From Summer into Winter - Back to Italy

From the warm Canberra summer to early winter in Rome took about 36 hours.  Temperatures dropped from the mid 20sC to around 15C.  We arrived at Rome's Leonardo da Vinci Airport about 6am and watched the sunrise as we travelled by train to Rome Termini.  We checked into the Hotel Corona where we've stayed before and were able to check into our comfortable room straight away.  This 3 star hotel is close to the station and will be a good base for us during our stay.  This holiday will be an experience  for us as we're travelling with our 15 year old grand-daughter.  It didn't take us long to settle into "Italian mode".  Communication is easy with our limited Italian language skills and most people speaking some English.

Day one was spent recovering from our long travel time and getting our bodies to adjust to the new time zone.  Rome is the Eternal City and we love Italy and the Italians.

After a good night's sleep we were ready to take on the world on Day 2 - we're in Rome for 5 nights so have plenty of time to look around.  We've purchased 72 hour tickets for the Hop-On-Hop-Off bus and the first trip is a full circuit to get an overview of the sights.  Then we can just catch the bus to wherever we want to spend some time.  The bus route takes us past many vantage points and we're able to immerse ourselves into ancient history once again.

The next morning we decided to visit the Colosseum.  The queue for tickets wasn't very long which was good; we're not in a peak tourist season so it's not as crowded as we've previously experienced.  Unfortunately Robert wasn't able to go in because he had a backpack so we split up.  One thing we have noticed is an increased police presence and some military security forces in popular tourist areas.  The Colosseum is HUGE - and impressive.  It's amazing to think about all of the sporting events that went on here 2,000 years ago.  Contra to general belief, Christians were not executed at the Colosseum - although they were executed nearby.  This giant arena was used primarily for sporting events, gladiatorial tournaments and animal events.  It was able to be filled with water and huge aquatic animals and fish were imported.  There was an elaborate system of lifts and a huge moving floor.  Wandering around this great construction is a good way to spend a couple of hours.

 Next to the Colosseum is the Palatin Hill which was the site of the early Roman governments, and the Roman Forum.  We would have visited the Forum if we'd been able to find the entrance but by the time we found it the queue was very long.  Everyone in Rome seems to be out and about on Sunday.  Although we didn't get right into the Forum, we were able to see a lot of the Old City as we walked around.  There's a huge amount of archaeological work going on.  Much of this work is being funded by the European Union.

We walked back to our hotel via the Trevi Fountain, which has been cleaned and had a facelift since we were last here. We also stopped of at a gallery to have a look at an exhibition of Impressionist art.  A visit to the Pantheon which started life as a Temple to the Roman goddess Diana, then became a church and now is a museum.  Then it was back to the hotel through Piazza Navona.

We'd planned a visit to The Vatican and caught the bus to St Peter's Basilica - the largest church in the world.  One look at the entrance queue - about 300m (just to the security checkpoint) and not moving very fast - convinced us that we should just walk around the square and marvel at the grandeur of it all this time.  As part of the Christmas celebrations there was a nativity scene in the square.  There were also preparations for the religious ceremony where the Pope "Opens the Great Doors to the Vatican" and there were chairs set up and TV crews everywhere.  After our walk around the square we walked to the Bridge of Angels to get some photos of the Castel d'Angelo which was built as a mausoleum.

An evening round trip on the bus gave us a good view of Rome by Night.  It's still early in December so the Christmas lights are still going up.  We'll see more Christmas decorations over the next couple of weeks.

On our last day we visited Rome's Archaeological Museum.  Many museums in Rome are closed on Monday so we were not able to visit it earlier.

 The museum has an impressive collection with mosaics, frescoes and many, many statues.  The 2nd century statue of the discus thrower is a copy of the classical greek statue and is the most complete version of the statue in the world.

A series of stained glass windows was made by the college of arts in 1997 and these visit works are all based of manuscript illuminations.  They are found in the museum basement which also houses a large numismatic collection featuring roman coins from very early BC times to the present day, and ancient roman jewellery.