8/1/12

Day after Vatican - By Jess

Today was all about getting to see some of the last bits of Rome before we headed off to Paris. We went off to the Pantheon to see one of the oldest Ancient Roman temples in the world, and one of the best preserved. The distinguishing feature of the Pantheon is that it was constructed from concrete, which the Romans later forgot how to make. It's a very big structure and it's mind boggling how they were able to construct it so many thousands of years ago. When we arrived there was actually a church service on, so we took a few photos and went for a wander. I wanted to get a ride in one of the horse and carriages that were congregated around the front of the temple. However, when I asked how much it was, the driver said "200 Euro", so bugger that! We went for a wander around some back streets and then wandered back to the Pantheon so we could have a look inside. It's a very pretty church inside, but it only took a few minutes to do a circuit.

Following the Pantheon we decided that some serious shopping was in order. Before that we needed lunch, so we headed back to the spanish steps nad had lunch at a first floor restaraunt overlooking the famous landmark. I had gnocchi and Andrew had traditional Roma pasta and both were pretty nice. It was lovely being able to look out over the fountain and the steps and just relax for a bit. After lunch we headed back to one of the main shopping streets and began looking for shirts and dresses. We didn't have much luck when it came to the shirts but I finally found a clothing shop with some gorgeous tops on sale. I bought a new dress and two tops, and we continued our shopping expedition. By the end of our shopping we'd bought some new socks and undies, then we headed back to our hotel to do much needed washing. On the way we wandered into a little museum which ended up being the front part of the recently excavated Trajan's markets. We spent a couple of hours wandering around the ancient market site and getting some beautiful photos of Rome at sunset. Eventually we made our way back to the hotel and we grabbed our bags of dirty clothes and headed to the laundromat, stopping to get a takeaway pizza on the way. We spend about 1 and a 1/2 hours doing washing, eating pizza and watching Inbetweeners. It was prettly late by this time so we headed back to our hotel to get ready for our very early start tomorrow.

7/1/12

By Jess

Today required an early start as we needed to meet our Vatican tour guide at 9am for our tour of the infamous city state. We reached the meeting point with about 15 minutes to spare and, once we'd worked out who our tour was with, got hooked up with our headsets and introduced to our lovely guide, Susanna. The Vatican was well worth the effort. We began by walking through one of the papal courtyards known as pine-cone court, for the giant bronze pinecone that Pope Alexander nicked from the Pantheon around 500 years ago which now stands overlooking the courtyard. In the centre of the courtyard was an amazing modern spherical sculpture in bronze of a giant sphere encasing a smaller one, visible through a giant rending of the structure, exposing a mechanical-like interior. This huge sculpture spins in the wind, and it was quite beautiful and unexpected in it's baroque setting.

We were given a detailed rundown of the particulars of the Sistine chapel in the courtyard, as talking isn't really allowed in the chapel itself, and our guide explained the compositional elements of the ceiling and wall frescoes by Michaelangelo and Botticcelli, explaining the techniques and time involved in the creation of the works. Following this we made our way into the Vatican museums which were spectacular. We were led through room after room filled with incredible frescoes and sculptures, and the galleries themselves were just astonishing. Particularly amazing was the 'map room' which is essentially an ornately decorated 125m long corridor, abour 20m high, depicting every part of the known world in the 15th century. Raphael's rooms were also exquisite and the whole of the museum was amazing.

We then were given around 20 minutes in the Sistine chapel itself, and it was incredible! Yet another major highlight of the trip was actually standing in the real chapel looking at one of the most recognisable images in the world. What was even more incredible were the works that make up the full roof of the chapel (of which Adam and God is only one panel) and the Last Judgement on the front wall. It was spectacular.

Whilst the Sistine chapel was brilliant, St Peters Basillica was mind boggling. The sheer scale of the place is really hard to get your head around, even when you're there. It's the biggest church in the world and it's 190m long and 50m high. Unlike the other chapels in the Vatican, the roof looks like it's fresco paintings but it's actually ALL mosaic! It's just so high up, and the mosaic is sooo far away, they look like paintings. It's all exquisite gold (solid, not leaf), bronze and marble and it really is amazing. Michaelangelo's famous sculpture of a young Mary holding the dead body of Christ was to the right of the entrance, and Pope John Paul's body/wax sculpture is on display, as is the previous pope. There is a sculpture in the knave of the vatican which is made of solid gold and must be at least 1.5m thick and over 8m high. The guide pointed out that even a small chunk of it would probably feed Africa. And therin lies the issue with the Vatican, it's a place of extreme opulence and wealth, housing some of the most significant art on the planet and responsible for over a billion souls worldwide. Whilst it's somewhat disturbing having that juxtaposition against other 'Christian' ideals like charity, humility and so on, it didn't bother us while we were there and even on reflection, since we already knew what the Vatican would be like, it was just an astonishing place to visit which was an incredible experience.

