"Put your hands up!"
Day 12
Another early morning (I think that should be my standard opening liner) today, but the bus ride to Rome from Florence was a relatively short 3 and a bit hours. We made a pitstop at a shitty Italian Autogrill (worst place ever... even worse is that there is a chain of them! Horrible places to try and get food and drink, nightmarish system) and I called Mum and Dad to touch base. Everyone mostly slept on the bus this time, I think a lot of people were wiped out from the nightclub and drinking the night before.
We arrived in Rome about 1:30pm and were treated to a bus tour of Rome by Sam and Ryan. Ryan pointed out all the things we can do and see and let us know what he has planned for us to do as well. Once the bus tour was over, we jumped off and started a walking tour of the city with Ryan. It’s funny, he’s not allowed to be seen telling us about Italian monuments etc because he can get arrested as they prefer to have you hire a local to give you tours and tell you about the history of the city. But then everywhere you go you see all these tour groups with their leaders walking around holding sticks with toys or flowers attached high in the air and then the massees of people following the stick with headphones on getting an audio guided tour. Weird.
We started off at the Spanish Steps, where we walked up to the top amongst all the crowds. That wasn’t the easiest but we got some great views of the city from up there and again got some cool photos. Next we went to the Trevi Fountain, which was beautiful. There is a myth going around that you need to stand with your back facing the fountain and throw a coin over your left shoulder by your right hand to ensure you will return to Rome. There is another myth going around that if you throw a second coin in the same way you will meet the love of your life. Most of us threw two coins in (I hope he’s not Italian!). Apparently so much coinage is thrown into the fountain each day that it gets collected at the end of the day and is then donated to charities, which is a really nice idea.
Once we finished throwing our coins in and attempting to take photos whilst doing it, we walked to Piazza Navona where an old stadium used to be, where old chariot races took place. There is also the Fountain of Four Rivers whichsits in the middle of the square - such a beautiful fountain, it has four figures who are supposed to represent the four major rivers of the world; the Ganges, the Danube, the Nile and the Riode la Plata. Directly opposite the fountain was the St Agnes (the Patron Saint of Chastity) in Agone church, which we checked out. It’s a beautiful church, not very big, but still very beautiful.
We then made our way to the final stop, the Pantheon. AMAZING. The dome has a huge hole in it that lets in all the elements but still it’s preserved so well. We saw the tombs of the first king of Italy, Victor Emmanuel II and also the artist Raphael. It was very beautiful inside and the columns out the front were very cool as well.
The tour ended at the Pantheon, so some of the girls and I walked back to Piazza Navona where all these little markets were set up. It was also the end of Carnivale in Rome so there were tonnes of people there as well as all these little kids dressed up in any costume you could think of. I saw countless Tinkerbells, pirates, Disney characters and tigers all roaming the streets, I even saw a dog dressed up in some outfit I couldn’t identify. The girls and I bought some presents for family from this one stall and we checked out little souvenir places before grabbing a bite to eat.
We went to this tiny restaurant off the Piazza and boy, were we in for a treat. And I don’t mean the food. Our waiter was stoned, as in high as a kite, as in CUCKOO. He even admitted it freely to us when we asked him how his day had been! There was a running joke that every time he disappeared he was going out the back to suck down another puff. For dinner we had bruschetta and pizza, which was okay but it was cheap so it’s all good. I think I could live without pizza for a while now though. Our waiter stuffed us around a bit so we called it quits quite quicky (ooh alliteration!) and went back to look around the streets. Some of the girls got gelato (it was far to freakin’ cold for icecream mind you!) while a couple of us went into some of the stores to look around. There wasn’t anything that caught my eye though; I was more interested in getting back to the square and looking around the markets and watching the Carnivale parade.
We met up with eveyrone again around 8pm and were then taken back to our hotel. Woo hoo, it was fancy! We are pretty spoilt, it’s a brand new hotel and has all the nice things. We had to grab our bags just as it started raining so it was a rush to get inside. The only thing I could nitpick about the hotel was that it was far too hot in the rooms, even with the windows opened. It was all centrally heated, I think I overcooked :P I think everyone crashed pretty early that night, I know I did. The bed was so uncomfortable but I think I was so tired that I didn’t care.
Tomorrow is our full day in Rome, I can’t wait. I definitely am enjoying Rome far more than Florence. I would definitely like to come back here one day and do it all again, or in more depth!
P.S. By the way, what is up with having no toilet seats on public toilets?! GROSS GROSS GROSS. The princess in me gags every time I need to go to a public toilet; so dirty! I always feel like I have to shower after going into an Italian public toilet. Uuggghhh!
