Roma-City of Amazement..Part two

After another night of broken sleep, thanks to the next tent kids, we have an early breakfast and a quick chat with Kath and Brad (aussie couple) and they asked us if we wanted to go down to Pompeii with them in their hire car the following day, which was great as we had planned to go there that day anyway, but this way we can go on the Autostrade in air con comfort and go half’s with the expensive toll costs…

With that all sorted we set off for another day of exploring the wonderful city of Roma…
The bus seemed very busy for this early in the morning…
First on our list to do was to go back to see if i could get into St Peter’s Basilica that i missed out on yesterday, for not wearing the right so called attire…

Following the crowds again we head towards the Vatican.
Holy Moly- Jorge Mario Bergoglio or Pope Francis as he is known is doing his weekly service, that would explain the crowds this morning in the streets and why the forecourt was full of chairs yesterday, we stayed for a while but it was differcult to hear the Pope clearly plus it was getting so hot…

So we thought it was better to do the others things on our list and come back to St. Peters Square later in the day.

The queue for the Hop on Hop off bus was crazy, we waited for about half an hour before we got on the bus, we got off at the ‘Wedding Cake’ which we saw the previous day…so now we are in the centre of Roma..
we were totally memerised by the sheer beauty of this city, the history of this place is mind blowing, we would love to one day come back to Roma and spend a lot more time here, but in order to return to Roma we first needed to get to the Trevi Fountain…

one of the hundreds of fountains in Roma

Armed with our tourist street map we set off along the old streets, many cobbled…glad i haven’t got high heels on like a lot of the tourists there have… we soaked up the ambience of the historic buildings, that oozed with character, so much history so many stories, you can’t help but get swept up in all the charm.

Amazing coloured flowers filled hanging baskets…dangling from the old iron balconies, that were attached to beautiful old buildings, life doesn’t get much better than this.

But finding The Trevi Fountain was harder to find than we anticipated, following the map just sent us in circles lol…
Eventually we found it hidden away in a back street, but it was defiantly worth the effort, we were expecting this massive fountain to be in an area that was much larger than the small square it was in, the place was packed and it made getting that ‘perfect’ shot very difficult…the water was clear and very inviting, i would have loved to have taken a paddle!

The Trevi Fountain as it is today, was designed by Nicola Salvi in 1732 and competed in 1762 its a massive 25.9 meters high and 19.8 meters wide.
The central figures of the fountain are Neptun (God of the sea), and standing next to Neptun are two Tritons, One is struggling to master an unruly “sea horse”, while the other horse is calm and obedient- They symbolise the two contrasting moods of the sea.
We filled up our water bottles from a near by fountain, found a seat and enjoyed the cool fresh water…the whole place is mesmerising.

After our drink we each took it in turns to throw a coin into fountain there are two reasons why people are obsessed with throwing coins- the first is that if you throw a coin from your right hand backwards over your left shoulder, you will definitely return to Rome.

The second legend is inspired by the film “Three Coins in the Trevi Fountain”, which says you must throw three coins into the fountain, the first coin guarantees your return to Rome, the second leads to a new romance, while the third will lead to marriage…i’ll just stick to returning to Rome.

After lunch we got the bus back to the Vatican, hopefully the crowds would be a lot smaller than they were this morning, so once again we queued up in St.Peter’s Square and yay i got into the St Peter’s Basilica, the inside of the Basilica can hold up to 60,000 people, and Michelangelo’s dome soars 119 metres above the altar…

Once inside you are struck by the impressiveness of this building, gazing at all it has to offer in stunned silence…

I have never seen anything so beautiful and how lucky are we to see a the only piece of signed art by Michelangelo was a true highlight, it is Michelangelo’s Pieta which is a portrayal of Mary with the lifeless body of Jesus draped across her lap, it is sculpted in marble and Michelangelo did this when he was just 25 years old.

I could write a whole chapter on this Basilica, but i don’t have the time…but there’s plenty about it online if you are interested.

This is a city full of wonder and history, another must see desination for all who venture to Italy…

But before our amazing day finishes we decide to get our moneys worth and do the full ‘Hop on/off’ bus loop and listen to all the commentary, while relaxing our worn-out legs…

Catching the bus back to the campsite was a lot easier, this time than it was the day before!
Clive had his haircut just around the corner from the Vatican and asked for the same style as the pope, while i had a Cuppachino in a cafe..
Once off the bus we bought a few supplies again at the local supermarket, then head back to camp to cook dinner and enjoy another bottle of Italian wine, whilst we talk over last minute plans with Brad and Kath for our day trip to south to Pompeii the following morning…

All Roads Lead to Roma…part one…

A chilly but beautiful morning greeted us as we packed the bike up…today we are heading across the centre of the ‘Boot’ to Rome, a place we have longed to visit for many years.

