The Vatican Museums

Today is our last day in Rome and we decided to visit the Vatican museums, entry to which is normally €15 each but on the last Sunday of each month it is free!!

We took the early bus (8am) from the site and arrived just after 9am to find an enormous queue stretching all the way from the museum entrance along three roads to Piazza San Pietro - over a kilometer long...

We waited in the rain in the slow moving queue for three hours!!! and eventually made it to the museums.  

We arrived at 12am after queuing for 3 hours :-(

The Map room - this was one of the longest ceilings we've ever seen - it must have been over 100m long and it was covered in fresco's

We followed the heaving crowds through the museums until we finally made it to the Sistine Chapel, the ceiling of which is rather impressive but as its not very well lit and is quite high tends to be a little difficult to see. No photo's are allowed in here - mind you that didn't seem to deter a lot of people...

The Capitoline Museums

Today we returned to the Capitoline museums (Palazzo dei Conservatori and Palazzo Nuovo) we had planned to visit earlier in the week and then changed our plans as it had turned out to be a lovely sunny day.

The museums were very expensive to enter at €11 each (although Em's ticket was €9 as they give a reduction for teachers) and we felt they were seriously overpriced for what was a very small collection of paintings and a load of statues discovered around Rome.

Piazza del Campidoglio and the Palazzo dei Conservatori

After eventually finding the way into the second museum - you have to go underground from the first museum - Steve is getting bored with the statues in Palazzo Nuovo.

At last we manged to get a half decent picture of "The Train" graffitti

Friday in Roma

One of the Vatican guards - their uniforms were designed by Michelangelo.... we thought he should've stuck to designing buildings!

Hard Rock Rome - another one to add to the list (and they had Queen memorabilia for Em)

The Spanish Steps

Em the Lion Tamer

Inside Basillica San Petro

Today we got up really early (6.30am) and managed to get into Rome by 9am - we headed straight to the Vatican and were pleased to find that the queue for Basillica San Petro was only just starting to form. It only took a few minutes to pass through the security screening area and into the Basillica.

The High Altar

At 136.5m high this a BIG dome

Some unfortunate people depicted on one of the main entrance doors

Thursday in Roma

Castel Sant' Angello and Ponte Sant' Angello

Em posing by a fountain in Piazza Nabona

A couple of very smart chaps - not sure what the building was but there were lots of guards....

A wooden motorbike

Vatican City

Today we took the metro to Vatican City in order to visit St Peter's and the Vatican museums. When we arrived at around 10.30 the queue for San Petro stretched all of the way around Piazza San Petro so we decided to visit the museums first. The museum entrance was not obvious so we went into the information centre where we discovered that entry to the museums is free on the last Sunday of the month - a saving of €15 each! Guess where we're going to go on Sunday?

Basillica San Petro

The man himself

Bocca della Verita

The Bocca della Verita (the Mouth of Truth) is supposed to snap shut on the hands of liars - It's actually a medieval manhole cover.

Basically you put you hand in here and.....oops....

NEWS FLASH: Em has finally been released from the Bocca della Verita - It took four firemen, a large pot of grease and six hours to free her hand ;-)

The Colosseum

Today we are at the Colosseum in Rome which is the largest Roman Arena in the world.

It was originally three stories high but earthquakes and some dodgy ground at one side have taken their toll.

The inside showing the corridors and pits that were under the ground. We were pleased to see that this arena hadn't bee ruined by adding a stage and seating as the have done in Verona.

The Roman Forum

The Roman Forum is the original centre of the Roman empire. This area consisted of temples, meeting places and markets.

The temple of Saturn

View of the Roman Forum from the Palatino

Some more temple things....

The Arch of Time with the Colosseum in the background - we'll visit there tomorrow :-)

Roma - The Ancient Centre

Today started off wet so we decided to visit the museums on Capitoline hill. We took the scary train (actually it wasn't so bad today as this one wasn't covered in graffitti) and the metro into the city and then walked towards the museums. We passed Trajan's Column on the way and as we walked the rain stopped and the sun came out. We climbed up the Monumento a Vittorio Emannuel II which was free to enter (!) and had great views over the Roman Forum and the city from its terraces. We decided to eat lunch before we went into the museums so we stopped on Capitoline hill for a while. After lunch, which we ate in the sun, we changed our plans and went to the Roman Forum and Palatino instead of the museums - we'll save them for another (perhaps rainy) day.

