Rome Blogging Complete

Finally finished blogging about our trip to Rome in February.

The final two installments are at

Day 4
Day 5

You can use the labels
holiday, italy, rome
to find all of the posts

Germs

Too full ob code to blog properly.
We've all gone down with some nasty germ.
Frodo's off school. Novelist Supermum is throwing up on the kitchen floor. Samwise is snottier than usual. I'm at work feeling blurrgh!! Leaving work as early as I can today.

It was Frodo's Easter Service at school yesterday. Didn't have any tapes for the camcorder, and we'd lost the charger for the digital camera (found it last night) - which means that this year I actually got to watch it - rather than being a cyborg-parent looking through a viewfinder.

Frodo was in the chorus for an Easter Chick song - wearing a yellow chick mask and flapping his elbows along with the rest of his class.

Email from Oz

Sent brief Birthday Greetings on Friday to an old pal in Australia that I hadn't been in touch with for some time. Pleasantly surprised to find that her email address is still valid, as I've just picked up a reply.
Nearly time for bed, so I'll reply to her tomorrow when I've got more time (i.e. when I'm at work!).

Rome - Day 5

Our flight home wasn't until tea time, so we revisited the Trevi Fountain, which this time had some water in it. Chucked a coin in, thus ensuring another return to Rome.




It was raining very heavily - the malaysian men who try to sell you stuff in the street had switched from novelty flying toys to "pipero" - umbrellas - therefore we thought that the best bet would be to avoid the outdoors and spend the morning in the Capitoline Museum.

You really do get museum'ed out in Rome so probably waltzed past loads of stuff that we'd normally spend a long time looking at, but still worth a visit all the same.

Here's an ancient Roman cure for a bad cough



Bad Hair Day...



A wildlife scene...



This is meant to be one of Hannibal's Elephants. It looks like the artist hadn't actually seen a real elephant himself, but somebody had described one to him.






Picked up our luggage from the hotel, then tube to train and caught the plane back to Blighty (took a picture of the plane to show two small boys when we returned, who were also to get an Italia shirt each that we'd bought from a sports shop in Rome).



I was in much danger of falling asleep on the long drive back from Heathrow, so had to stop off for coffee - of course the motorway services was selling Italian coffee, but it wasn't the same as the real thing ;-)

Great holiday, really enjoyed it. We must have walked miles - here are some pictures of our swollen feet :-)

Rome - Day 4

We had thought about visiting the catacombs, but discovered that they were several different sets of them, and all were well outside the city walls. What sounded like the best ones looked like they would be shut anyway, so we thought we'd stick to seeing some more sights nearer to hand.

We started by heading back across the Forum to take a look at a piece of brick and cement work.
This was the Basilica of Maxentius and Constantine, a set of huge arches that we'd seen in the distance on previous days, but hadn't gone right up to.
This type of dome work, inlaid with hexagonal patterns has been copied over time around the world (we saw a few examples in the Vatican), but these are the originals.




Past the Colosseum again, then headed south west.

"What did the Romans ever do for us"
"..err the Aquaducts?"



We passed a couple of people getting married, having their picture taken - so we may have featured stumping past in the background.

A short walk along a dual carriageway and we were at the Baths of Caracalla.
Because it was Valentines day, the admission fee was two for the price of one.

These are huge ruins. The floors have all caved in, but the walls are pretty much at the original height, so you get a good idea of the scale of the place when it was fully in use. As usual any decent artefacts have been robbed out a long time ago, but you could still see, and walk on some of the original mosaic floor.

We even managed to do a bit of "excavation" of our own - we discovered pieces of mosaic floor underneath one of the gravel paths that we were walking on.







It was a bright sunny morning, so had a pleasant time wandering about, and sitting around in the ruins. Started to get mushy in the sunshine, so I was told that it was time to go.

We followed the line of one of the old city walls, through a suburban area - everybody lives in flats. We got our first sight of the pyramid that we were looking for - this is in the picture at the top of this post.

This is the Pyramid of Caius Cestius - a chap who had spent some time in Egypt, and who freed his slaves on his death, so they built him this splendid funerary monument.







