Rome

Here we are in Rome, well Porto di Roma marina in Ostia to be precise. It was a toss up between Riva di Traiano marina, 30 miles north of here, and this marina for visiting Rome. This one is closer and has good transport links to Rome. If you watch Gladiator, Ostia is where the army was based waiting on orders from Maximus.

The wind got up as we arrived which makes entry or exit to the marina more challenging, in fact there are warnings in the pilot book highlighting this, however, it wasn’t that bad in practice and we got in safely.

We had a quietish first night, eating at one of the retaurants in the marina and keeping our energy for the next days sightseeing tour of Rome.

We were lucky in that the Pope was holding a Mass at St Peter’s. As far as I’m aware this doesn’t happen every Sunday but today he was holding it for people with disabilities. Irrespective of your religious beliefs, this was something you have to see.

St Peter’s is beautiful.  I don’t have the words to describe or do justice to the architecture so the pictures will need to do that for me. The nicest and very moving part for me was seeing the love that some people had for each other and the faith & hope they get from their religion. 

            

Also on the agenda was the Pantheon

 

Trevi Fountain

 

The Spanish Steps

  

Castel D’Angelo

  

Piazza Navona where our friend Dave proposed to Iain,

     

and a walk along the Tiber River.

    

All in all a fantastic day with some amazing sights of Ancient Rome.

Roll on the next  onslaught of culture.

After a days rest we headed back into the city. Today it was the Forum and the Colosseum. For us to get into the centre of Rome we had to take a bus then a train then the metro, all for the princely sum of 1.50 euros

 

We got off the Metro and walked round the corner to be blown away by the sight of the Colosseum, it is fantastic, other than Gordon reciting phrases from Gladiator!

      

After taking a wander round the building we headed for the queue for tickets to get in. The touts trying to sell tours tell you the queue will take two hours but in fact it only took about 40 minutes but it was well worth the wait. We got the audio guide which was very good and meant you could go at your own pace.

           

After lunch in a  great wee restaurant we just happend on by chance , we headed for the Forum. It turned out to be high up on the trip advisor ratings of restaurants in Rome.

 

Now I must admit, this one I wasn’t really looking forward to. I’m not into ruins and trying to fathom out what part of a building some stones in the ground are part of. However, the Forum is really interesting and a lot of it is still intact enough to make out what you were looking at. The best view is from above where you can actually imagine what it must have been like in days gone by.

           

The whole area, the Colosseum, the Arch of Titus and the Temple of Venus and Rome with the Forum and the Capitol Hill was a fantastic sight and must have been even more so in it’s day.

During our stay here, our friend Susan has decided to come and visit us. We will be picking her up around the Bay of Naples in a weeks time so we are off tomorrow making our way South to get her. We promise Susan, we won’t take you to another country this time……….that is unless you want to?

We have enjoyed out time in Rome but only managed to see a fraction of it. There is so much history here that you couldn’t see it all. However, we think we have managed to visit the places we wanted to and thoroughly enjoyed wandering the streets and soaking up the atmosphere. It would be nicer without so many tourists though! Selfish….me?

After a days sightseeing we went home, uncorked a bottle of red and watched Gladiator on the laptop ,lol.

SPQR   (Gordon made me put this in ?)