Rome wasn't built in a day

Roma, wasn’t built in a day. And we weren’t going to see it in one either.
We arrived in Rome about 1.30pm on a bus from Siena. A short taxi ride and we found our hotel easily enough, the first floor in a multiple storey building. Each floor was dedicated to a different hotel. The top floor was called Fawlty Towers. This struck fear into us as we climbed the stairs to our hotel and things didn’t look to be going any better when the cleaning lady checked us in and had to turn on the lights in the hotel as we walked through.
It became apparent we were probably the only ones staying there. But it was cheap, clean, and much, much nicer than our ridiculously expensive hotel in Siena. We were also within spitting distance of the main train station, Termini.
We unceremoniously dumped our bags and decided to hit the city. Our Contiki tour was to start the next evening at 6pm and had an optional excursion of the forum and colosseum. However, on my last tour which also had this option, the tour did not go inside either the forum or the colosseum but walked around the perimeter. So I felt it was worth us doing these things ourselves that way we wouldn’t miss out on going inside and spending as long as we wanted on photos.
A short metro trip turned into near disaster when a pickpocket got busy in Sam’s shorts just before our stop. Luckily his wallet was in his other pocket and I saw the guy just in time to slap his hand away. Despite this, he went back in for another go and as I went to hit him again, the metro stopped and we walked out. Sam had been pretty much unaware of what had happened and when I told him he burred up, telling me that if someone else tried to do it he would break their fingers.
Yeah, OK babe. (Right of reply: I had noticed his hand brush past my pocket - I was annoyed I did not for a moment think it was happening to me - for weeks I have been wary and it only took my guard to slip for just a few moments.)
So, we popped out at Colosseo, the metro station just across the road from the Colosseum. Again I tried to get Sam to close his eyes so I could lead him to stand under this amazing structure but I was too late. He had caught a glimpse of it as we came through the turnstiles at the station - that’s how close it is - and expressed that he was quite “under whelmed” by the sight of it.
OK, it was 2pm, we were a bit hungry, having only just got off the bus after a three-hour trip and it was hot. Hot. Hot. Hot.
And the pickpocket incident was festering away under Sam’s skin, coming to the boil every few minutes with a comment about breaking someone’s fingers.
But, it’s the colosseum! How anyone could be under whelmed by it baffled me to tears.
So we got some very expensive pizza, sat in the colosseum’s shadow and watched the hawkers flog hats, tripods, scarves and all manner of souvenirs.
The line for the colosseum extended out the main entry and it was too hot to stand in the sun, plus it would take hours.
Sam said he thought it was the harsh early afternoon light making the colosseum appear so unimpressive so we decided to do the forum first and head back to the colosseum later.
During my previous two visits to Rome, entry to the forum has been free. You could walk in as you pleased from early in the morning until about sunset. As we approached the gate, it became apparent that fewer and fewer things in this world are free. Entry to the forum now cost and you had to buy your ticket from the gate on the far side to where we were, on the western side of the Via Sacra, the main path through the forum.
Disappointed in this blatant money-making scheme, I reluctantly decided to pay for it when we discovered it also included entry to the colosseum, enabling us to skip the long, long queue we had seen before.
But as I said, it was hot and the heat was getting the better of both our tempers.
Sam was frustrated he hadn’t read up on any of the history of Rome and the forum and I was disappointed in his reaction to it.
And I could appreciate his position. To anyone unfamiliar with Roman history, the forum is a valley full of old bricks - parts of columns, tumbled stone, vague pathways and brown, boring bricks.
Even though I had been there twice before, it stretched my brain to the limit to try and remember all that I could about it for Sam’s benefit. We got the huffs and the puffs and darted from shady spot to shady spot trying to get a feel for what it must have looked like 2000 years ago. It really is a stretch of the imagination.
We wandered up to the Palatine, one of the four hills the forum was founded between and where the most famous and prestigious Roman families lived in ancient times.
There was a lot of steps, hills, uneven ground and enough generally annoying things to make us more than a bit snappy at one another.