Behind the pyramid is the Protestant Cemetery this is also known as the "English" Cemetery, and is in fact a "Non-Catholic" cemetery. We took a look inside (request for donations in a box at the entrance) and hunted out a few Dead Poets.

This is the grave of that famous whinger Keats. He didn't want his name on the tombstone, so the chap who paid for it - the artist Joseph Severn - who died years later and was buried next to him, put it on his tombstone instead.




Shelley's ashes lie under this stone (which reminds me that there's a picture of his funeral pyre in the Walker Gallery in Liverpool)



and this is the grave of Goethe.



On from the cemetery, and a circular route back towards the city centre took us the site of the Circus Maximus. We were expecting a layout of streets on top of the site, but were pleased to discover that the site is a park. There's not much to see in the way of ruins, but the layout of the track is really evident. We sat and munched crisps for a while, then walked along the track, figuring out the turning circle of a chariot.




Since the camera battery had ran out the previous day we decided to walk back along the Tiber to the Castel Sant'Angelo, to take a few more pictures of the castle.

We passed the Portico of Octavian which must have been a rather splendid fish market in Medieval times (it may have been Octavian's Forum, before he became Augustus and built a new, better one).




Walking this way we got to see the Jewish Quarter - this is the perhaps the original "Ghetto". This looks like the area where the Italian's come to eat, rather than the tourists.

Finally arrived at the Castel Sant'Angelo again, and took the extra snaps.




We spotted this little piazza on the way back, that we thought was worth a photo.



Valentines Day - so definitely a night for dining out. We decided to walk to the top of the Spanish Steps and go up the Via Veneto - which is the setting for the film La Dolce Vita. We walked up as far as Harrys Bar where the Rough Guide says Frank Sinatra and his cronies used to hang out. The street is all big, expensive looking (but probably very touristy) hotels. The restaurants are all "glass bubbles" on the pavement outside the hotels. We walked back down the street and picked what looked like a decent restaurant.

The food was good, and not too pricy. The walls were groaning under the weight of pictures of the owner photographed next to an array of celebrities - most in the restaurant itself, but quite a few not. He's probably some sort of celebrity stalker. They looked like they were having fun in some of the photos' with drunken partying in the middle of the road.

Rolled back down the Spanish Steps and back to the hotel.

Rome - Day Three

Just finished blogging about Day 3 of our trip to Rome.
Because I started the post on 9 March (saving it as draft and editing) the post is back here

Haven't blogged for a bit.

I really must get back to blogging again. Further updates on our trip to Rome also to follow soon - hopefully before we head off on the first of this year's two trips to Snowdonia.

Not been up to much over the past couple of weeks. Wished a couple of old friends (who are getting older) Happy Birthday - which was cool as we got down to some text and email chat. Found out where they were and what they're up to now.

Red Nose Day came and went. As always, we stayed up for the comedy, got upset by the pictures of people much worse off than ourselves, and bunged off a donation to pay for 10 lifesaving mosquito nets. A few days later I recieved an email to say that our donation had bounced. Being wary of a possible phishing scam I've carefully checked this out, and it looks like they genuinely didn't get my donation, so I'll have to send it off again.

Had the car MOT'd yesterday. I've yet to drop a vehicle off at the garage and have it pass first time, even when I've also requested a full service. Needed a new track rod/bearing joint this time. Went to Nationwide at the top of Penny Lane/Smithdown Place who have been OK in the past. The car is out of warranty now, so there's no point in going back to VW who would charge the same price just for the oil change, without doing any work, say they've taken the wheels off and had a look - without even taking the hubcaps off and then try to charge me for a bottle of "top-up" screenwash fluid - even though the screenwash is full.

Frodo had a major joint assessment yesterday - i.e. he was examined, tested and discussed by his teacher, headmistress, educational psychologist, speech therapist and school doctor and parents. He's making progress, and looks like he will continue to make progress, but really needs to have a boost to assist his language difficulties, which are probably holding back his progress in other areas.