We tried to avoid the major roads as much as possible, the journey took us through some spectacular country side, littered with stunning old villages, corn fields glowing in the sun light…

We rode past so many derelict old buildings in need if some love and attention, we would love to get our hands on one to do up, what a dream, riding past you couldn’t help wonder who had lived in these old places and what their lives were like back then in the old days of ‘hard’ farming.

We knew we were getting closer to Roma as the roads we much busier the GPS said we were just about to approach the campsite, but as it was set a little bit off the road and we shot past it…so a U turn was needed and back onto the familiar roads we had just ridden on…
A few minutes later we pulled into Camping Village Roma, Via Aurelia, 831, 00165 Rome.

We booked in, found a campsite and set up our tent, home for the next five days,the campsite was half the price of the Venice campsite we stayed in and this one had better facilities, it was next to a bus stop that takes you into the city, a large supermarket across the road where we could grab some bottles of wine and supplies and it had great wifi we could use…

With the tent all set up we were now in need if a refreshing swim in the camp pool that wasn’t an extra fee (take note Venice) the water was freezing…the chickens we are we only stayed in for a short while…

After a quick shower in a pop music filled wash rooms, we decided to get take a walk around the campsite, and low and behold Kath and Brad were a few pitches up from us (we met them at the campsite in Venice where they gave us their spare bus passes) after a catch up we headed across the road to get some supplies for dinner…

we spent the evening relaxing at the campsite drinking wine while having dinner, discussing what we wanted to see in Rome…

I woke up during the night (about 2am) to our noisy neighbours three children running around our bike and talking loudly, i ignored this for about an hour then tiredness got the better of me, so i poked my head out of the tent and politely told the kids to ‘SHUT UP’…they didn’t!!! and their parents didn’t seem to care either…

The following morning we strolled towards the campsite tourist booking office to see what deals would suit us….we decided on a 3 day bus pass that will take you into the centre of Roma, with an ‘on off’ open tour bus pass.
The bus stop was right outside the campsite and the buses run about every ten minutes.

Once off the bus we walked the short distance towards the Vatican…
we were approached by many ‘touts’ trying to sell us guided tours to various places around the city, declining as we like to do our own ‘thing’.

We were passing the vatican museum and decided it would be a must see … Pope Julius II founded the museums in the early 16th century and the Sistine Chapel with its high ceiling decorated by Michelangelo and the Stanze della Segnatura decorated by Raphael…

we were mesmerised by the sheer beauty of all the paintings and sculptures as we strolled through these magnificent rooms..

Wishing we had brought a pair of binoculars to view the ceilings more clearly, it was impressive every one walking around was quiet and gazing in awe of their surroundings.

The gardens were fantastic…

The carriage hall held spectacular coaches that paraded the pontiffs around and had the most amazing art work on them…

The Pope Mobile..

The guard on duty had a long morning as we caught him napping lol.

The spiral staircase that takes you to the exit was amazing…

It was designed by Giuseppe Momo in 1932, the steps on the staircase are really wide. The stairs are actually two separate helixes, one leading up and the other leading down, that twist together in a double helix formation, so you never actually meet the people coming the opposite direction..unless of course someone going your way changes their mind…

Cool fresh water was readily available everywhere, which was good as it was so hot…

Next on the huge list for today was the Vatican, so we strolled around the huge Vatican walls,the streets were packed with tourist, until we came to this speculator forecourt area and there it was St. Peter’s Basilica…

Wow, what an impressive building, the forecourt was packed with empty chairs and barriers ready for a sermon from the pope we presume…

These statues made an imposing sight, staring down from above to the worshipers below…

The queue to get into St. Peter’s Basilica was really long, but thankfully it was moving fast, as it was a hot day and there was no shade…

So armed with bottled water we made our way into the ever growing queue…20 minutes or so later we went through security and then onto the steps approaching St Peter’s Basilica,
Clive was okay to enter the St. Peters, but i was refused as i had a short sleeved shirt on…Grrrr…which was annoying as some woman entering had backless dresses on and were allowed in, some woman even took their cardigans or shawls off once they got past the ‘No bending Rules’ guard…

But he didn’t seem to care when i pointed that out to him, Clive said i should have made a run for it, but i had visions of being wrestled on to the floor by the guards…lol

Clive went in to see if it was worth me coming back tomorrow properly attired, while i waited by the steps monitoring all females that were let in with less short sleeves than mine!
Clive came out to say that St Peter’s Basilica was one of the most impressive places he had been in, making me feel rather jealous…boo hoo for me!

