This time last year: June 5th, 2007 Tuesday 9:50pm.
Cycle Europe Day 21: Sight-seeing Rome.
Ran out of gel ink. Using the pen Grandad gave me 13 years ago.
Report about yesterday first. Arrived in Rome yesterday. Found my way to the hostel easy enough. Hostel is one of the worst places I’ve been so far. It looks purpose built as a hostel but had not been maintained for 10+ years. It should be the cheapest in Rome so don’t complain. Breakfast was only limited to one bun bread, forced cappucino and orange juice.
I had a few hours to spend since I arrived early so I took a walk to the St. Peter’s Basilica and scout out some bancomat and supermercato. It was quite a long walk but manageable. Lots of people in the queue but it was a relatively short wait. The Basilica might be no man’s land between the Vatican City and Italy. On the way back, surveyed internet point and made a Salame Milano sandwich. Chatted with Yamaguchi-san who is quite lost here in Italy. Strange guy.
This morning, breakfast was insufficient as mentioned. Hopped on a bus without being able to buy a ticket on board. so I got off near a Metro and tubed to the Colosseum. Wasn’t as impressive as I thought it would be. But sitting inside really helps you to imagine what it was like in the old days when 80,000 people would come watch gladiators, where the stairs were and how the crowd would walk up them to go to their seats. Next. Palatine Hill was a disappointment. There were more rubbles than buildings so it wasn’t worth the combined ticket. It was too big with no signs and signboards weren’t helpful. No commentary except your own guidebook.
Now Pantheon was impressive because I remember watching a documentary about how they might have constructed it 2000 years ago. The perfect hemispherical dome was quite magnificent with a hole in middle. Started out as a temple for other gods/Greek probably but later converted to a basilica as well. The square reliefs, how did they do it?
Trevi Fountain, boring. Went to Roma Termini to get ticket for Bologna. Faulty Towers Hostel and internet around wasn’t any cheaper so I decided to metro to outside Vatican City where it’s the cheapest in Europe so far. Along the way earlier, I caught sight of a paper shop, Il Papiro, and decided to get some patterned and another embossed stickers. They have embossed paper with alphabets plus envelopes for ~ €20. Good inspiration.
Came back to get some dinner from supermercato after 2 hours at the internet point to back up my pictures onto the 1GB card and clear unwanted photographs. Early close? Not exactly. Wow, turned out to be quite an expensive day.
Day 21 Accounts
Metro €2.00 Twice
Colosseum €11.00
Lunch €3.10 Pizza slices x2
Internet €3.00 2 hours
Hostel €18.00 Roma
Train Tickets €23.70 to Bologna
Dinner €3.44
Souvenirs €2.00
Total €66.24 !!!