Ambling Ramblings #11-Roman Ruins

Rome, an ancient and historic city, once the centre of the world and the capital of one of the greatest ancient empires, one of the birthplaces of western civilization and a significant part of early Church history. And I had to fit all of this into just 3 days!
Rome was an adventure from before we even arrived. Our train from Pisa was stopped in Grosetto (a little more than half way to Rome) as the trains weren't going any further due to the snow and ice on the tracks-I guess this is what happens when you're travelling in Europe during a heavy cold snap! Rome apparently has not had snow like this since 1986 and it severely disrupted the city, so I'm glad we arrived the day after the snow storm, and not during it! We were transferred to buses into Rome, thus arriving almost an hour later than planned. The task of finding our hotel room has always been quite difficult as I am severely navigationally challenged and yet am being left in charge of directions! thankfully, an information official noticed our bewilderment at being in yet another new city and gave us a map and pointed us in the right direction from the station, however, we still managed to get quite lost and it wasn't until after if made a very graceful entrance into Rome by landing on my back after slipping on some ice, thus ending up like a turtle upside down on the ground that we found our street located the hotel. We are very good at making ourselves quite at home in a new room and very quickly end up with our belongings strewn from one end of the room to the other!
Getting lost on our first night apparently not enough of an adventure for us, as the next morning we set out to explore and proceeded to get very lost quite quickly (travel tip: when exploring a new city, stay on your map and don't walk off it! It makes finding yourself very difficult indeed). After walking up and down streets and trying to figure out where we were and where we should be going for almost 2 hours, we finally found the right street and made it back to our hotel to dry off (yes, I'd fallen over....again....Rome looks different from the ground looking up-I just wanted a different perspective on all the sights!) and then set off in the opposite direction, this time following our map and ended up in Old Rome, seeing the Colosseum (which truly is colossal and magnificent) the Roman forum and other ancient ruins. I found it quite surreal to be walking in places where the early Christians lived and were persecuted and martyred and where the apostle Paul wrote one of his letters to. Also just seeing all these places that I'd read so much about and studied for so many years was quite amazing. Rome is a city that I would love to go back to one day to explore further (although it was exciting being there with the snow, it meant a lot of things were shut so we couldn't go into them this time).
Our second day in Rome was largely spent in the smallest sovereign state in the world, Vatican City and exploring St Peter's Basilica (which we didn't have to wait in a line for-contrary to what people trying to sell us tours were telling us), a walk along the Tiber River, a stop in front of the Castel Sant' Angelo, wandering across some very petty bridges and then into the Vatican Museum. The museum was another place that I could spend weeks in and not see enough! The Map Gallery, with huge topographical maps in it was one of my favorite galleries, but I loved just walking though the corridors, many of which had ceilings that were more fascinating than the art on the walls! The Sistine Chapel was quite crowded, which made it difficult to absorb the grandeur or Michelangelo's interpretation of Creation and The Last Judgement and although his work is not my favorite, seeing it in person was still a remarkable experience.
Our last full day in Rome involved a search for the elusive Trevi Fountain (we had looked for it the day before and got lost-again) but we finally found it and it was well worth the search, it's almost more of a waterfall than a fountain! We also went to the Pantheon which is very well preserved and compared to many of the other churches and cathedrals we have visited, was quite ,simply decorated on the inside, which I appreciated and found to be quite beautiful.
Sightseeing thus ended and we spent the remainder of the day windo shopping-the streets are lined with designer shops, most of which had lots of sales on so it was fun to go in and look at some very fancy things. We ended up in the high end of town where we found shops with coats on sale for 7000 euros ( yes, seven thousand is correct)-a little bit out of our budget! We retreated back to the main streets and stumbled across a lovely little gelati shop which we just had to try! I had hazelnut (which is a very popular flavor and well deserves to be!) and nutella (something that is also very popular-you can buy it in 4 kg jars here!) and managed to eat a good portion of my scoops, although the dairy was a bit much for me after a while! It was certainly yummy enough to make it worth it though.
This is as far south as we come before we head home, so we head north next, but will still be in Italy for a few days, but exploring other parts of this beautiful country.

Ambling Ramblings #10-Passing through Pisa

We paused in Pisa to pass through and eat platefuls of pizza and pasta and patter down pavements and peer at postcard-worthy places (can you tell I'm an English teacher with all the alliteration in that sentence!).
Our accommodation, although located on a main street and so therefore fairly noisy, was filled with Italian rustic charm, with a frescoe on the ceiling of our room, antique decor throughout, lace curtains, patterned tiles on the floors, lovely old furniture and a very quaint feel to it. Compared to my impressions of France, Italy is very unassuming, quaint and charming- there are still old buildings everywhere and beautiful sights to see, but somehow it's not as pretentious or overbearing, it's far mo subtle and I feel that there is more of an adventure to experience in peeling back the layers and becoming familiar with this place so full of history from so long ago! We quite easily found the famous (or infamous, depending on your viewpoint of this architectural failure turned national monument!) Leaning Tower of Pisa, which is surrounded by a very ancient looking wall and a lovely old church. Located nearby is a statue of Romulus and Remus with the she-wolf, eliciting an ancient history lecture from me to my poor traveling buddy (she has had to put up with me being fascinated by all this 'old stuff' for a week already now!). I found Pisa to be a lovely place for a stopover and enjoyed our day of shopping and wandering the cobble-stoned alleys, through old buildings and across a quant bridge over the river. Now all I need to do is improve my Italian vocabulary and then I'll be better able to communicate here!

Ambling Ramblings #9- A Note from Nice

The French Riviera is certainly a place that I would love to come back to and visit for longer...the views of the deep and brilliant blues and greens of the Mediterranean, the snow capped mountains, red rocky outcroppings not the ocean and a beautiful sunrise combined to create a most picturesque scene. Not to mention all the farms and old buildings, and even the odd castle and fort ruins along the way! I have come to a point in my life where 3 degrees celsius feels warm and I start shedding layers! Arriving in Nice, we found our hotel after only getting a little bit lost and have decided that this is our favorite hotel thus far! Not only did we get a choice of rooms on arrival, but the room we chose is huge compared to our other ones. It is an attic style room on the top floor with a skylight window and quite a big bathroom. We went for a walk around Nice and found the ocean and enjoyed some time in the sunshine! We went for a climb up more stairs to some viewing platforms to see out over the ocean as well as over Nice and to the snow capped mountains in the background-lots of good photo opportunities as it was truly beautiful! Back on a train today to the next country on our list. Au Revoir France!