Rome

Up early again as we hit Civitavecchia (say that quickly & twice) by 6.30am Friday morning.  This time we knew exactly what we were going to do.  I had booked a bus to take us in to Rome, a trip of approx 1 - 1 ¼ hours on a good day.  Unfortunately this wasn’t one of them.  I had booked the bus for 9.30am which was meant to arrive at St Peters by 10.30 but as we arrived early we went to the port gates earlier and saw the company I had booked through who said we could take the early bus which was just about to go.  Great we thought so I text Amanda, my cousin who we had arranged to meet so say we would be early.  This put her in a panic as she hadn’t finished her housework (shameless I know), dropped everything and hoped on a bus to come & get us.  In the meantime the bus didn’t leave immediately then when it eventually did we went as far as the ticket office so everyone had to get off and buy a ticket or, as in our case, exhange our voucher for a ticket.  Then when all that was sorted out it was announced that we were going into Rome but via the airport.  Half an hour later and just down the road from the port gates we were pulling into a petrol station as someone needed to go to the loo.  The whole busload was not impressed and five minutes later we were finally on our way.  2 hours later we finally pulled into St Peters Square, would have done better to have caught the later bus but once again, that’s the Italians for you.  Timings, schedules & organisation is not among their strong points and seems just a mere suggestion.

Amanda did manage to keep herself amused by finding a nice little café which had devine (well it was right beside the Popes house) cornettos, one of our favourite Italian delicacies.  Our other favourite is porchetta, roasted pig stuffed with herbs & spices which makes the most amazing & tasty flavour.

The only thing we wanted to see again in Rome was the Trevi fountain so Amanda took us there first, then bought our porchetta & took us back to her place to relax in the cool air con and scoff our lunch.  You forget how beautiful Rome is and after seeing the Trevi fountain I could have seen all the sights again.  Around every corner seems to be some significant ruin that’s been there for 2,000 years or an exquisite fountain of intricately carved marble by one of the masters or a building or church that is so jaw dropping amazing that it’s so hard to take in.

Just around the corner from her apartment is the Pope’s church, San Giovanni.  It was used before St Peters was built & he still uses it now with feet washing of the poor & unclean cermonies & services.  This church we had seen before but once again had forgotten how beautiful and huge it was. The gold on the ceiling and vivid colours in the paintings and sculptures on the walls make this church very special even tho there are hundreds of special churches in Rome alone.

Five hours was never going to do Rome justice and as Amanda had already shown us around last time, doing all the touristy things she must get sick of doing but does it like she’s never done it before, we were quite happy to catch up with all the family goss, see her apartment at last and eat porchetta & buns & plan what we could do next time we came. Besides, just the local bus trip from the fountain back to her place was like a sightseeing tour of it’s own.  We passed the Wedding Cake building (monument to Victor Emmanuel II, first king of Italy & built in 1911), the colosseum, Circus Maximus (chariot racing took place here & the racing scene from Ben Hur was filmed), Palatine hill where the Emperors & wealthy families lived, Roman Forum to name but a few places and this was all from the bus.  Rome is such a visitable city.

It has been his life long dream!

The 5 hours went very quickly, at least it did for us and before long we were heading back to St Peters to catch the bus back again.  It happened to be a public holiday in Rome that day being St Peters & St Pauls day so the Pope had a big mass in the Basilica that morning and lots of things were closed.  Not a great day to visit, especially if you wanted to see St Peters as you had to wait for hours for mass to finish and they had closed the Sistine Chapel and the Pantheon.  The good thing was all the locals had fled the city for the day so the traffic wasn’t as bad and not so many people around.  I thought the Trevi fountain was heaving with people but Amanda seemed to think it was really quiet.  I guess our idea of quiet must be different.

Our trip back on the bus took just under an hour as there was no airport to visit, no toilet stops and no mucking around so we got back nice & early, just what we want instead of spending precious time in Rome which would have been far more fun.