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The one and only Rome, capital of Italy, home to 2.7 million, complete with over two and a half thousand years of history! Rome was one of the founding cities of the Western civilisation and the centre of the Roman Empire which dominated Europe, North America, and the Middle East between the 1st century BC and the 4th century AD (around the time of Monty Python's Life of Brian :) Rome managed to escape World War II relatively unscathed, and as such there is a myriad of iconic and ancient stuff to be seen here!

Wednesday, 16 September 2009
  • Venice > Rome
  • Spanish Steps
  • Trevi Fountain
  • Villa Borghese
  • Eat gelato
Thursday, 17 September 2009
  • Colosseum
  • Palantine Hill
  • Pantheon
  • Eat gelato
Friday, 18 September 2009
  • Vatican City
  • Eat gelato
  • Pub crawl!

 
It was raining when we got to Venice, and it was pissing down when we left, but from that point on we had nothing but hot sun for the rest of the trip - phew!
 
Rome: full of gelato...

 
 
Pasta...
 
Pizza...
 
Wine...

 
 
Centurions...
 
Bums trying to sell you yesterday's newspaper off the street...

 
 
Scooters with nutcase drivers...
 
Weirdoes walking down the middle of the street in rush-hour traffic telling everyone about God (he's up there)...

 
 
And all these places ending in 'ia' hehe. The frutteria for all your fruit needs...
 
The farmacia for all your pharamceutical needs...
 
The gelateria for all your gelato needs...

 
 
And the profumeria if you smell bad (all of these places were within 50 metres of each other - I didn't have to look hard hehe).
 
"I'm fuck your mother" - alrighty.
 
A lot of Rome's roads are cobblestone. She's clearly riding over one ;)

 
 
The trains are all covered in graffiti (as is most of the city).
 
Cars park wherever they please (these two are out from a street corner taking up a whole lane hahaha!).
 
Groovy!

 
 
Anyway, first stop: the Colosseum (since we were staying about ten minutes around the corner from it). The Colosseum was built at the height of the Roman Empire in 80 AD, and is one of the greatest works of Roman architecture and engineering. Visiting it takes a bit of imagination (the poster top-left may help) since today it is in partial ruins due to damage caused by earthquakes and stone-robbers. Top-centre you can see the outer wall is mostly missing although the inner wall is largely intact, and bottom-left the latter-day brickwork against the original marble and stone. A few years back an operation commenced to clean the damn thing (mostly of automobile exhaust) but was soon halted due to experts' concern over something-or-rather; top-right you can see the difference a good cleaning made!

 

 
 
 
 
Fucking tourists!

 
Imagine 50,000 spectators, refreshment stands, a giant retractable sail to act as a roof, and gladiators fighting panthers, hippopotami, crocodiles, and occasionally each other. According to Wikipedia, it has been estimated that 500,000 people and over a million wild animals died in the Colosseum games. However, according to the tour guide of the tour we joined to avoid the queue to get in (good tip), those numbers shoud be closer one million people and three million animals, so who knows. The arena continued to be used for contests well into the 6th century.
 
 
Across from the Colosseum is the Roman Forum and Palatine Hill, an area of ancient ruins which was once the political, religious, and social centre of the Roman world. In the 4th century AD after the fall of the Roman Empire, this area fell into disuse and the buildings were plundered for their precious marble. Excavations of the area are ongoing today. Here's a link to a good shot on Google Maps of the Colosseum and Palatine Hill.
 
 

 
When I was last in Rome three years ago we had a thunderstorm every day, and it was a similar story this time as well - awesome!

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