Had to fob off the idiot doctor chairing the meeting who was suggesting the use of drugs to increase his attention - Frodo is not hyperactive so they wouldn't be appropriate. Apparently the drugs have similar effects to cocaine - hmmmm maybe I need to sort out my attention difficulties...

Net result is that it's recommended that Frodo attends a school next year that has a dedicated language unit to help him, with a view to bringing him back to his current school when it's appropriate to do so. The school's that have these resources tend to be in the most deprived areas, so that they can get the funding (the more "free school dinners" you have, the more money you get!). He could go into the mainstream of the school with the language unit, but that would be a school that is 97th in the league tables, whereas his current school is about 4th.

Next we've got to visit a school or two, and have another meeting with teachers, advisory teachers etc - to make sure that we think this decision is OK and see if a place can be sorted for him for next year.

Happy Birthday Cha0tic

Not blogged here much lately - mainly because I've been composing the next instalment of our trip to Rome. My intention was not to interrupt the flow with blogging trivia, but since this is taking me ages to write up and load up the pictures I thought I'd just get back to blogging. (You can use the labels to collect the pieces of the Rome stuff together anyway).

Wishing Cha0tic a very Happy Birthday today - and in keeping with the sort of mushy sentiments that are customary on these occasions...

"May the Gnome of good fortune festoon the dank cellar of your life with the fungus of happiness."

Rome - Day 3

We set off early the next day, to walk westwards across the Tiber for about a mile to the Vatican City and St Peter's Square and Basilica.

St Peter's Square is one of those large impressive pieces of architecture that you can't see until you're right inside it.



Something about seeing priests travelling in large groups, and posing for photographs in the square (you can just about make out a group in the photo below) made me think of "Father Ted".



Queued for about 20 minutes to get inside St Peter's Basilica. Apart from the richly carved doors, the outside of this building only gives a few clues as to how over-ornate the inside is. Too much detail for the eye to take in. I soon began to realise that rather than being a big fancy church the whole place is in reality a splendiferous Papal Mausoleum. A bit like the Valley of the Kings, but for Popes, rather than Pharoahs.

I couldn't help but think that here's a religion that's really missing the point. The people that built this place would have definitely picked the wrong cup from the choice of possible Holy Grails.





People were falling down at their knees in front of altars to various deceased Popes. Some seemed to be more popular than others. At one point during our exploration we descended to the basement and tiptoed past a large crowd, kneeling at a big white slab under which lay the last John-Paul.

One of the spookiest, and most unbelievably fantastic sights is a monument to Pope Alexander VII by Bernini. Over a doorway to a chapel is what looks like a drapery of cloth - but is actually carved from marble. Not quite fully emerging from the cloth is a skeleton carrying an hourglass.




Most people were spending their time wowing at this sculpture, and completely ignoring the alter next to it, that commemorates the spot where the concept of the Immaculate Conception was defined.

Here's a picture of me. The chap wearing the crown that I'm standing in front of is Atilla the Hun



One thing that I didn't want to miss was The Sistine Chapel. It took us a while to figure out that you couldn't get to it from St Peter's, but instead had to go out of St Peter's square, and around the walls to the Vatican Museum - the Chapel features as part of the Museum - therefore attracting a fee to get inside it.

As we walked around the walls of the Vatican we came across a few beggars. We'd seen some the previous day too, hanging around some of the major sites. Not nearly as many as I remember from the last time I was here, but that was in the middle of the summer, and this time we were "off-peak".



We stopped off at a post office to post some postcards back home. Two were for Frodo and Samwise, with pictures of Gladiator helmets. Sat in the queue hastily trying to look up the Italian for "Stamp". It turned out to be "Stampe".

Paid our Euro's to get into the Vatican Museum, and started our trek, following signs for "Capella Sistina", through gallery after gallery of statues, paintings, frescoes, mosaics, pottery and other booty that the Popes have looted and stored throughout the centuries.

As is often the way with large collections like this, much to much to see and take in. You follow the crowd like herds of sheep heading for the Sistine Chapel, which is situated at the very end of the Museum.

