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Rome - Part 2

Next morning we had breakfast with the Spanish girls again and met our host. The reason he appeared was to tell us that he had booked all the rooms to a large party for tonight and he was very sorry! He offered a choice of staying in his room in the upper house, or of moving to a local hotel that he would pay for, or continuing our journey. After a little thought we decided to continue our journey with no real idea of where we would stay.

After breakfast we packed up, loaded the car and went down to the train station where we left the car and its contents locked securely, we hoped, in the trunk, bought our tickets and were off to the Colosseum.

The Colosseum looked just like the, er, Colosseum. Surprise! but it took the edge off the experience a little bit because we had anticipated it. We braved the gauntlet of touts. "The line is 45 minutes long, we can get you in the group entrance immediately, take you on a guided tour and give you the same access at three other places - only $5 more than the regular entrance fee". Except that the line was only 20 minutes they seemed to have a reasonable pitch. Being in the line gave us a chance to examine the construction of the walls - massive - and the local life - lots of cats.

We bought tickets and rented a speaker device that would talk us around a guided tour of the place

As soon as we got inside Peter had to take a leak. The line into the uni-sex, mobile-home-style, smelly toilets was 30 minutes. The confusion of the tourists about gender separation caused much of the confusion - "Can I use THAT one I wonder? I'd be so embarrassed to go into the WRONG ONE...". Maybe the guides could have finessed THAT line?

The Colosseum was a wonderful ruin. It had been robbed of much of its marble and earthquakes had done a lot of damage but it was awe-inspiring. Probably the best things we saw were the carved name-stones that reserved the front-row seats for the Senators and the wonderful iron contraptions that held the old building together. The finale was a very poor multimedia presentation that was not really understandable even though it was in English.

	The entrance contained a Christian cross that the recording said was to show that Christianity conquered the evils the Romans had perpetrated there		Under the floor of the Colosseum is a honeycomb of pens and corridors that held the wild animals to be used in the Games.
	One of the Senator's seats.		Being a nice, helpful lady, Diane offered many times to take pictures for people. This time she took about twenty pictures - one for each camera
	But it paid off		The Colosseum is higher than most of the buildings around..
	...so there are views...		...and views..
	...and views.		This is the triumphal arch built to welcome Constantine back to Rome after one of his successful campaigns
	A view over to ancient ruins...		.. the angels in the chariot are on an arch further over
	Notice the small holes in the walls. They are probably from posts to support a floor or awning

We had seen all we could see at the Colosseum and were getting rather peckish so we left to get lunch.

As we were picking a restaurant we discovered why there were so many cats around the Colosseum. The cat-lady.

Our pizza here was almost as bad as the one in the town of potters.

After lunch we held our daily ritual with the ATM machine. It was the wrong variety so we walked up the street a ways looking for one that was friendlier. It started raining and there was a cloudburst again - the second in two days. This time we had no car. We dodged down the street, running between sheltering trees and awnings, trying to get to the Metro while we were merely damp. It rained even harder and along came a street vendor offering umbrellas. The ATM had not given us any money so we told him we only had $2. He agreed that that was a good price!!! SO we now had a very small, very weak umbrella to share and it rained even harder. The street, by now, had a stream that came over our ankles so we gave up trying to get to the Metro, went into a seedy cafe, got a half litre of wine and waited. The stream-road was now over a foot deep and started lapping at the front step of the cafe causing the owner to start sweeping furiously. Simultaneously, the cook ran out of the back sweeping water from the kitchen, yelling in Italian and disappearing again clutching a stack of folded up cardboard boxes. We started brushing up on our meters to cubits conversion tables in case we had to cut wood to make an Ark. But then the rain stopped as quickly as it had started. After ten minutes we could wade over to the Metro and were ready for our next adventure.

Diane particularly wanted to see the Trevi fountain because she had fallen in love with it in the "Three Coins in a Fountain" movie. The guidebooks said it was vastly overrated but we went anyway.

Emerging from the Metro and getting our bearings to the Trevi we spotted an InterNet Cafe and decided to check the email again. This was a regular neighborhood and the cafe had over 250 computers, by actual count, all ready for people to use. InterNet cafes must be a GREAT business to be in.

On to the Trevi through narrow streets that looked poorer and poorer as we progressed and we entered a small Piazza filled with people and the Fountain. It was the most spectacular thing we saw on the whole trip. It filled half the square, crawled up the side of a building and had gushing water and sea-figures everywhere.

	An intial view after we had recovered from our amazement		This was all crammed into a very small Piazza
	Note the tree at the right hand side crawling up the facade of the building

Stunned by what we had seen we made our way back to Metro. By now we were outside our 45 minutes' allowance so we bought a couple more tickets and travelled back to the car.

Decision time. It was getting dark. We were tired and hungry. We could head for the freeway and try to find somewhere to sleep, we could wander around the suburbs and try to find somewhere, or we could head out of Rome on the main street we were on and try to find something in a small town or village as we travelled.

We decided on the latter. So we drove. And we drove. And the gas gauge warning light came on and we drove some more. And all the villages seem to roll up their sidewalks at 7 p.m. Now was the drop-dead time to decide if we needed to head back toward Rome and places that were likely to be open. We decided to continue.

Almost immediately we found a gas station. The attendant was Indian so he spoke reasonable English. But he said he had only lived there three months, didn't know how far to the next town, didn't know if there were any hotels and didn't know where the road led to. I didn't ask him if he knew his name.

We continued and found a road-side hotel. Very clean. $40/night. Run by a dear of an Italian Great Grandmother who had great difficulty hearing. luckily gestures don't need good ears and she was not blind. The hotel had a train line within spitting distance at the back as well as the main street within spitting distance of the front. We chose the back with an excellent country view. Totally quiet even when a train went by.

A great view from the motel window but the train runs between the corrugated overhang and the first trees!

We had seen a restaurant down the road so we drove down to it, ate good food, drank good wine, and all was again well with the world.

Next morning we headed for Tuscany

Introduction	Differences	England	Malta	Sicily
Giaramidas	Amalfi	Rome	Tuscany	Other Trips