“Snowflake, turning blue, three!”
Places Visited: Fontana di Trevi, Scalinata Trinita dei Monti, Piazza di Spagna, Piazza del Popolo.
Places Discovered: Life… (Restaurant), Tiffany & Co.
Today we learnt to navigate as the Romans do. We took a map from reception and decided to venture out into the local area to see what we could find.
We managed to work our way towards Trevi Fountain within 5 minutes of leaving the hotel. Although they’ve drained all the water for repairs, it was still great to see.
When we first arrived at the hotel, the concierge recommended some local restaurants for a romantic evening — and since we were out and about, we decided to look for the best one on the list. We found “Life…” (A small boutique restaurant) in a picturesque back street; perfectly between Trevi Fountain and the Spanish steps.
After deciding to book a table for later on — we went off again to continue exploring.
When we got to the Spanish steps we were surprised to find hundreds of tourists just sat around on the staircase. We decided to take a few snaps and head off again to find more areas — We’re coming back on Saturday, today we were just getting to grips with the city.
From here we headed Northwest to Piazza di Spagna, the high-end shopping district of Rome. After trying to hunt down the Tiffany and Co. store for about 45 minutes we eventually came across it. Hollie left with a little blue box and a smile, I left with sore feet.
During our hunt for Tiffany’s, we ended up in Piazza del Popolo. It was a refreshing break from the labyrinth of cobbled city streets — really beautiful and a great place to people watch. We took some more photos before setting off again.
After we had bought Hollie’s Jewelry, we decided to head back to “Life…” a little earlier than our reservation for dinner. The food was great, I had grilled fresh lobster — Hollie even tried it!
When we got back to the hotel we found that they had left a bottle of wine in our bedroom for our honeymoon. What’s more, the air conditioning was now working! It’s got a certain run down, dodgy Italian charm about it that we’re falling in love with — But we did laugh earlier when I battled with the thermostat, threatening to call reception and bridge the language barrier by saying “I just want the snowflake turning blue, three.”
RB
Wish you were here Stevie B!
Places visited: Vatican City, The Sistine Chapel, St Peters Church, The Roman Forums & The Colosseum
So after an exciting breakfast on offer of rice and hot dog sausages (needless to say I just had a tea), we were ready for our first real tourist day to begin!
Before we could even start our tour of Vatican City, I got conned into buying a scarf because I was the only idiot with a strapless dress on. Apparently it’s offensive or whatever to show your shoulders or knees in the churches inside Vatican City. Like I’m really gonna turn the Pope on with my shoulders…
Vatican City, where do I start? Well first Rob had a hissy fit because they took his tripod away (meaning we had to walk the circumference of the bloody Vatican walls to go get it again at the end of the tour). After that minor hick-up, our tour began.
Now don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against other people having a religion or faith and I was all for hearing about the history and everything, but seriously, our guide was some sort of Catholic preacher. It would just have been nice to stop and check out the artwork and the museum part of the tour for a bit, but nope, this was not a tour designed for casual nosing at art.
It was interesting to hear about how Michelangelo painted the ceiling and how it took him forever to even agree to it in the first place. Apparently it took him four years, the majority of the time he would be standing and would get terrible neck ache and paint in his eyes. By the sounds of it, he moaned a lot.
There was lots of other information about the religious paintings and what not, but I’m not really bothered where Jesus was holding his hands and why. As far as I was concerned, it was a good bit of work and that was it.
Moving on, (to be honest, it was a bit of a blur because it all looked the same) we had a nice walk through a bunch of nicely painted rooms that were the living rooms of some Pope at some time or another. But the best bit of this part of the tour — I totally saw a nun picking her nose! Epic.
Then we finally got to the Sistine Chapel.
This was what I was really looking forward to. I had been told how beautiful it was and how amazing it was, but no one could prepare me for how small it was. To be fair, the ceiling was beautiful. But other than that, it looked like a normal church. It was massively crowded with people staring at the ceiling for eternity, but I’d looked and it was nice and that was that. Sorry Mr Angelo, but your David is much more interesting ;)
We then went into St Peters Church. Now this was something to look at. It was absolutely stunning. Just beautiful. Now I’m not going all gooey or anything (not like the devoted people properly crying and crossing themselves) but it was breathtaking. So much work had gone into this one church, so many beautiful bits of artwork. I mean, it was super creepy to be walking over a bunch of dead Popes, but otherwise, it was lovely. It was also really cool to see this door that only gets opened once every 25 years or whatever, coz it’s cemented up for the rest of the time and then the Pope goes all hulk and breaks it down on Christmas Eve for one year.
Shoulders and knees covered the whole time, although I did show a bit of ankle ;)
After a bit of lunch with the Colosseum as our backdrop, we were ready for our next tour. Off we went following our tour guide with her scarf waving in the air. The Roman Forums were our first stop.
We practically climbed a mountain of stairs (so unfit!). The first part of the Forums was alright, it was cool seeing where rooms would have been and bits of original floors that Romans would have walked on. Apparently politicians, Popes and other important people would come here.
But the best part of the Forums was when we got to the main centre. You could really see like a whole town. Massive sky-scraping columns and bits of buildings, including a huge church with doors like four times the size of Hagrid, which is still in use today.
Now this I was really excited about. In a totally sick way because of all the fighting there, but also coz I could wind up my new father in law! I’m sure, without too much of a nudge, Steve will tell you his awful tale about the day he got to look at the Colosseum, sniff the same air that surrounded it, but not enter it.
Well today Stevie B, we went in! The first thing we were told about was the fact that there were rooms as you entered the Colosseum, where back in the day, men would have a quickie with a prostitute before going to watch some carnage.
So this totally confused me. First I’m being told I have to cover my shoulders, then I’m being told it’s acceptable to get your kicks with a disease infested lady of the night, in a public place!
The Colosseum was immense. It was just huge! Again the tour guide rambled on about some historic information, but I was having a better time imagining what the atmosphere would have been like. How the fighters would have felt, how the audience would have screamed. I mean, totally awful that it was ok for killing to occur as a sport, but hey, I’ve watched The Hunger Games.
So that was our day. We were totally knackered by the end of the day, but it was worth it. Stevie B, wish you were here! Ha!
HB
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