Monday, 28 May 2012

23 May 2012


On Saturday 19th May we moved on to Prima Porta, just north of Rome. On the way a mega Griswald moment occurred. Somehow we managed to get onto a toll road and as we approached the toll I threw the coins into the receptacle but the barrier didn’t open. The help button didn’t help at all and then the machine went off. We had to reverse out of the lane, of course there were cars behind us, and go to a lane with what I thought was a human being but when we got to the window I was sadly mistaken, it was an Italian. We tried to explain what had happened but he just started shouting at us in Italian, I don’t know why he thought we knew what he was saying so we started talking loudly, as you do, thinking that he would understand us. He then shut the wee window got out of his box and took down our number got back in the box, printed out and gave us this huge bit of paper and shouted something about the police. He eventually opened the barrier and off we went really confused and peed off.  Anyway turns out when we went online to pay the ticket we only had to pay 1.10 after all that, what a carry on.
  
The site at Prima Porta provides a free bus service to the local station where you get the train to Rome, about 20mins away.

Sunday we stayed within the site and of course we watched the Moto GP.
Sunday night was a terrible night of rain and we had set the alarm for 7am but when we woke up it was still raining so we went back to sleep. When we got up later it had cleared up so we decided to go to Rome just for a look around and get our bearings. We ended up going to the Vatican and had about 4 hours going round the museums, through the Sistine Chapel and round St Peters Basilica. There is so much to look at and not enough time. All the sculptures, tapestries and paintings are amazing. The Sistine Chapel is smaller than I thought it would be but still awesome. St Peters Basilica has so many things to see and everything is on a huge scale, again amazing.   When we came out of the Basilica we chased after a man in white in a little van to get an ice cream but he wouldn’t stop for us.

On Tuesday the rain was on again but we decided to still go into Rome to the Colosseum.  What a mistake to make, I have never seen so much heavy rain at one time, we were soaked through. First of all we got the metro to the Trevi Fountain and then back onto the metro to the Colosseum. We paid for a tour which included the Colosseum, Roman Forum and Palatine Hill which was all very interesting and informative.

On Wednesday the weather was great so we went back into Rome and did a bit of a walk around. We went to the Piazza Flaminio, Piazza del Popolo, the Spanish Steps, Piazza di Spanga and finally the Pantheon. The Spanish Steps area is where all the designer shops and expensive jewellers are. The Pantheon is over 2000 years old and one of ancient Rome’s best preserved monuments. Apparently the structure of the dome is so sophisticated that if this building had been built with modern methods and concrete it would have collapsed long ago.  There is a circle at the top of the dome, 9 meters across, which is open and when it rains the water which gets into the church runs to the edges of the walls as the floor is convex, this is in order to let the water drain to the drain holes round the edge of the building.

Three days isn’t enough in Rome but we must move on again. Next stop Pompeii.

TTFN

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