We were really impressed with the Gallery of Maps - where the whole of Italy is painted as relief maps onto the walls. No pictures here, but we liked this place so much that we bought a book. There was a particularly good fresco of the Battle of Lepanto

After the Gallery of maps was a choice - either a shortcut to the Sistine Chapel, or a tour through the apartments of the Borghias i.e. the Raphael Stanze
We went for the tour. Glad that we did since the frescoes in these rooms were fairly spectacular. No pictures allowed again here (understandably). My favourite was The School of Athens, which is a who's who of artists and philosophers. The rest were various battle scenes, depicting the victories of Constantine, plus some other historical wars (I think that our pal Atilla featured again). Muscle bound blokes wearing gossamer shorts were a recurring theme - we tried to figure out if the shorts had been painted on afterwards as some sort of modesty adjustment.

Finally we arrived at the large, barn-like structure that is The Sistine Chapel. Immediately we joined the throngs of people milling about, getting a stiff neck by looking upwards. Michelangelo's ceiling artwork is everything it's cracked up to be - Literally as you can see where a couple of lumps have dropped out. The most famous centre piece with the Hand of God giving life to Adam has obviously dropped away in the past and been repainted by somebody else. The colours are really vivid, and the style is better and different to anything else that you've seen up to this point.

Obviously no camera shots allowed in here. There are seats around the edge of the chapel, so we found a gap and carried on gazing.
One picture was amusingly described in the Rough Guide as "God creating the Sun and Moon (and inadvertently creating a second Moon)".

On one of the end walls is a fantastic fresco called The Last Judgement. The blue of the background first catches your eye (the picture in the link doesn't do it justice), then you simply spend ages looking at the angelic and demonic figures fighting over posession of the figures representing souls.

There's a constant murmuring in the Chapel, as everybody discusses what they're looking at. This murmuring rises in volume every two or three minutes, at which point a loud "shhhhhhhhhh!" is issued by the Chapel guardians, and the murmuring dies down again.

We had about half an hour or so in here, before we were chased out. The Vatican museum closes at 13:30 in the early season, and on particular days, and at 15:30 on other days. We were visiting on a 13:30 closure day. Luckily we'd seen all that we wanted to see, unlike some who were arriving a little late and barely had time to step through the door, before they were ushered out of the other side. At least we got to see it. I've heard from relatives, and others that they'd missed seeing the Sistine Chapel because they got there too late.

Trekked back out of the museum, past lots of cabinets full of Papal Treasures that the staff were busy closing. We had time to eat in the Vatican Cafe before we left the museum - there wasn't a lot left, we had pasta, a cake and a drink. Couldn't help noticing that a couple of Priests on a nearby table, served by the same person, got a significantly larger portion than us.

Left the museum via a fantastic spiral staircase.



We left the Vatican and headed for the Castel Sant'Angelo. This was originally Hadrian's Mausoleum (ye knaa, the gadgee that built wor waall), but later became a treasure store for the Popes (there's an enormous treasure chest in one of the rooms), and a fortress.



I'd been here once before in 1984, probably because it's free entrance to students. A spiral tunnel, that was originally the funerary processional entrance leads into the heart of the castle.

You then find yourself wandering around several rooms, levels and bastions. At one point there's an enormous, stone ball flinging ballista.



There's a few museum pieces of armour and weapons. I was pleased to discover one that I remembered well from my last visit. It's a sword that has a flintlock pistol built into the handle, so that you can sneakily draw a sword, then shoot your opponent.

Finally we ended up on top of the castle, where there's a huge statue of St Michael drawing his sword (he was supposed to have been spotted up here, doing this at the end of a Plague).



There are some good views of St Peter's from here.



This is looking across Rome towards the Colusseum (although a dirty great 20th century monument gets in the way).



In front of the Castle is a bridge over the Tiber, The Ponte Sant Angelo, adorned with statues that reminded me of Charles Bridge in Prague.



The camera battery was drained at this point, so we didn't get any more pictures.

Headed back to the hotel. Decided we were too knackered to go hunting out a decent restaurant - so bought some snacks from a nearby shop and ate them in the hotel room, then debated what we would do on our last full day before we crashed.