Collosomo

The only words I can read on my bottle of skin cream are Vitamen E and Cocco Butter - is my sun burn fixing lotion secretly turning me the colour of Cocco Butter. I got sun burnt in Roma, this and more were just some of the adventures I enjoyed in the Eternal City.

So after the adventures of Florence I headed further South, down to Rome, the capital, and ultimate tourist direction in Italia. I got an excellent campsite, Camping Tiber, which was about 25 minutes out of the city on the train. After
setting up the Messy Days I took the train into town to see the sites, I stood staring at the list of stations on the metro map for a few minutes before eventually deciding that the station I needed to go to was the one called,

COLLOSOMO - I mean with a name like that it had to be good?

I came out of the station and was surprised to see that this station was in fact the home of the Flavian Amputheatre (hows that spelling?) At first I thought that the Itai's had sold out and called their metro station the western name for the Colleseum, but I later found out that the Colleseum is what they actually call it - Nero had a Klossus erected their, which is what the area became known as... the things you discover on the road.

Anyways, I spent a long time standing in a line- probably about 90 minutes, when I got in I have to say I was a little bit disappointed, its really a bit of a boring, just the ruined insides of an ancient ampitheatre really - but hey- boxes ticked if you know what I mean. After the Collosomo I headed up the hill to the Roman Forum- it turns out Sexy Kendell was right, they were just a bunch of rocks- seriously though, is when she knocked over that lolly jar in the off liscence the funniest thing that happened this year??? probably a close second too when the Texan told Dav that people get less for murder when Dav told him he had been with Bubbles for half a decade.

Right, The Forum, it was excellent - very much just a ruin but really a good way to get an idea for the way they rolled back in those days. I did some serious photo journalism, but the happy snapper isn't really set up for this kind of photographing. Anyways, the Forum flows neatly into the Pallitine Hill, which is where the nobles used to have thier palaces etc. It was a snore factory- once again just a bunch of ruins, you couldn't really work out what was supposed to be what and it was very hot - seriously it felt like I was going up and down hills all day -seriously probably around 7 - but I wasn't counting (c'mon - that's comedy gold people...)

Where were we? oh yes, the lame arse Pallitine - eventually I ended up at the old imperial palace overlooking the Circus Maximus, after spending a few minutes pretending to cheer for Judah Ben Hur I was over it. The problem with the Pallitine is that to get down to the actual Circus you have to walk all the way back through the Pallitine, across the Forum and around a couple of blocks- by the time I had done the whole Circus Maximi, my doggs were barking something fierce - I told them they should take better care of themselves, they said I should lay off the hamburgers, so I reminded them I was the boss and they were just the doggs - they should follow orders- they got me back by crippling me with some horrible blisters for the next couple of days.

So I was ready to go home now, but then I found this neat mueso which had been designed by guess who - Michealangelo- I am a sucker for the guy apparently. Anyways, it was a good little muesuem- the highlight was the original statue of the wolf mother feeding the young Romulus and Remus- very famous statue. There was also a cool painting with Hannibal riding an Elephant- I liked it. Finally I was done for my first day in Roma, I headed back to Camping Tiber and had a nice night at the little bar they had there.



The next day I got up nice and early by Messy Days standards, 7 AM in order to get down to San Peitro in order to get into the Sistine Chapel without waiting in the big line, how I was mistaken, I got to the museum around 9, a full hour before it opened and was shocked, appalled even to find the longest line in the history of mankind. There are two metro stops for the Vatican, San Peitro and the one for the museums, the line went all the way from the museum back to the San Peitro tube stop - we're talking about over a kilometre people- people we're lining up for 1 KM worth of lining up - I was shocked and appalled at their craziness, the Sistine Chapel was very quickly cut from the too do list of boxes that needed ticking.

So I headed off into the basilica - I have long ago decided that my favorite type of monuments in the touristing game are the living buildings, the churches, parliaments, theaters etc, the buildings that are just there for the purpose of just being there don't really do it for me - case in point Collosomo from the day before. Anyways, the basilica was incredible, easily the biggest and the best church I have ever seen - easily beating St Vitu's and St Paul's the previous front runners. I saw all the sites, including: The Coupla, Michalengelo's Pietra (the second one???), a Donatello masterpiece, the treasury museum, and the tombs of the Pope's - all very impressive, when the bird in front of me broke down in front of JP 2's tomb I thought it was a bit much- but you can't question peoples religions...



Finally I came out of the church, in a very good mood, by far one of the best touristing things I had done to date. I decided to give the Sixteenth chapel another go, just to see how long the line was now - it was still long, but not as long as it was in the morning, probably only 3 hours now instead of 6 from earlier. I have however, run with the Kapitan long enough to know that sometimes its just worthwhile to spend the extra cash and get the first class treatment, I signed on for a tour and within 25 minutes we were entering the Vatican Museum- a 30 euro investment to save 2.5 hours - a result. Also the tour guide was a complete hard body - second result.. she was also very knowledgeable which helped, cause I didn't know that much about old M'angelo's 16th Chapel - it turns out it is really quite impressive.

People have whinged in my ears about how its not really worth it, you wait in line for hours then just get processed straight through and don't really get to look at the paintings that well. Well, I guess I'm lucky I'm bigger then most people (and still had my hard body tour guide with me) cause we got to spend a good 30 plus minutes in the chapel- which was very impressive.

Anyways, after having done Chapel I was on a high, St Peter's had been great, and I had managed to see both a Donatello and a Michaelangelo in one day - now all I needed was a Leonardo and a Raphael to complete the set - you may not know this but the Vatican is dripping with Raphael's so I went back into the muesuem to tick that box - can't remember what the name of the painting but did he really need to do the crazy eye's on the kids??? it might have had something to do with resurrection so the kids we're scared of the Ghost that had come back to life after three days, but still- crazy eyes. Still, it was a box ticked- all I needed was a Leonardo, which was ticked very soon after as I went into the next room and there was a Da Vinci special! Job done, all four Ninja Turtles in one day - my Art site seeing career was complete. So, after an exceptional days touristing it was time to head home, 8 hours on my doggs was long enough - Unfortunately, Roma has the worst lay out in the history of town planning so I spent the next few hours walking around trying to find my metro station. Finally I got back to camping Tiber and collapsed.

The next day was check out time, I was officially over Roma, but still had some sites left to get all the boxes ticked, my doggs had gone on holiday so I was in a tough spot for any serious touristing - so I jumped aboard a City Tour Bus to see some of the sites that were still outstanding. It was good, I saw the church that is the setting for the first act of Tosca, and also got a better look at Castle St Angelo, the site of the third act of Tosca. After the very good bus tour I went to the Spanish Steps (a yawn but a box none the less) and I was finally done with Roma.