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May 2005
A week in Rome. Yes - Rome!*
*Rome was fantastic. My
patience for editing the associated hundreds of pictures - less
fantastic. It looked even better than this, do, do go, it's
amazing. Direct, cheap flights from many places! Should I
include a link to budget airlines?
Don't forget the Newcastle and Coast pages.
More soon.
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| Posing by the
Neptune fountain by Bernini, in Piazza di Barberini. They did
power and wealth in early modern Rome, Bernini did the fountains. |
Fontana di
Trevi. Surprisingly small and very crowded. Packed with
Asian and African street-pedlars thrusting tat in your face.
Place you're least likely to see an Italian, except maybe an
Italian-American. |
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 The little bar where we spent a LOT of time, just sitting and gazing - gawping - at the Colosseo, which is dead opposite. They do great insalata misto, and better mojitos. Saw a live band there on our last night in Rome, they played a great set and, it turned out, had lived for some time in Preston - they were spotted packing their kit into Morrison's bags. Which just goes to show, it's a small world. |
| The fountain is a load of stonework glued onto the side of a regular building. It's impressive, but - well, why? What's the point? It's legal offices, then this world-famous (heavily chlorinated) fountain. Also, you can see the tubes and pumps, which ruins it a bit. | |
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| The Colosseo. It was the most amazing part of
Rome. On the first two days we walked and walked until we could
find our way round the whole city centre. My pedometer showed
that on the third day - of which we spent 3 hours on the tour bus - we
still clocked up 7 miles! The other days we walked for about 9
hours, so who knows how many miles. This, though was worth
stopping for and we went 3 times. The Forum, the Vatican - we
didn't even get off the bus. |
The place was rammed with mopeds, rammed being the
appropriate word. Also many many small cars of the kind which
make your regular Ford Focus and Mercedes A class look positively
giant. Many of the cars had motorcycle plates, many more had bits
ripped off them by careless parking, or opportunistic passers-by. |
   The rule when driving is to hold a phone in one hand, a cigarette in the other, have one elbow out the window and gesticulate with all free limbs. Yet we didn't see any accidents. Maybe it was the 5, yes 5 flavours of polizia which guarded everything in sight, from shops to bus stations. |
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(above)
Sperlonga. We went there for my birthday 'cos the guidebook said
it was good. Don't go! It's probably all right when it's not p-ing down but honestly, it took us 2 1/2 hours to get there by train and bus, mainly waiting for these, and then it was rubbish. We got there and couldn't wait to leave - but the next bus was... when? Also, there were no bus-stops so we has a stressful hour wondering if there was a bus, where it might stop, if we'd missed it.... Finally found it and the bus driver lifted a 20 note off me and I never noticed until too late. We did think of finding the smug woman who wrote the AA guidebook and going round to her house on the less glamorous side of the Tiber, to give her a good talking-to about her taste in seaside reorts - but went for fabulous meal at the local cafe near our hotel instead. |
 This map of the Empire clearly shows the parts they didn't want - anything north of the Tyne, plus not much west of the Mersey. Hmmn, interesting.... Makes you think. But of course, they didn't know us. |
 A view of the Pantheon entrance from the cafe opposite. This is the best way to experience Rome: from a cafe, right next to a millennia-old monument. I recommend it. |
 The Pantheon from the back. It's round! The roof is a dome made of Roman concrete. Unlike much of our concrete, which is all of 40 years old, the Roman stuff is still there. It's hard to get a pic from the inside because it's so huge and so round, also the light from the round opening in the dome makes it difficult to photograph. Will put some on later. Stunning, though, also the fact that cafes let you sit for hours with one small demi-carafe of wine. |
 The Roman Fori by evening. We interrupted and shamelessly snapped a number of breathtakingly- romantic wedding shoots.  |
 You just have to pose with it.... |
 ....it's the best thing in Rome! |
| Right, that's it for the
moment. There are, of course, hundreds more but I need to upload
this page and that alone will take ages, even with broadband. |
Still to come: Bath, Devon and 30 degree heat in Newcastle.
Yes, it was actually too hot on Tyneside last weekend. Pages coming
soon. |
This page was last updated on 12/07/05