We arrived in Rome mid afternoon and were met by the most enthusiastic and helpful receptionist ever. Our apartment was lovely and after a quick lunch, we headed to the Vatican which was about a half an hours walk. It was fairly quiet in the square and we were into St Peter’s in about 10 minutes. It really is the most amazing place even for us non-believers. I really liked the parts that they had sectioned off not just for people like us to look around but to properly worship. They were quite rightly fairly strict on this. Callum spotted a sign to the crypts, that we hadn’t seen before. We really enjoyed pottering round the Basilica and taking it all in. After a walk through the area around Castel S’Angelo, we wandered back to our apartment. We were in need of something basic for dinner and so had the best fish fingers and chips ever cooked whilst watching Angels and Demons as it is set all around the centre of Rome.
The next day, we had bought the tickets for the Colosseum so after a lazy start, we wandered through some of the receptionist’s recommended places that we hadn’t been to before seeing some lovely piazzas.
After a Bounty and Snickers ice cream stop, we headed to the main event. The Colosseum wasn’t too busy due to Covid restrictions on numbers and we spent a few hours there despite having been there twice before. They have a good app now that comes with the tickets and we learnt some new information from that and by surreptitious listening in of a few tour guides which were impossible to miss. The addition of the Christian areas seemed really incongruous with its past but also really interesting. We headed into the basilica next to the forum and found what I believe us the most peaceful and beautiful church I’ve ever been in – the Basilica di SantaFrancesca Romana. If you ever get the chance to go in, it’s a must do.
This was followed by Aperols (to give Callum some strength for more history) which were accompanied by crisps and bread crusts which were coated in something spicy – delicious. We spent so long there, the entrance to the forum was shut- when we eventually found it . They had moved it, annoyingly, so it was pizza for dinner and more Aperol before heading back for the next film in the trilogy- The Da Vinci Code.
On our last day, we got the metro to the Forum and spent the whole morning there. We saw so much more than last time though it did make us laugh to hear an American having a “discussion” with a stropy teenager at the entrance – it took us back! We were really lucky with the weather as it was still 22C so wandering round was really lovely. We then started our exploration game . It is an app called Questo and it is linked to the Angels and Demons film where we were the main character and had to solve puzzles like in the film. It took us to some places we hadn’t seen before but it did mean that our feet were killing us so the long walk to Travestere felt like a trek. More pizza and wine helped before the Metro back and the last film in the trilogy set in Florence (our next stop).
As always we really enjoyed Rome, it is so relaxing for a city break despite the ridiculous number of steps we did. It felt remarkably easy to see everything and incredibly safe compared with Naples. Next time we come, we will add some more of the unusual stops and maybe even a museum or too if I can convince Callum! Off to Tuscany next.
Rossies Go Roaming 