Next on the list was the Coliseum, even though we had a ‘hop on hop off’ bus ticket we decided to walk, there’s so much history to see here it really is out of this world…

Shop window with fiat car in Italian colours…

Admiring this fantastic old city and stopping at the-‘hard not to miss Victor Emmanuel II Monument also known as ‘The Wedding cake’ or ‘The Giant Type writer’ which is located in Piazza Venezia, the monument is a stunning white building with statues perceiving us, after a few photos we walked up the snow white marble steps and inside past the guards that guard the eternal flame to where Italy’s unknown soldier lies from World war 1…

we knew instantly that our allotted time of five nights was never going to be enough to see this wonderful city…but we needed to cram in as much as we could, but most importantly enjoy it…

We then moved on to to Santa Maria d’Aracocoeli Church is sited on Capitoline Hill, in my opinion its not much to look at from the outside but WOW once inside it was amazing…This is a 12th century basilica, the chandeliers were simply stunning, the paintings are something else…it was defiantly worth the hike up the 125 steps…

So once down the 125 steps we head off again in search of drinking water, purchasing frozen bottled water from some street vendors…

we head off towards the Coliseum passing buskers and many street stalls selling all the ‘Gladiator’ gear that one would need to fight a tiger…

You can’t miss the Coliseum as it stands 48 metres high and is a for boding site…

once inside the Coliseum, we went to the ticket box to purchase our entry tickets, its hard to believe that this building has stood for two thousand years..
The Colosseum could accommodate some 55,000 spectators who entered the building through no less than 80 entrances…this place is a must see..

I felt myself being transported back to the days of violent gladiator games, the thousands of men and animals fought for their lives in the sandy arena, the persecution of the Christians, all in the name of sport.

Scratched on one of the holding pen walls…

The restoration work here will take a life time, as its crumbling away…defiantly an on going project…

The arena floor is long gone, revealing the lion, bear and christian pens below…

By the time we had walked around the Coliseum we were starting to fade fast, it was hot and a sit down was in order to soak it all in,

It was well after four and we hadn’t had anything to eat since early morning!

Once we had left the Coliseum we decided it was time to use our ‘Hop on Hop off’ ticket…but could we find the bus stop for ‘our’ bus stop-not a chance we walked for what seemed like miles trying to find it….eventually we found what sort of looked like ‘our’ bus stop sign which was at Palaitine Hill near Circus Maximus…

The former Chariot Racing stadium which is now just a long grassy field with a long stretch of gravel for where the Chariots raced in front of 300,00 screaming people, i would imagine that this had some spectacular grand buildings once, but nothing much has survived 😦

The origins of the Circus Maximus go back to the 6th century and the last chariot race at the Circus Maximus was held in AD 549…truly amazing…

A bus appeared and thankfully it was the correct bus and the last one of the day, with our weary legs we climbed to the top of the bus, listened to the history commentary while it took us back to the Vatican…

Lots of people queuing up for the tour buses…

Hungry and thirsty we found a busy cafe and ordered a sandwich each…
The worst sandwich we had ever eaten…cardboard comes to mind (not that we’ve eaten any, but i reckon thats what it would taste like!) at least the can of lemonade was good lol…that cafe was one to avoid next time as it was expensive, not much change out of 30 Euros…

The sun was now starting to set, shops had closed, just about all the street sellers had packed up and gone, very odd for a big busy city!

We now had the next task of finding the bus stop, so we could catch the bus back to our campsite…that proved another nightmare we pounded the pavements looking for whatever number we were meant to catch…just not our day for buses…finally after asking a local and doing some funny sign language we found the right bus stop…thank goodness for that.

Back at camp for a shower and an early night…as we have an early start in the morning..back for some more sight seeing…
Hope the next door tent kids will be quiet tonight… Tomorrow another day exploring some more of Rome and all the fantastic history…

Classic San Marino….

After a leisurely breakfast we Packed up our tent and loaded up the bike on what was a beautiful sunny morning, our young Dutch friends we had dinner with last night were heading down to southern Italy on their sparkling clean BMW bike, but not before a few photos were taken, great young couple, with all the goodbyes said we all set off…

Before heading towards San Marino we altered our route slightly so we could ride along the coast road heading south, hugging the Adriatic Sea.