Our guide told us where to go for really good gelati so, upon leaving the Vatican, we went and bought gelati for lunch and then did some more shopping. Happily, after the Nike fiasco of Florence, Andrew finally found the right shoes in the right size at another footlocker near the Vatican. We spent some time looking for some cheesy Vatican memento's but we didn't find anything up to our required levels of kitsch. We continued with some shopping and then decided to come back to our room, update our blog and now we're going to head out for some dinner.

6/1/12

Today we woke up at about 8:30 with the Colosseum in mind. We had our continental breakfast, a bowl of cornflakes and a croissant for me, and caught the underground to the colusseum. As we had a 'Roma Pass' we went straight in; the line for tickets went 2/3rds of the way around the Colosseum. That place is amazing. The stories of the place are amazing and definitely something to behold. After about 2 hours there we went across the road to the Roman Forum and explored the ruins for about 3 hours. I think I took about 3-4 hundred pictures. We then found a place nearby for lunch, where I had a wild boar pasta and Jess had an artichoke lasagne. For some reason I'd decided to only wear my hoodie today, a grave mistake I'm afraid. It was freezing. Yesterday I was walking around at night with only a tshirt on, having to carry my goose-down jacket as I was sweating my butt off. There were tens of thousands of people in the shopping area. We followed a stream of people into a giant square where there was a market, but it was impossible to move. It was like being in a mosh pit at a concert, only these people were trying to get into a giant basilica. We headed back to the shopping area walking around looking for stuff to buy, possibly a jumper, when we accidentally ended up at the spanish steps at sunset. We climbed the stairs, took some photos and just as we were about to leave, some opera singers started performing a series of 'hits' for about an hour, so we got a free concert while I was freezing to death. By this time everything was closing so we got some cheese, bread, meat and beers from a supermarket and headed back to our hotel as we have to get up early tomorrow to visit the Vatican.

5/1/12

The next morning we woke up, packed up and caught the bus to the train station, where we headed off to Rome. I smashed my finger putting the luggage on the train, and with freezing cold hands, it took ages before I could do anything with it. It was alright after a while though. When we got to Rome we walked to the Augustia Hotel, where we were booked, only to be directed around the corner to the Hotel Patria, aparently it's sister hotel. The room here is smaller than any room in our house. The bed doesn't even look like a double and the shower is smaller than a phone box. You also can't sit on the toilet straight, as the shower is in the way. On arrival they sent up a bottle of sparkling wine, as the travel agent had put on all our accommodation forms that it was our honeymoon...

We then set off to explore the city, heading for the Colosseum, which we'll be visiting tomorrow, and then to the main shopping street, which is about 4-5kms long and has lights the colour of the italian flag all the way along it. You can't see one end from the other. We walked around, checking out shops on the way and got dinner from a self serve place, where I had pizza and Jess had cakes. We went and saw the Trevi Fountain, throwing a coin in, apparently meaning we will return. Apparently it's a public holiday tomorrow, so every man and his dog, and there were lots of dogs, decided to go shopping too. We headed back to the hotel after all the shops shut and attempted to sleep in our miniature bed and paper thin walled room. I slept fine, Jess apparently didn't.

4/1/12

Day thee in Florence was all about shopping, wandering and just taking in Tuscany. We headed into the town centre at about 11am and proceeded to the footlocker we'd been to excited about the previous day. The night before, on getting back to our hotel room, Andrew decided to try on his shiny new Nike's, only to discover that what he had thought were size 12's were, in fact, size 11's. This meant that our first job of the day taking them back to get the right size. It should have been an easy swap but, as it turns out, not quite. The store did not have any size 12's in stock so, after much umming and ahhing, we were directed to another store in another part of the city where we were told that if they didn't have them there in the right size, we could get a refund. So we walked to the other store, hopeful that we would be able to get it sorted and move on, but alas, it was not meant to be. The other store didn't stock that style of shoe at all so, after trying things like changing insoles and so on, we ended up having to walk back to the other store again. This time, after more umming, offering of gift cards and whatnot, we ended up getting our money back.

