Saturday 5 February 2011

Rome the End

Worst day so far, home time!! Had a really good night in the irish bar last night, it was rammed for the rugby. This is my last entry and I don't want it to be, don't get me wrong i miss my boys but I would do anything for a few more days. I now have to try and sum up Rome in such a manner that you all book trips to come here immediately. Rome is mental, awesome, magnificent, stupendous, breath taking, wowiful......rubbish, don't go, see if I care. For anybody reading that has enjoyed my light hearted wittering but can not tolerate self obsessing soul searching shite please skip the next few paragraphs and go straight to the acknowledgements (of which there are none as all the people and places in my blog are fictitious and any similarities to real people/places are purely coincidental).

Friday 4 February 2011

Rome Day 5

Day 5, like I said yesterday today is Angels and Demons day and this is my penultimate Rome blog. I will warn you now that today has been a pretty busy day so standby for a blog and a half. For anybody that hasn't read the book, watched the film or both I will quickly outline the plot otherwise the whole of today won't make much sense. Before I do I must point out that i am more of a catholic than a historian, so please take my ramblings with a pinch of salt. If you stumble across this blog and intend to use any part of it for anything other than light hearted toilet reading please dont acknowledge me, i dont know what i am talking about. The main character in Dan Browns book is a symbologist named Robert Langdon, played by Tom Hanks in the films. In Angels and Demons Robert langdon is called to vatican city following the death of the pope. In addition 4 cardinals, the favourites to succeed the pope known as the Perferiti, have been kidnapped. At the large hadron collider in Geneva a canister containing anti matter, potentially more destructive than a nuclear blast, has been stolen and hidden somewhere inside vatican city. The ancient secret group, the Illuminati are claiming responsibility for all the events and are threatening to execute the four cardinals every hour starting at 8pm. At midnight the suspended antimatter, currently suspended in mid air, will collide with matter and destroy the whole of vatican city. How exciting!!! So the four cardinals are to be executed at four points along the mythical path of illumination and Robert Langdon is on a race against time to discover the four points and ultimately the location of the anti matter.

Thursday 3 February 2011

Rome day 4

So it's day 4 and I forgot to set an alarm so spent most of the morning in bed, oops!!! It came to my attention yesterday that I had at least 5 readers and i'm now feeling the pressure to produce the goods. As I havent done anything this morning I will talk briefly about the crazy traffic situation. For anybody thinking about travelling to Rome you should be aware of the traffic situation in order to remain alive. There are two types of crossing in rome, pedestrian crossings and zebra crossings. And there are two types of drivers, those that are actually trying to kill you and those that do a pretty good impression of the first type. First up the pedestrian crossing, the same as in England with one significant difference, the green man doesn't mean that nobody is going to try and kill you. They are safer than the zebra crossings but it's a false sense of security. The zebra crossings are marked in the same way as the ones in England however, cars will not stop to allow you to cross and normally they won't stop whilst your crossing until the very last minute and leave you in no doubt that if they could've got away with it they would have enjoyed ending your life. So when crossing roads either close your eyes and run like hell or don't and just see one side of Rome!!

Wednesday 2 February 2011

Rome Day 3

So day three, when I woke this morning a number of thoughts went through my head. First, what the hell is that noise, second, I am going to vatican city today, third, I have to go dressed as a nun and finally, fourth, how much did I have to drink last night. So I went back to sleep!!!! Eventually I dragged my sorry little arse out of bed and started a day I was very much looking forward to. It is probably worth explaining that I am in no way a catholic but you've got to admit the pope is pretty cool. Like i said today is vatican city day, I decided to take the advice of my mother in law and walk most of the way. For anyone reading that hasn't met my mother in law and doesn't know me that well, I don't normally take advice because I am too pig headed and my mother in law normally gives shit advice, haha! But on this occasion it was good advice, I got the metro to termini and then walked to vatican city. I adopted a slightly different approach to navigation today and used a map, anybody reading that hasn't come across one of these map things before (most blokes) trust me they're not a bad bit of kit, even though you do like a bloody idiot tourist!!

Tuesday 1 February 2011

End of day 2

In my opinion OMG is, after LOL, the most misused TLA in use but I can honestly say that OMG doesn't start to describe Rome. Most of the things I have seen today are not in a tourist area, they are not like Washington, a city designed for tourists, they are real. Some would say that Rome like the arc of constantine are living in the past but I disagree, I think Rome is just very aware of the fact that it has more history than other city in the world. Subsequently this means you get a mix of a modern city engulfed in a breath taking history tour, what will tmrw bring !!

Rome day 2

Day 2 up early and out to do some sight seeing, first stop the colosseum. Mistake numero uno, the metro at 8-9 in the morning is rammed. Mistake number 2 trusting my sense of direction to find the next metro station, an hour walk lead me in a circle back to Bologna metro station. By the way the metro offer various tickets but for €1 you get 75 minutes of travel, enough to get anywhere unless you have my sense of direction. Eventually I arrived at coloseo metro station and was not expecting to walk out and see the colosseum. But that is exactly what happened, the best view of the colosseum from outside is from the north side where the third floor is still in tact and that is exactly where the metro station is. Breath taking is an under statement, the place is magnificent. At the colosseum I purchased a roma pass, this costs €25 and gets you free entrance to the first two attractions, discounted entrance to everywhere else and includes travel on the public transport system for 3 days. The entrance to the colosseum costs €12 by itself, so well worth it. I downloaded a number of audio guides for attractions in Rome so spent a few hours in the colosseum listening to those and wandering around the immense grave of roman culture.

Rome blog

So I have decided to blog my experience in Rome, i decided this when I saw the colosseum and thought I don't want to forget this. Right so I flew from Cyprus on Czech airlines to prague and then on to Rome. It was an epic journey with a 5 hour stop in prague airport but the cost of the flight more than compensated for the journey. The whole trip, including flights and hotel cost me £350. I am staying in hotel casa santa about 1km from Bologna Metro station. The hotel is very reasonable, not the best hotel i have ever stayed in but for the price more than ok. The hotel includes a breakfast of pastries, rolls, meats, cheeses and coffee. Wifi is available in the hotel for a charge of €6 per 24 hour period.

So i have arrived in the hotel at about 5pm and promptly showered and went exploring. Exploring for a pub, oh dear, Rome has an abudance of cafe bars, these are anything from a shop that also serves drinks to restraurants. But none are pubs, it took me an hour to find a pub in the form of an Irish bar. Nice little place, bar staff didn't speak much english but they served pints and the burger I had in there was something else.