The last word

I'm going to get Rome out of my system in this one post so I can get on with proper blogging - back to being a bitch and a half.

I've posted a load of photos on my Webshots site for anybody who's particulalrly interested. I hope the ones that have been selected for this post will give a suitable flavour that will convince anybody to try to get to Rome sometime in their life; it's an unbelievable place and well worth it.


Photo diary day 1: Main touristy bits at night
After getting completely lost, we stumbled on the Piazza Navona, which is home to the fountains of del Moro and del Nettuno at either end, with La Fontana dei Fiumi (the one with the obelisk) in the middle. You never tire of seeing fountains or obelisks in Rome, good job really.

Piazza Navona is a magnet for immigrant salesmen selling fake fashion items and cheap tat. Kind of takes the gloss off things since you can't actually see much of square once they've congregated.

Off to the Trevi Fountain next.

It's always recommended to take a little map with you; we got a little tired of getting lost (and stumbling on the Pantheon) trying to find the Trevi - we'd been in Rome for 5 hours when I first had the urge to strangle my sister. By the end of the evening, I had gone over her demise in my mind at least 12 times. I had a headache and my contacts were very, very dry...


Day 2: St Peter's Basilica & the Vatican Museum
Well, I suppose it has to be done while you're there and this turned out to be the highlight of the trip - I always felt like going back to check a bit more of it out. It is very special.

It's an incredible place, even for a completely soulless athiest like me - this was helped by the excellent guide that we stumbled on completely by accident; without his knowledge, I wouldn't have had a clue about any of the stuff in there.

After the Vatican Museum, a trip to the top of the dome of the Basilica was called for. It was like a scene from The Omen: the nearer I got to the top, the closer the storm clouds got, culminating in a massive fucking storm as we were at the top of the bloody place. Still, if you're going to get struck by lightning, that's the place for it to happen. Was thrilled to find that the souvenir shop was staffed by nuns, how top notch is that?

Got absolutely piss-wet through in the torrential rain on the way back to the hotel. Not happy.

Number of occasions on which I wanted to throttle Anna = 7


Day 3: Pantheon, Palazzo Venezia, Ancient Rome, Trastevere, then back to Ancient Rome, followed by a week in a wheelchair
The pictures say it all. We didn't even bother going into the Colloseum because the queues were too long. That's right, visited Rome and couldn't be fucked to go into the Colloseum - it's just a load of old ruins. Walked fucking miles and almost died.

Number of occasions on which I wanted to throttle Anna = 3

Half way through this post and it's a complete cunting pain making all these bastard photo montages in Photoshop. I don't know how people can be bothered!


Day 4: More traipsing and getting lost
Went back over most of the bits already seen at night time, plus the Villa Borghese, Piazza del Popolo, Piazza del Spagna and all that shit (it was here that Anna had the MacFight).

Number of occasions I wanted to kill Anna = 23


Some general night time photos
Fucking Flickr is arsing me off big time. Slow pile of crap. Doesn't it realise that some of us are up for work early in the morning and it's way past our bedtimes?