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Wednesday 18 March 2009

So, a few weeks ago my girlfriend and I visited Rome for a long weekend, staying at the Hotel Bolivar in the historic centre. We’ve both always wanted to visit as we both like history and museums, although I’m not too keen on the art side of things.

Let me first talk about the Hotel, following some recommendations we asked for a room on the top floor… big mistake. On the top floor is the entire hotels air conditioning equipment, imagine a machine probably 3m x 2m x 2m, constantly coming on and off, making a loud droning sound just outside the patio doors! In the summer I bet the room is lovely, there is a roof patio overlooking the city and we came to learn that although the room is small it was actually quite spacious in comparison to the others in the hotel. The room was also very cold, even for me, so I’ve no idea how my GF managed all night. In the morning we asked to change rooms and this happened without much hassle, we moved into the room directly below the air con unit but at least the noise wasn’t so loud and this room was actually quite warm. The new room was a little more modern, electronic locks and a more recently renovated bathroom although no bath this time. The new room even had a proper double bed instead of the normal 2 twins pushed together. Breakfast was very basic but at least the area was clean and the food fresh. The hotel was relatively cheap considering its location, so although it wasn’t the best, value for money it was still pretty great. We quicky learned that we could pretty much walk to any of the major attractions except the Vatican.

We saw the Pope on Sunday and the thing that struck me the most was the quantity and diversity of all the people there to see him. There were a lot of general tourists like ourselves, loads of religious tourists from various schools and churches. There were even a few priests like this matrix-esque man.




We visited the Trevi fountain more than once as it was a good place for restaurants and ice-cream. The oddest thing were loads of guys trying to get you to pay for a polaroid photo. They also had a scam of giving roses to the females in a couple in the hope to guilt you into paying for a photo. There were people selling mini-tripods and guys tossing a pair of strong magnets in the air that made a quick clicking sound. They were quite annoying really as it’s a romantic place and the last thing you want is some guy trying to force something in your face!

St Peter’s basilica was impressive, if only in the walk to the top. They lie. 360 doesn’t sound like a lot of steps does it? Easy you’d think… Hell no. It’s 360 steps of totally random sizes, shapes, inclinations. At some points you’re almost walking leaning over by 20 degrees. There are spiral staircases, ones with a rope to help pull you up. There are switch-backs and all kinds of fun getting to the top, I dread to think how bad it was before all these staircases were installed, as the majority looked modernish. I did see one set of steps in a disused area that looked about 1” wide and about 10” tall!. The view was quite impressive though.



The Vatican museum is reasonably impressive for me, although the Sistine Chapel was a bit of a disappointment. The whole Vatican museum was relatively sparse of people, but by the time you get to the Sistine, it’s packed with people sitting around the outside. Looking from the ground is also not too great, but the history of it is still special. I was probably more impressed with the castle near the Vatican as I’m always interested in the size and innovation there seems to be in castles and fortifications.

The Colloseum was impressive, but compared to the one we saw in Tunisia, it seemed a bit too restored for my liking, and a bit too restricted. The ruins close by of the Forum and various others around Palatine Hill were good but again, seemed a bit run-down, probably as the stone was stolen to build other buildings. We also went to the Campidoglio museum which had loads of stuff in it, from various ages, a lot of stairs and not enough information about each piece, but it was better than most.



Overall the fact that wherever you turn, there are ancient buildings, all with history is really impressive and gives Rome a special quality. It is a shame that a lot isn’t looked after with such fervour as those in the UK, but there are so many buildings. Everywhere you turn there is a massive old building or church. The Pantheon is an example, in a built up area, suddenly there is a church, one where people still go to mass.

Now the food, oh the food. I’m not skinny and I like my food and Rome definitely delivers. Pizza, proper pizza, mmmmm, just make sure you realise that a 4-cheese pizza just has cheese, no tomato sauce! I had 3 pizzas I think and they were all very tasty, especially the tomato sauce. Their tomato sauce is literally just tomatoes, but they taste so nice! I also had a couple of pasta dishes, and again they were beautiful. The final food-stuff we both enjoyed was the Ice-Cream, it was soft, delicious and they had loads of flavours. We even had dinner one day in Piazza Navona, a posh square with 3 fountains. The food was probably over-priced, but the atmosphere was great.

The final point I want to talk about is Rome’s is lack of signs and information. I know the UK can often have an overload of signs, but Rome seems to have zero. We turned up to the Pantheon and were met with a large mass of people up against some small fences, with a few security guards behind it. It probably took each and every person 10 minutes before they found out there was Mass occurring inside, and probably another 5 or 10 to find out what time it would re-open. And this wasn’t once, we stayed in the area for a while and there was a constant flow of people, all wondering what was going on. A single sign saying “Pantheon closed for Mass, open at 18:30” would have made all the difference. Another example was a museum we were about to enter, literally 2 meters from the door when suddenly a policeman walked to the door and closed it and told us to go away! We thought something like a demonstration was happening as there were loads of police in various uniforms (formal to normal) milling around. Loads of people walked up to the gate and were told to go away, with pretty much no explanation. After a while I asked what the reason and was told the museum was closed. Again, I originally thought this was for some special reason but after some more questioning we found that was the time it closed EVERY DAY! They could install a single way barrier and put up a simple sign saying “closed at 4pm, open again tomorrow”. But no, instead they use a policeman! ARGHH