At the top of what had been Emperor Tiberius’ house, a tour guide was speaking to a group in English. It was not difficult to overhear his commentary as he described the ruins below and the buildings they had been before. It was somewhat helpful but still frustrating for Sam, I felt.
A wander over the hill and we checked out what we could of what had been the Emperor Augustus’ house and his wife Livia as well as the stadium.
By this time it was about 5pm and we decided to leave the forum and check out the colosseum in the softer light of the afternoon.
We bypassed the long line with our tickets and walked straight in. An exhibition called Gladiatores was showing on the first level of the colosseum and we spent a few minutes wandering its displays and reading up on the structure and about the men and beasts that fought there before actually stepping out into the sunlight inside.
Finally, Sam was impressed. Again, you do need to use some imagination when viewing the colosseum but this has been aided with a reconstruction of the wooden floor and some of the marble tiers that spectators would have sat on.
By this stage my feet were hurting and I was cursing that stupid paver in Siena where I had slipped and broken my thongs. My other shoes, packed more for evening wear than for the day, offered me no support and little cushioning.
We took all the usual snaps and Sam did his artistic thing.
We walked back down to the lower level and tried to imagine staring up at the 50,000-odd spectators that would have sat above. It looks a lot bigger looking down into its interior than staring up.
Exiting out the other side to where we entered, we debated whether or not to return to the hotel for the night and find dinner around there, or have dinner close to the colosseum and wait for the sun to go down and the lights in the colosseum to come on. It really is a spectacular sight.
We opted to wait, unsure whether or not we would get the chance to return once the tour had started and found a restaurant on the other side of the road to the colosseum.
Considering the remarkable view, it wasn’t ridiculously over priced and I personally could stare at the colosseum for hours.
So we ate and as the light faded, chose what we thought was the best time to get our night snaps, when there was still a touch of light in the sky enough to provide a contrast to the structure.
But our waiter was having none of that.
Try as I might to get his attention and our bill, it took at least 15 minutes, with each one passing so did the amount of his tip and the light.
Finally, when we had paid, the light was gone and it was full dark and cursing the waiter we headed back across to the colosseum to see what could be salvaged of the night.
I had also forgotten the tripod, making long exposures near impossible unless you have something to rest the camera body on.
Still we managed a few OK shots, admired the view and decided to call it a day.
Back on the metro and hands firmly on our bags and pockets, we made it back to the hotel. The next day we would have to check out and find our way to our Contiki start point.
Alysia (August 17)

Contiki!
In a few hours time we would meet our Contiki crew but for the time being Rome was ours to conquer. If we could get our act together. The brief was simple enough: get from our cheap hotel to the Contiki digs.
Trouble was I had got out on the wrong side. Maybe I should have just stayed in bed. At my irritable best we went to an internet café to confirm Contiki’s directions weren’t quite right. Already, I was anxious to be checked in. Not even hunger would slow me down and I would drag Alysia kicking and screaming if need be.
“Just put the bags down and we will eat here,” Alysia reasoned.
But I would have none of it. Here’s the taxi and here we go. If I could get my seatbelt on. It wasn’t an unpleasant ride either. There was no talk of politics, just rugby, to my surprise. I thought football was all soccer in Italy. Turns out I was wrong.
“Soccer is a gentleman’s game played by thugs,” our driver explained, “Rugby is a thug’s game played by gentlemen.”
I couldn’t disagree with that. And he wasn’t stingy with compliments regarding the Australian team. But the English?
“Johnny Wilkinson, pft,” he said, “the English are rubbish,” implying his boot had carried the whole nation.
