{edit: I have since fixed this, yay!}
Ok, itinerary for day 3.
- Gatswick airport
- Ebi Restaurant
- Vatican
- around Rome
- Colosseum
- Trevi Fountain
Waking up at 3am to catch the plane to Italy want that bad; I think it's because I'm still on Australian time (that's 12pm I think), and the fact that I slept at 6pm the night before.
Breakfast consisted on hotdog and a milkshake, banana and passionfruit. I think you'd like it.
The flight to Italy was about 2 hours, wasn't too bad - slept through most of it. But it was on British Airways again, so the service was as crappy as usual. Remind me of that when we decide to go to Europe; don't fly on British Airways.
Arriving in Italy, I finally felt like I was in Europe. I think it's because London was still too much like Melbourne; everyone spoke English, the signs were English, the people were English. There were differences sure, but not as much as when I stepped off the plane into sunny Italy.
The first meal on Italy soil was less than impressive though. We pull up in front of a Japanese restaurant and I thought, "cool, Japanese."
What we got instead was food of the Chinese inclination. And not even good stuff either. One dish was fish, one was pork, the rest was veggies. Tofu, beans, cabbage. The dishes were small and the tastes were bland. I didn't expect much from the tour, but that meal was pretty bad. I was "physically" full when I got back to the bus, but not in anyway satisfied. If you'd been there, I don't think you'd be too fussed on the food either.
Things are much older in Italy, that's to be expected, what I didn't expect was the lack of new buildings. No new shining office buildings front by glass. Everything is hidden behind the facade of old buildings.
From what our tour guide told us, the Italian government really supports the idea of preserving historic monuments. This includes the buildings in the city.
You can redecorate the inside of a building to your heart's content, but you need to keep the outside of the building the same.
We do the same in Melbourne for some of the buildings, but not to this extent.
I guess this keeps the tourists coming.
Remember how I said the Westminster Abbey was less grandiose than I thought it would be? Well in Rome it's all the opposite. Everything is so much larger and more impressive.
The courtyard in front of St Peter Basilica was massive and so was the church itself. The ceiling just goes up and up, the statues are all huge and the altar in the centre of the church just towers over everyone (photos in the DSLR - show you later).
You could apparently climb up into the dome of St Peter's Basilica, but the line was huge. When we go to Rome, we should try climbing up.
Unfortunately they had an event going on at the Vatican that night, so there were a lot of machinery and crew around. It detracted from the scenery, and crowded up a lot of the open spaces, otherwise I'd think the place would be even more imposing.
Next stop was the Colosseum.
The day had gotten pretty hot while we were visiting the Vatican, so I decided to leave my purple-checkered-hoodie-thingy in the bus.
We barely got to the Colosseum when it started raining, big fat drops that hits your head and roll down your scalp.
Luckily a few of the other tour members had umbrellas with them (originally to share from the sun), and we all shared and huddled.
The tour guide told us not to worry, it's a passing rain and it'll be over soon. She said that we only need to worry if the sky suddenly turns red. If that happened, she'd rush us all back to the bus.
The sky did clear up momentarily and we were able to take some pretty fantastic photos.
We didn't have time to go into the Colosseum, just took photos from outside. Again there was a huge line, but I think we could tackle it if we go there?
Last major sightseeing stop was the Trevi Fountain. This was a real surprise for me. I seriously did not think it was so big. When you stand right at the end of the fountain, the entire monument just rises up over you.
And the crowds, there were people EVERYWHERE. Tourists lefts, right and centre. Tour guides waved their little totem sticks around - did you know, tour guides don't wave flags anymore, instead they'd have their own little totem, soft plushy whale hanging from the end of what looks like a retractable blackboard pointer, sticks with streamers tied to the end, but the most popular are retractable umbrellas extended but not opened.
Our tour guide has a bright pink retractable umbrella, but the case around the end is in the shape of a bear. Our guide is really tiny, so we just follow the bear through the crowds most of the time.
Apparently you can make a wish at the fountain by throwing coins in it. One coin means you wish you can come back to the fountain again, two coins mean you wish for true love/love to be successful. Our tour guide warned us against throwing three coins though, because that would mean you wish to be separated with the one you're with now.
Guess how many coins I threw in?
During our free time around the fountain, Maggie and I ate some gelato at a place a friend recommended. I chose two flavours, honey and ginger & cinnamon. The ginger and cinnamon was different, but I didn't think it was any better than the ice cream place in Doncaster. Perhaps we didn't go to one that was that great.
Then, while we were in search of a coffee place for Maggie, we saw some street stalls selling watercolour paintings.
I don't know why I ignored the first two stores we passed by but I stopped to look at the third. Perhaps it was fate, but I was really captured by his paintings. They were very detailed, even the tiny ones.
The subject matter were always scenes around Rome, the majority being of the major sightseeing spots, but each painting was of a slightly different angle, different time of day, different colour palette.
The painter's name is Federico Cafieri - I spelt his name wrong on Facebook - and he very kindly explained his pieces and recommended some of the ones he liked best and why. He knew I was only looking at ones of specific size so he pulled out a collection which he thought was best.
I bought one and Maggie bought one. But now that I think about it, I should have bought three. The size I bought was a collection of three small paintings arranged in a horizontal layout, if I had three such paintings, I could arrange them in a layout on my bedroom wall.
Oh well, I asked him for his web address and he did say he accepts orders, so I could always contact him for more.
Since buying his art, I've looked at other watercolour pieces (in Florence though, not Rome) and none of them has such and attention to detail.
Location:Le Crete,Italy
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