EU Holiday, August 31 (Rome Is Sunburning)

I had to locate a bus stop to get me to the airport at about 7am in the morning, I just missed out as one drove by, so got stuck waiting in the cold for another 20 minutes. Possibly because I was still sick, my ears were in a whole lot of pain and felt really blocked up after the plane flight to Rome. Rome easily became the hottest city I've been in so far, walking around with all my luggage was the last thing I wanted to do, so lucky I only had to waste an hour before hotel checkin.

I had a few hours to go before the booking time for Colosseum was due, so went for some exploring. Soon enough I realised Rome really is quite a small city, I was able to cover so much on foot, in the heat, without any trouble. First stop was Piazza Della Republica which is just an intersection with some landmark in the city, piazza means plaza and not pizza I suppose. It seems like a bit of a waste to me to put something nice in the middle of traffic.

Piazza Della Republica and some basilica that needs a bit of work.

As I mentioned, I thought it would take a while to walk down to the Colosseum so I headed in that direction. I reached Foro Traiano which is just before the Colosseum, only to realise it took me less than 30 minutes, not 2 hours. I turned off to go see the Trevi Fountain instead. By this point I'd already discovered the streets in Rome are insane. There's almost no traffic lights, instead there are just pedestrian crossings and you have to make the first move to jump out in the street and cause the traffic to stop, otherwise they'll just keep going. They have no problem putting the crossings in dangerous places either, I was trying to cross a street and there's all these motorcycles and scooters coming down a hill and around a bend that I can't even see coming. It works bad in the opposite too, around the main bus/train station called Termini, the traffic can barely move because the pedestrian crossings are almost permanently in use.

So, I assumed that Trevi Fountain would be pretty standard stuff, because how great could a fountain be ? Actually it was pretty great. A bunch of different streets lead into this small crossing (not a fan of that layout again) and then there's this big carved wall and large fountain, very nicely done. Like the Grand Place in Brussels, maybe I was surprised as much as I was impressed. A couple of streets over is the Pantheon, Rome edition. It's a pretty recognisable building with the columns and triangular top. You can also walk in a take a look around, but it is very crowded. Another couple of streets over is another plaza, Piazza Navona. This is more like an actual plaza, with a large open area and a couple of monuments. Not bad but nothing special either.

The great Trevi Fountain.

To every god.

Inside the Pantheon.

Obelisk Of Light.

I planned to make one final stop at Campo De Fiori which was listed on my tourist map but arrived to find nothing there. So back towards the Colosseum instead for the time I had booked in for. These times don't really seem to mean a lot, I think all it really means is that you have a prebooked ticket so you don't have to stand in line, but they don't want everyone to turn up at once and thereby defeating the purpose of prebooking in the first place. So I turned up about a half hour early but it didn't seem to mean anything. At first I thought I had pointlessly booked a ticket, because both lines were empty, but then I realised there was a ticket line inside the outer wall of the Colosseum. It always feels rewarding to have spent a couple of minutes booking the ticket and being able to walk past a half hour queue for tickets.

Passing by the Roman Forum.

You get to walk around the lower and upper levels as you like, but you can't go out onto the middle, because as you'll see in the photos there isn't really a surface down there. I don't know the history of the Colosseum and how it's been maintained, but it was a bit sad that it's in such bad shape. In all, you probably don't gain a lot from being inside the Colosseum that you don't get from being outside and still seeing it in person, but you might as well check it out since you're right there.

Inside the Colosseo.

The ticket to the Colosseum also provided access to the Roman Forum and Palatine Hill. This is the area right next to the Colosseum which contains a bunch of lesser know structures and relics, but in a similar state of disrepair. Walking up Palatine Hill was a killer at the end of a long, hot day but you get a good view over the top of the Colosseum when you're done.

Back at the Roman Forum.

From Palatine Hill.

TV in Italy is really crap once again, I was stuck watching BBC World channel, at least they had a special on the football transfer window for an hour. They didn't even have Eggheads.