Trajan's Column.

Detail of the column depicting scenes from the Dacian campaigns.

Romulus and Remus with the wolf that raised them - Romulus killed Remus and went on to found Rome on Palatine Hill.

Em & Steve with the triumphal arch of Septimius Severus and the Roman Forum in the background.

First Impressions of Roma

Today we took the free minibus from our campsite to the railway station at Prima Porta on the outskirts of Rome. The area looked decidedly dodgy and the station itself looked like it was due to be demolished. We bought 7 day tickets and waited on the platform for the train. This dirty looking old thing covered in graffitti arrived - it turned out to be our train!! Inside wasn't much better, the floors were dirty and the whole thing could do with a good clean (or perhaps scrapping). Thirty minutes later we arrived at Flaminio and existed the station into another dodgy looking area with lots of African guys selling fake Gucci handbags and other miscellaneous tat.

We walked to the short distance to the underground and decended into the bowels of the earth. This was much nicer than the "train" - actually it was cleaner, with better trains than the London underground! We took the Red line to the main train station and then got on the Blue line to the Colosseum.

We surfaced from the underground right next to the Colosseum. It was a bit overcast and damp today so we decided to wait for a nicer day before going into the Colosseum and the Roman Forum. Instead we spent the day wandering around getting our bearings and were surprised to find that Rome is actually quite small.

Monumento a Vittorio Emannuel II

The Trevi Fountain

Em throwing coins into the fountain.....

Lazy Sunday Afternoon

We're now in Rome, or more accurately on a campsite just to the North of Rome where we plan to stay for a week or so to visit the city. I'm really looking forward to seeing Rome because the first (and last) time I was here in 2008, I landed at the airport, went to the Quest office which is located in the suburbs for the day and then went straight back to the airport.

Last night we stopped on an Ariee di Sosta on the South side of Rome - it was very quiet with only one other motorhome there when we arrived yesterday afternoon and they left in the early hours of this morning - perhaps trying to tell us something!! Anyway after a little debating and some internet research we decided to circumnavigate the city to come to this site which was recommended to us by a German couple we met at the Ariee di Sosta in Maremma. The site "Happy Camper" is really nice, small and quiet but at least there are some other residents including four other Brits (one caravan and three motorhomes) which are the first we've seen for months! The site has hot showers (Em's delighted to be able to take long hot showers), washing machines (we're running low on clean clothes, towels and bed linen) and a swimming pool (which we won't be using as it's green and cold :-(

Kiki taking a well earned break after 3 months and 3,500 miles on the road!

The Necropoli at Cerveteri

Today we visited the Necropoli at Cerveteri - this is a Eutruscan city of the dead. We parked Kiki in the carpark and walked around the site which is on top of a hill. We looked into the various buildings - some of which needed a torch. We were surprised to find that there was no charge but disappointed that they were quite overgrown and in need of a bit of TLC. A few of them, probably the better preserved one's were unfortunately locked so we couldn't see them.

After about 1/2 mile we approached what appeared to be the end only to find the entrance to the "paid" part which, looking through the fence seemed to be the same thing but with the grass cut. Unsurprisingly we decided to give this a miss and we'd already seen most of it!

Cave woman - seen here sporting Levi's and a Craghopper fleece ;-)

Steve with the wind up torch - how much longer do I need to turn this handle?

One of the Tombs - they are all round with grassy tops

Steve (aka Tomb Raider) finds the door locked.... doh!

Ladispoli

Tonight we are staying in an Ariee di Sosta at Ladispoli - its basically a carpark on the beach for which we are paying €6 - blowing the budget again ;-) There is absolutely nothing here apart from a very average beach..... the only reason we're here is that we're visiting some more tombs tomorrow which are only about 5km away.

This evening we had a spectacular sunset as you can see from the pictures taken from where we are parked for the night.

Eutruscan Fresco's

More pictures from inside the tombs - this was one of the best.

As we left the tombs we spotted this aqueduct, unfortunately it turned out to be only 150 years old and not Roman as we had first thought ;-(