One of the cats of Rome
Break dancing in St Pauls... not really allowed.
Rome: a city awash with ruins.
The Basilica - St Peters - nice.
In the spot just before St Peters Piazza.
Vatican city and the queues.
Bread window
New glasses from Rome
We woke up this morning in Rome. It wasn’t a dream; it’s a real city, which becomes more incredible around every corner. The people are fantastic and friendly and helpful and really keen to correct my Italian; ouch! And here I thought I was doing so well in Trieste!
Cornetto for breakfast and we are away – we are so close to the Vatican City it’s incredible and we walked towards the walls in wonder – our seventh story view affords us a fantastic view of Rome and tonight we had fireworks on the hill. I have heard that Australian fireworks are not a patch on European ones and I had heard right – it was the most prolonged and over the top display of fireworks I have ever seen, right out the bedroom window, for us celebrating our first day in Rome? Probably not, but it felt like it if only for a moment; Iggy even looked up and out the window on a break from FIFA on DS.
Midday, we made our way to St Peters Basilica and square, there seemed to be a fiesta – people were everywhere – oh no – it was the queue! Round and round like a snake through the Basilica – we moved on the outside was enough – there is only so much art the children can stand before they flip out (this has been proven with our children) and we had the next day booked for Vatican City.
We jumped on a tour bus – accidentally a Christian tour bus line with very critical comment and accusation, supporting the fall of the Roman Empire – killers of Jesus! This tour didn’t even drop us off at the Coliseum and Hamish was seeing red pretty quickly. ‘Fucking Christians’ he was ready to go and get his money back after a three hour bus sermon! FUNNY! Hamish rarely loses his cool.
Our crazy bus tour dropped us off at St Paul’s Basilica – the Basilica you have when you can’t get into Saint Peter’s. It was quite empty but had some cool funny things like: the body of Saint Paul which was always assumed to be in one place and then after years of thinking this some excavation offered the possible truth was he was laid in a slightly different position so ‘pick a place to pray to the remains of Saint Paul’. The other was in the 1800s the basilica was mostly destroyed by fire except for the amazing tower which was destroyed later DURING RECONSTRUCTION OF THE REST OF THE BUILDING!
We made it in one piece, and so did the Christian bus, to the Palantino. Ancient Rome – we made a few ‘all roads lead to Rome jokes (in fact we had been doing that steadily for a week and the children were pretty over it) and we walked down an Ancient Roman road and filled our water at one of the cities many running taps and basked in the glory of Ancient Rome. Check out the photos. OLD, OLD, OLD; I love it.
HIGHLIGHT – Quinn and Iggy, exhausted trying to sit on a wall which had a 4000 year old fresco painted on it – the woman nearly had a heart attack and so did we!
ROME AND WATER
In Australia, people have on occasion criticized Italians for washing their driveways with copious amounts of water and removing grass areas and replacing them with concrete which they then hose, again with copious amounts of water. Water is an Italian institution – it is a symbol of purity, continuity, strength, power and the Roman Empire. In Rome, everywhere you go water flows – taps run with no turn off – in the ruins at the Palatino there was an ancient fountain that had belonged to Ancient Rome which had been flowing for so long it was almost blocked with limestone which had traveled from the spring eternal (I hope). When Rome was a new city there were constant problems with water, then the invention of the aqueduct system brought constant flow to Rome – this flow which spread through the Empire was a symbol of the power and pride of the Italians. Hence, an Italian making his home in Australia shows his pride in his home and his place in a new country with a strong show of the power of water!
