Rome

The cat sanctuary ( on the oldest ruins in Rome) - see if you can spot them...

Spanish steps...Trevi Fountain :-)



Vatican queues...

Rome was everything I expected it to be and more. Words can't describe how you feel as you walk around such a vibrant city, with crazy old ruins scattered at every turn. We actually were shocked when we saw a modern building - it really stands out when every other building you see has been there for hundreds, if not thousands of years. Our favourite site was the Trevi fountain, it is just so HUGE when you see it up close, and of course we threw our coins over our shoulders as the tradition goes, to ensure our return to Rome. We also visited the Vatican and Sistine chapel, ..... after waiting in line in the rain for 4 hours in a queue that ran half way around the Vatican to St Peters Cathedral. Just our luck to turn up in Rome on a weeked where the Tuesday was a public holiday, meaning that everyone was taking Monday off as a 'Pont' day (bridging day) and Rome was as busy as it would be in the heat of summer in August. We went on a walking tour with about 4 other randoms, with a company called Romeing Tours, which was well worth the money.... We had a random Canadian guy who gave us all the juicy bits of history, and all the gruesome bits you'd struggle to find in mainstream history books. His tour was very graphic and colourful to say the least! My favourite part of the tour was when we walked past some enclosed ruins in the middle of the city, including a temple outside of which Ceasar was murdered (et tu brute?). These ruins are now a cat sanctuary where stray cats who lived in the Colosseum were caught, sterilised, vaccinated and rehomed here where they could live out their natural life, lazing about on 2000 year old ruins. It is fully enclosed and the cats are fed by volunteers, and according to our tour guide, have more rights than he did! If anyone is seen to hurt the cats etc they can be imprisoned and fined :)
By this stage of our Italian journey we were hoping to find some more international cuisine in Rome, (i'm dying for some green thai curry) but it wasn't meant to be.... the only culinary choices you'll find throughout Italy is either pizza or pasta, though we did have some really good meals there.
The only downside to our Rome experience was getting our car broken in to outside our hotel on our last night. We'd taken most of our stuff inside so nothing crucial was lost, but they still got away with my brand new, unused leather bag from Florence (boo hoo) and a backpack with not much of interest in it, plus some publications I purchased at my conference in Reggio. Anyway, this hiccup meant that we spent a whole day at the police station and then getting the window repaired, instead of seeing Capri :( Oh well, we were off to Sardinia soon so we'd catch up on the island life soon enough.