Another early morning (I think that should be my standard opening liner) today, but the bus ride to Rome from Florence was a relatively short 3 and a bit hours. We made a pitstop at a shitty Italian Autogrill (worst place ever... even worse is that there is a chain of them! Horrible places to try and get food and drink, nightmarish system) and I called Mum and Dad to touch base. Everyone mostly slept on the bus this time, I think a lot of people were wiped out from the nightclub and drinking the night before.
We arrived in Rome about 1:30pm and were treated to a bus tour of Rome by Sam and Ryan. Ryan pointed out all the things we can do and see and let us know what he has planned for us to do as well. Once the bus tour was over, we jumped off and started a walking tour of the city with Ryan. It’s funny, he’s not allowed to be seen telling us about Italian monuments etc because he can get arrested as they prefer to have you hire a local to give you tours and tell you about the history of the city. But then everywhere you go you see all these tour groups with their leaders walking around holding sticks with toys or flowers attached high in the air and then the massees of people following the stick with headphones on getting an audio guided tour. Weird.
We started off at the Spanish Steps, where we walked up to the top amongst all the crowds. That wasn’t the easiest but we got some great views of the city from up there and again got some cool photos. Next we went to the Trevi Fountain, which was beautiful. There is a myth going around that you need to stand with your back facing the fountain and throw a coin over your left shoulder by your right hand to ensure you will return to Rome. There is another myth going around that if you throw a second coin in the same way you will meet the love of your life. Most of us threw two coins in (I hope he’s not Italian!). Apparently so much coinage is thrown into the fountain each day that it gets collected at the end of the day and is then donated to charities, which is a really nice idea.
Once we finished throwing our coins in and attempting to take photos whilst doing it, we walked to Piazza Navona where an old stadium used to be, where old chariot races took place. There is also the Fountain of Four Rivers whichsits in the middle of the square - such a beautiful fountain, it has four figures who are supposed to represent the four major rivers of the world; the Ganges, the Danube, the Nile and the Riode la Plata. Directly opposite the fountain was the St Agnes (the Patron Saint of Chastity) in Agone church, which we checked out. It’s a beautiful church, not very big, but still very beautiful.
We then made our way to the final stop, the Pantheon. AMAZING. The dome has a huge hole in it that lets in all the elements but still it’s preserved so well. We saw the tombs of the first king of Italy, Victor Emmanuel II and also the artist Raphael. It was very beautiful inside and the columns out the front were very cool as well.
The tour ended at the Pantheon, so some of the girls and I walked back to Piazza Navona where all these little markets were set up. It was also the end of Carnivale in Rome so there were tonnes of people there as well as all these little kids dressed up in any costume you could think of. I saw countless Tinkerbells, pirates, Disney characters and tigers all roaming the streets, I even saw a dog dressed up in some outfit I couldn’t identify. The girls and I bought some presents for family from this one stall and we checked out little souvenir places before grabbing a bite to eat.
We went to this tiny restaurant off the Piazza and boy, were we in for a treat. And I don’t mean the food. Our waiter was stoned, as in high as a kite, as in CUCKOO. He even admitted it freely to us when we asked him how his day had been! There was a running joke that every time he disappeared he was going out the back to suck down another puff. For dinner we had bruschetta and pizza, which was okay but it was cheap so it’s all good. I think I could live without pizza for a while now though. Our waiter stuffed us around a bit so we called it quits quite quicky (ooh alliteration!) and went back to look around the streets. Some of the girls got gelato (it was far to freakin’ cold for icecream mind you!) while a couple of us went into some of the stores to look around. There wasn’t anything that caught my eye though; I was more interested in getting back to the square and looking around the markets and watching the Carnivale parade.
We met up with eveyrone again around 8pm and were then taken back to our hotel. Woo hoo, it was fancy! We are pretty spoilt, it’s a brand new hotel and has all the nice things. We had to grab our bags just as it started raining so it was a rush to get inside. The only thing I could nitpick about the hotel was that it was far too hot in the rooms, even with the windows opened. It was all centrally heated, I think I overcooked :P I think everyone crashed pretty early that night, I know I did. The bed was so uncomfortable but I think I was so tired that I didn’t care.
Tomorrow is our full day in Rome, I can’t wait. I definitely am enjoying Rome far more than Florence. I would definitely like to come back here one day and do it all again, or in more depth!
P.S. By the way, what is up with having no toilet seats on public toilets?! GROSS GROSS GROSS. The princess in me gags every time I need to go to a public toilet; so dirty! I always feel like I have to shower after going into an Italian public toilet. Uuggghhh!