjoying the view. In Naples I needed to get a bus to my apartment if I wanted to avoid dodgy taxi drivers and hefty price tags. I found the bus station without problem, bought a ticket, VALIDATED IT (I wasn't risking it twice), and was then squeezed on to the bus like a sardine. To my astonishment, at the next stop the waiting passengers just shoved their way on to the bus!! Stupid me, thinking there was no room! What a ridiculous notion... Typical foreigner. Thankfully no-one touched me up, stole my stuff (although that would have been quite a feat given how none of us could actually move) or injured me. Especially since I subsequently learnt that the train station and bus stop area is perhaps the most dangerous part of Naples. Excellent. Nonetheless, I managed to prise myself out of the soup of sweaty Italians at the right stop, took a deep breath, and then set off in search of my apartment for the next five days. I had a feeling that Naples wasn't going to be quite so refined as Florence...

Suzie's Number One Top Tip for Rome: have a private tour guide. You will see an awful lot (without having to worry about map reading) and learn a lot (without having to wade through the guide books). But maybe I'm just lazy...

Suzie's Number One Favourite Thing in Rome: the water fountains. This sounds ridiculous, but I just loved how there are water fountains scattered around the city. They are constantly running with fresh, cold water, and have holes drilled into the tap, so that if you stopper up the end with your hand, water spurts out of the hole at a level perfect for drinking from!

One such piazza: Piazza Navona
(which has a fountain of the 'four rivers' in its middle)

Why are there so many...: piazzas? Rome (and other Italian cities) are full of piazzas, which are essentially huge public squares. My guide told me that it's because they were the main place for the conduct of public life. Since in the summer it gets too hot inside, trade and other business would have taken place in the piazzas. Nowadays, piazzas are hotspots for small-scale traders and cafés.

An Archaeological Observance: One of the things my tour guide pointed out, is how Rome is a perfect example of stuff just being built on top of everything else. For example, there are big pits full of Roman remains, and around them are modern streets with shops and traffic. There is one small excavated area, where you can see Roman remains, and on top of them there is a medieval chapel (complete with original wall painting of Christ!), and on top of that is a gigantic, looming, blindingly white museum!

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