Roma!!!!

After work I ran to Piret's work, the plan was to do a bit of training then go back to train station and head to Liverpool. Our run was cut a little bit short as I was just running in shorts and a T-shirt and it was haling rather hard and I was so bloody cold!!!! Anyway took me about an hour to defrost then we headed for the station. The train ride seemed rather slow could have just been it was so dark outside and couldn’t see a thing. Once we got to station and after talking to some police we decided to walk to our Hotel it didn’t take so too long but was still bloody freezing!! The weather forecast for Sheffield for the weekend was snow and Ice so we were rather lucky to be leaving!!!
We arrived at the Airport with plenty of time thinking there would be a massive line at checking but there was no one so that was a good start. We then went up stairs to the Security check to find a massive queue. It took us like 40min to get past this. They had a fast line if you wanted to pay the 3 pounds. It crazy any little thing where they can possibly make some money they do it!!! Ohh well flights were still cheap!!

We arrived in Rome at 10am, we then had to queue up for 40min for a bus into town so that was kind of stupid too. But we kind of knew that we wouldn’t be able to get into our apartment in till 3pm so we had lots of time to burn. Once in Roma we dropped our bags off at the apartment check in place and then went for our first explore. I wanted to head straight for the Colosseum. Man it was so crazy!!! Such an amazing building!!! It cost us 12 Euros each but was well worth it!!! We probably should have done a guided tour but thought would be more fun to do it at our own speed!!! How anyone could build something like that back then is beyond me!!! Looks like a while ago you could go up way higher on it but now you can only go up one level which still gives a wicked view of both into and look out from the Colosseum. I think we spent around an hour walking around looking at all the different things. Outside there were lots of people trying to sell random things from counterfeit Gucci bags to camera stands. As soon as a police car rolled past they would all bolt it for the nearest cover!!! Then hide till the Police left rather funny.

We then walked from here across the road to the Palatino which is the area with all the ruins of Temples and other Structures, I have to admit my favorite was the “House of Virgins” maybe it was the name but still!! I would have love to have seen all of these structures back in there Prime man would have been such an amazing site!!!! I could keep on talking about all the little things we saw but think I might put some to sleep!!!
We had a look around the Victor Emmanual Monument which was rather large all built for one guy man wish somebody would build me something of that size and to have some horses on the roof would be quality. We then started our walk back to pick up our bags and also key for the apartment. The apartment wasn’t super flash its close to all the man parts so that’s handy. It had 4 rooms which other people would rent out then we would share bathroom and kitchen was quite good cos we never really saw anybody will we were there. We thought we would go out for dinner as it was our first night and we didn’t really know where a supermarket was so thought be more fun to go out. We used our Rome book and found a place nearby which they recommended, it was a Pizzeria which wasn’t too bad, I got the Cabonarra and Piret had a Pizza all helped down by a nice bottle of Italian wine!!!!

The next morning we had to go out for breakfast (Dammit!!!) as we had nothing else to eat, we found this cool little café, I got Crepes and piret had fruit salad had the best coffee since leaving NZ , god it was 100x better than what we get in UK!!!! Once fuelled we started our day of walking!!! We were planning on walking over to the Vatican. We decided to go the longer way there via a few other cool fountains and monuments. The highlight being the Spanish steps and Trevi Fountain. We could see the Vatican from miles away the Church is MASSIVE can understand why it’s the world’s biggest!!! Was pretty cool to walk around such a place, I was blessed by some lady as I took a photo of her and her partner so that was funny. We then ended up talking a bit of a detour which ended up taking us a weeee bit longer than expected. We ended up going down some random track past a couple that looked like there were about to have sex kind of dodgy really. Once safe we carried on to the Piazza Novona which wasn’t quite as good as hoped mainly cos they were trying to fix most of the statues so they were all boxed up!!! Next stop was the Pantheon now that was pretty crazy!!! Just a massive building with a hole in its roof!!!! That night we decided to cook ourselves with some fresh pasta, another Italian bottle of wine was drunk!! We did have some Gelato I had to get the large one just to be a fatty!!!

We started our last day in Rome by going for a nice run. We saw some cool park and thought we would head that way. Well turns out the park was rather boring!!! Not a lot to be seen there and we decided to head back towards town. We went via Piazza Del Popolo which was probably one of my favorite places as it wasn’t so busy it might have been cos it was earlyish in the morning!!! Some random man gave Piret a flower then wanting me to pay for it luckily he took it back cos I think he could tell I didn’t really have any money on me as I was dressed in running gear!! It was rather funny the strange looks we got as we ran past all these tourist spots!!! It’s such a good way to see a place thou as you can cover so much!!! We then went shopping trying to find Xmas presents but yeah we kind of failed!!! Once again we went out for dinner to a restaurant just below our apartment which turned out to be dam nice didn’t drink any wine thou!!!
We then had to catch a bus early back to the Airport to fly home which was rather depressing as work was to follow the next day!!! Ohh well not long till our next holiday I guess!!!

There are tons of photos up on the net aswell to look at!!!