Sad to say we were to be disappointed to find that we had trouble getting even a glimpse of the Adriatic Sea, where were the roads that hugged the coast line…maybe we took the wrong one…but i don’t think so…

We did get glimpse of ourselves though…

When we did manage to find a road that was close to the coast beach areas but it was very built up with mostly big hotels and shops with buckets and spades swinging form the awnings of the shop fronts and not forgetting the inflatable boats…from the glimpses we got of the beaches they were jam-packed with multi coloured sun umbrellas shading the sun lounges which were in turn had holiday makers trying to top up their leather look skin in the last of the seasons hot weather…

Not at anytime did we expect this part of Italy to be as tacky….our romantic vision of what we thought this coast line would be like came to sudden halt, in truth we were hoping it was going to be like the Croatian coast, but it was far from it…

After had a picnic lunch we left the coast line and headed inland, riding through small quiet towns across the region of Tuscany…

The region was breathtaking with vineyards and villas set amongst rolling green hills, dotted with monasteries and old churches, riding up to them was an impossible task at times, the cobblestone roads were so steep and trying and trying to navigate a fully loaded bike up the narrow roads with really tight bends was just too hard so we had to abandon the idea half way up and admire the beauty from the bottom of the hill…

Whilst enjoying the scenery we could see the large outcrop of where San Marino is perched upon from a far way off, we were exited to be going to San Marino as we had heard some wonderful things about it, did you know San Marino is the world’s fifth-smallest state and claims to be the world’s oldest surviving republic!

Eventually starting the gradual incline towards San Marino we found the streets at the bottom were deserted, hardly any of the shops were open, it didn’t dawn on us at first, but it was Sunday…arrgh that explains it…

San Marino is one of only forty-eight landlocked countries and happens to be one of the worlds most smallest countries, covering just a tiny 61.2 sq km and most tourists mainly visit Monte Titano San Marino’s old town which is a world heritage site…

On a winding tree lined road we found a large old style hotel with lots of old cars and bike parked in the car park, Clive wanted to stop and take a look at the cars, so i enquired about a room for the night…
WOW at 110 Euros a night we thought that was pretty expensive…

Great view from our room though…

The decor was in need of a facelift, but the place had a great feel about it, also it was spotlessly clean and the owners were delightful, so we booked into the Panorama Hotel for one night.

The owner was a keen motor enthusiast with a few old Italian Fiat motor cars and some Italian bikes…

We dumped our bags into our room then jumped on the bike and rode up to Monte Titano to explore, the Guaita fortress is the oldest of the three towers constructed on Monte Titano, and the most famous…

We parked the bike up and wandered up the ramparts to the fortress at the top, there were a maze of alleyways and hidden corners to explore…

We trundled up some very steep steps to reach the entrance.
It was built in the 11th century and served briefly as a prison, we purchased our entrance tickets just inside the castle gate, then set off to explore this beautiful castle.

Exploring the well-preserved fortresses and towers one gets a feeling of being transported to bygone ages.

One of the towers also houses a good collection of medieval weapons…

Napoleon gifted San Marino with allegedly four cannons…

We got to climb up the steep narrow ladder up to the main tower, the views from the top were breathtaking, we could see for miles…

Prisoners were kept in the tower rooms, some of the artistic prisoners did drawings on the walls of their cells…

The streets of Monte Titano were packed with tourists and you can clearly see why, with its narrow cobbled streets that wind its way up and around the stunning castles, the resturants were full of tourists enjoying local beers and wine listening to the laughter just made the place feel more relaxed than it already was, there also many souvenir shops laden with perfumes, jewellery, glass souvenirs and many of all course duty free…

We found a restaurant with clear views that looked down to Rimini on the coast and inland over the hilly landscape and made use of their fast Wi-fi to catch up on emails and such…

We ordered our meal of pizza and prawn salad…which was fresh and fantastic, and enjoyed a bottle of wine while watching the sun go down, life doesn’t get any better than this…

The next day after a buffet breakfast on the terrace of our hotel…we decided to go and check out the tram that goes up the mountain, before we packed our bags…

It was an advanced system for its time, being an electric railway, powered by overhead electric cables.
The trains drew power from these cables by means of a pantograph system. The tracks were narrow gauge, which offered advantages in terms of costs and ease of construction given the geographical features of the route, but made the railway incompatible with the Italian network.

The train carriages had a distinctive appearance, being liveried in the national colours of San Marino, blue and white layered horizontally, the service offered is first class and third class seats! Hmm not sure what happened to 2nd class!
There were 17 tunnels, all located within Sammarinese territory, ranging from about 50 m to 800 m in length.

There is also a 1.5 km aerial tramway connecting the city of San Marino on top of Monte Titano with Borgo Maggiore, a major town in the republic..

What a beautiful place, so relaxing…but the city of Roma was calling us and as they say all roads lead to Rome…