Despite the enthusiastic driving we made it to the four-star hotel without a problem. The fare didn’t sting too badly either. In any case, we just couldn’t bear the alternative of catching the underground with our bags and changing tubes and blah blah blah. We bid our taxi farewell and walked through the hotel’s revolving door (how fancy) and asked to check in. Fortunately even though the room was not ready we could leave our bags. Unfortunately we were now snappier than a pair of starved crocodiles. “No worries,” I thought. The concierge would point me in the direction of the city centre and food. Perhaps she interpreted my request a little too literally and pointed me, us, in the general direction. And I failed to pay much attention to her brief instructions on the public transport. So off we walked and walked until we were deeper into the suburbs. Alysia was not happy and neither was I. Back we marched to the hotel giving each other a little space on the way. In vain we walked in the other direction to find food. Instead I found the underground. So we got on. And when we got off we were at the Spanish Steps. Alysia, by this stage, had had enough of me and sat at the steps like she had three years earlier. I was so hungry the McDonalds ban was declared void and I stormed off following the signs. A few minutes later I skulked back in defeat to Alysia. Somehow we soon put all the back biting behind us to go and eat. By the time the food started to digest we were putting the morning behind us and starting afresh.
First we bought a guidebook to Rome and made our way to the Trevi Fountain. Through the vast crowd we waded toward the water and absorbed its beauty. As per the custom I tossed in a coin to ensure my return to Rome. On we walked into the heat and out of a narrow little street we hit the Pantheon, Rome’s oldest temple. Half the façade was hidden behind scaffolds but the interior was exposed for all to see. What an awe-inspiring building. The domed roof is an engineering masterpiece, unsupported, built 2000 years before computers. The Oculus is of course the focal point with light flooding in: the Romans wanted nothing standing between them and the gods. And being smart enough to build such an unsupported dome you can bet they had a solution to rain water coming in. Yes, they formed the marble floor in a convex way to help that water drain away. For a while we sat and soaked in the atmosphere.
Walking away from the Pantheon was difficult in its own right but even trickier given the heat. Our feet were on fire and I thought my shoes might melt onto the footpath. I was determined, however, to find the Castel Sant’ Angelo. Every boy loves a good Roman fort. But this was not originally a castle; it was a tomb for Saint Angelo but was converted into a fortress against the invading barbarians. Inside I found a reconstruction of how one of its armouries might have looked. Deeper within were rooms added by Pope Paul III, from the renaissance, including frescos said to reflect his character and sensibilities without being a blatant monument to himself. Outside, on the roof, lay grand vistas of the city. Nearby, St Peter’s Basilica and in the distance, Monument Hill - where all the wealth plundered by Rome’s foreign legions was deposited. I soaked it all in briefly then descended the stairs to find Alysia waiting patiently outside in the shade. It was time to get the underground back to the hotel and meet our Contiki brothers and sisters.
Luckily for us we made our way to the hotel when we did because the meeting with our tour manager was in fact an hour earlier than advertised. We had just enough time to drop the bags in the room and make it just in time. We were seated only a couple of minutes when the tour manager came in and began the briefing. Her name was Katia and she was Italian, born in Venice actually. “A crazy country,” she kept reminding us. She would become our Contiki Mamma and us one big family.
At about the point where everyone was at information overload Katia wanted to check our passports and for us to fill in forms. This was done in turns which gave some of us a chance to chat. That’s how we met Peter, from Canada. There were a lot of Canadians on our tour. Peter had just come from Denmark staying with friends and was keen to learn some more about the Mediterranean, he being of Greek heritage. Alysia, Peter and I all hoped it would be a great 10 or more days. With the paperwork done we could now go and clean up for dinner and get our teeth into what promised to be a crazy week and a bit.
At dinner we caught up with Peter again and met his room mate Ryan from Kansas City. This was Ryan’s fifth Contiki and he was only 25. One of those trips was along the east coast of Australia. The other guys at our table were Australians Greg and Alwyn, taking leave from foreign duties with the Army.
“Where are you from,” Greg asked.
“Well, you probably haven’t heard of it,” Alysia started, “we live in a little place called Tamworth.”
“Yeah, I know Tamworth,” Greg said, “I grew up there.”
After dinner the Contiki family jumped on a bus and headed into the city to see … the Spanish Steps and the Trevi Fountain. Had we wasted our time today? Not really. This would be a great chance for me to see the attractions in a different light - even if Alysia had seen these attraction in day, night and whatever other scenario two occasions previously. It was an enjoyable evening which included a couple of sly beers while walking the streets. But after such a long day falling into bed was even better.
Sam (August 18)