We spent the morning at the Vatican with a walking tour guide. It was amazing, and I have now seen the Cistine Chapel, the amazing paintings and the grounds. The best thing about the tour was we got to skip the lines, which, I kid not, were out and around the outer walls of the city. It was crazy.
When we were in Saint Peters, the thieves made themselves known. Poor Jodie. She and I were walking side by side inside the church when we head her bag fall to the ground. We both looked down and Jodie grabbed it up. We looked at the strap and it had been cut. The most frightening and amazing thing was that her bag was under her jacket. Luckily she still had her bag. It had all of her money, credit cards and passport. After the church we headed out to a pizzeria for lunch. It was lovely. They have pizzas, huge and hot and you point at the ones you want. They cut you a slice and add it to the scales. You pay for the weight. 1.50 Euro per 100 grams. It was quite enterprising and very busy. Once we had our pizza we went outside and sat on the stone steps to eat it. That was when Sunny, my roomie, realised that her wallet was gone. Her bag had been zipped open while she had been looking at pizzas and her credit cards and money was gone. Both Jodie and Sunny’s incidences happened within half an hour of each other.
Once I finished my pizza I joined my fellow contikians in some gelato. Fast am I becoming a fan of gelato, chocolate gelato... mmm...Seriously, I am going to need to go on a carrot stick diet when I get back. Right now, I am enjoying it, but when I get back...
Everyone sort of split up after that. Most of us went to the Colosseum. It was fantastic to be back. I don’t think I truly remembered how magnificent it was till I once more stood before it, imagining the cheers of the crowds and the clash of steel. It is so strong, the feeling and sounds, that it is almost real. I acted as a bit of a tour guide for some of the others on the tour, which was fun. We stayed there for about an hour and decided to head to the Roman Forum. Once more, I was thwarted. Last year I missed out because we didn’t have time. This year, I missed out because we arrived at the gates at 3.31pm and they let the last people in at exactly 3.30pm. We begged but they were adamant that we could not go in. Because that was a fail, we decided to head up to the top of the huge monument and museum. We took the glass elevator right to the top and could see over the entire of Rome at sunset. It was simply breathtaking.Once it was dark, we went back down and found a restaurant near the Metro line. Dinner and tips later, we caught the train back...
It was an interesting way to end the day. Firstly, we had to catch the train to the very last stop and when we got out we couldn’t see the bus we were supposed to catch. One quick conversation later and a lot of hand gestures, we were told that the bus was “that way”. Jen, our tour guide, had not told us this, mostly because she didn’t know. It was the first time that Contiki had stayed at that hotel. At least there was 8 of us to get lost together, including some men folk that like to weigh lift. We got turned about a few times, and for the life of us, we couldn’t see the bus stops anywhere. Eventually we say it and boosted towards it only to watch it drive away. We then had to wait about twenty minutes more for the next bus to come past. The bus driver was really helpful because we had no idea where our stop was or what it was called. We showed him the address and he did the rest.
We were knackered after that. It had been another long day. There have been many, and tomorrow is New Years Eve. Crazy.