After the shoe debacle was sorted, more fun shopping was in order, so we began zigzagging through the beautiful streets of Florence looking at every clothing/shirt/shoe and book store we could find. We meandered over the famous shopping bridge, both sides of which are lined with tiny medieval stores, every one of which is devoted entirely to jewlery making. On the other side of the river I finally found somewhere that sold wax seals, something I'd been looking for for ages, and we had lunch at a lovely cafe, both trying the local traditional foods (rare beef, and bread and veg soup).We then wandered back into the town centre and continued shopping for a bit, where Jess bought a new suitcase to replace hers which had broken. It was raining really heavily and Andrew had no umbrella, so we headed back to the hotel to be rid of our soaked clothes and ate at a restaurant next door. Andrew had a calzone that was bigger than his head!

3/1/12 Art day

By Jess

Day two in Florence was art, art and more art. We decided to start our day at the Uffizi museum - the oldest museum in the world, which also houses one of the best art collections in the world as well. The line was obsceney long so we opted to pay the extra for a guided tour of the museum so we could skip the two hour wait. Once we'd got inside (which still took some time) it was magnificent. Room after room was filled with sculptures, paintings, frescoes and church walls, many of which were spectacular. It's here we saw our first DaVinci - The Visitation of Mary. Wow. We also saw Bottielli's Birth of Venus and other famous works by many great artists and a multitude of sculptures by Michelangelo and others. Just amazing.

After spending a good half a day at the Ufuzi we then left the museum and had lunch at a self serve eatery. Once again, very mediocre food and we were unimpressed. However, now we were off to see David. We ended up having to wait for around an hour to get into the museum, there was no skipping that line, but once inside we were once again face to face with some incredible scupltures and paintings. We wandered through a few small exhibitions of religious works, and then into an awesome (if small) exhibition of musical instruments, where some original harpsichords and pianos were on display, and every string instrument as well, including about 8 Stradavrious'. Of course, what we really came to see was David and wow, wasn't he magnificent. After seeing that likeness soooo much around Italy, not to mention the mental picture I already had, to see it in the flesh was amazing. I would point out that for a gentleman with such large hands and feet, it would appear he's lacking somewhat in the groin department, but childishness aside it was breathtaking to see him in real life. Not ony that, but the gallery where he is housed also hosts the most amazing set of other sculptures by other famous artists that are just incredible. While there aren't any as big as David, some of the figures of Eve and the Greek Gods and Goddesses are astonishing in their detail. That was a big tick off my things to see before I die list.

Following seeing David we once again found the markets and did some more shopping. Andrew finally found the Nike Airs he's been looking for for over a year, which we purchased immediately (though hijinks ensued later). Very pleased with ourselves we continued wandering around the city, found a restaraunt we liked the look of and had pizza and pasta for dinner. The pizza was really lovely because it was freshly made, but once again the pasta was very meh. We followed up our dinner with some gelati and headed back to the hotel. A brilliant day all round.

2/1/12 Florence

By Andrew

Today we woke up at 8:30am, packed up all our stuff, had breakfast and and left the hotel at around 11am. We did some more window shopping on the way to teh train station, wher ewe then had to wait for 1.5hrs for our train the Florence. In the station I got the best pizza yet. From now on, it's pizza from little shops, not restaurants.

I'm now on the train... typing this rot.

By Jess

Florence was superb! Our first day consisted of a very long walk to our hotel, the Grand Meditteraneo, which ended up being a very nice place to stay, if a little way from the centre of the city. Once we'd settled into our room we decided to go and explore the city, and what a city it is. The whole centre is a World Heritage listed site so every street feels like walking through the Rennassaince era. The buildings are incredible, and there are statues everywhere. Unlike Venice, we actually found a lovely restaraunt in the old part of town which apparently had been there since the 1850's. We had a starter of local cheeses with truffled honey, followed by a risotto for me and roast pork for Andrew. This is where we discovered Pecorino cheese - it's bit like Parmesan, but slightly milder. Delicious!

Since we were in Florence we also had a fair bit of Chianti, as it's the local wine, which was lovely, but true to form I did get a bit tipsy. Following dinner we headed back into the town and found some brilliant markets. I was finally able to fulfill my need for scarves and Andrew also bought some gorgeous ties. A perfect first day.