My travelling adventures...

Oh my gosh – so much to write!!!

Rome was fantastic – despite the nearly constant rain Karen and I walked all over Rome… Favourite places were the Trevi Fountain, the Pantheon, and St Clement this little 12^th century church that was built on top of a 4^th century church which was built on top of an1st century Roman house and laneway…

Got to Rome late on the Wednesday night  - about midnight when we got to the hotel – big dilemmas with the room – ended up going down one of the slowest elevators ever x 3, saw 4 rooms before they put Karen and I in  separate rooms for the night… - the next day we got a pretty good room (although the toilet leaked J ) that had a little balcony etc…  The hotel breakfast consisted of crunchy crusty bread rolls (no, not that appetising) glazed croissants, fake nutella spread, and cream cheese – we did manage to take some of this for most lunches – we were very budget conscious – had to save up for all my gelatis!! – but it was a lot cheaper than I was expecting – pasta dinner was about 7-8 euros ($10-12)… Rome was also a fair bit chillier than we were expecting, although that probably had something to do with the rain as well…

As I said we walked everywhere – absolutely shattered by the end of each day – but had to burn off all the carbs from the pasta etc!  We did a bus tour on the first day – raining and very chilly… and then did the walking thing for the next 3 days (Spanish Steps, Sacred Area of Argentina, Navona fountains, Pantheon, Trevi Fountain, Piazza de Popolo, Piazza Venezia) – was great to walk everywhere as see a lot more things – stop at all the little market stalls (picked up some gloves for 2euros!-bargain!)  Did a guided tour of the Colloseum and Palentine which was really good – made it more interesting and got to skip the huge line-ups…

Went to the Catacombs (pronounced ‘catacoom-sa’ – the Italians doond’t understand it if you say it ‘english’ – ‘catacoomes’) on the city outskirts on the 2^nd Jan – they were very eerie… and on my b’day went to Pompeii (about 2.5hrs train from Rome) – that was good, but of course started raining about 2pm – so made our way home shortly after…

New Years - we went to a piazza - absolutely FULL of people - and umbrellas - could hardly move! - had a little 'pop conert' there... fireworks were going off everywhere (mainly 'bang ones' - not pretty ones) - and then heaps at midnight - but there was no actual countdown which was a bit weird...

And on our final day we went to the Vatican city (walked there, but bussed it back) – did a tour of the museums and the Sistine Chapel – which was definitely worthwhile – learnt heaps of stuff about the paintings and bits of trivia etc… amazing to think that Michelangelo painted all of the ceiling of the chapel in 4 years… and then did the Last Supper on the wall when he was 60! And St Peters was huge! – went through the Basilica and saw the last pope’s grave (huge traffic jam there as everyone was taking photos…)

On the 4^th we got back to Karen’s place at 3am – very long day…

Didn’t find Italians too friendly, they have no concept of lining up (push in all the time), and there certainly are some bizarre people round the place…!

Now at my Aunite’s for the night before my 1pm flight to Beijing!!! – bit nervous about the trip but am sure it'll be great... altho definitely have to pack lighter!

Anyway, hopefully will get to update you as I travel through the below freezing temperatures!!! :)