Big day out: Rome

So, today we popped in on: the Pantheon, Trevi Fountain (see pic below), the altar of the Fatherland (quite frightening) and the beautiful basilica next door (not frightening at all), plus the Vatican museum - home of the Sistine Chapel.

Sounds action packed, but wasn't too frenzied, and left plenty of time for lunch and dinner out - yes, alright, also an afternoon nap.  Trastevere is a great place to stay - it's walking distance to everything and a stone's throw (admittedly not if thrown by me) from the Tiber.  Also, in this part of Rome the car is not king, coming in a poor third (or fourth) after pedestrians and assorted two-wheeled vehicles.

I don't understand how fancy Italian shoes became a thing.  All these cobbles and pot holes should have made it home of the sensible shoe.  I'm happy to report that the bata bullets are performing well.

The weather is gorgeous, more summer than spring, and it was lovely to wander all day with no need for jackets or layers.

In between visiting cultural hot spots Geoff did some hunting and gathering, so we're becoming fairly well provisioned at the apartment.  Breakfast will be at home tomorrow, and we have plenty of snacks.  It would be fair to say that we're not starving yet.

Another charming aspect of our loft is the nightlife.  The good people of Trastevere do sleep, but not a lot.  We have double glazing, but as I write (late on Friday evening) it seems no match for the good times in progress outside.  Our host has supplied us with ear plugs...

Early, Saturday.

Good night's kip and now it's just the bloody doves and pigeons carrying on.  There is probably a bit of carnage below, judging by the occasional crash of empty bottles being emptied into rubbish trucks.  We're not yet decided if we'll visit the colosseum today - definitely back over the bridge to campo di fiore and most likely piazza navona.  Nothing is booked so we can suit  ourselves.

Last night we visited the vatican museum.  They do late night Fridays for part of the year and we had tickets for 7pm.  Only half an hour's light queuing was needed - along with a hundred or so other online bookers - until the massive doors were opened and we streamed inside.  For some reason we chose the huge spiral walk way up to the galleries - unlike everyone else who sprinted up the escalator.  There was a collection of pacific and melanesian carvings and boats displayed.  So we enjoyed those on behalf of our part of the planet.  Later, in the map galleries, we saw 16th century world maps that were great on Europe, okay with Africa, hazy on the eastern coast of the Americas - then nothing.  Nothing to disturb our neck of the woods except fish and clouds spouting wind.

Having taken that winding path into the museum we then pretty much bolted for the Sistine Chapel.  Amazingly we only had to share it with a few dozen others.  At one point, I was alone in the far end of the chapel.   So, all up we were pretty lucky and able to spend a good long time seated and standing, taking it all in.  Geoff discovered that you get the best view lying down, causing me to jump around anxiously in case the guards shouted at him (like they do to covert photographers), for being disrespectful, etc, but no one noticed.  We were also there at the perfect time to catch this glimpse of the city from the vatican buildings - good spotting, G.   

We've posted heaps more pics on facebook, twitter and instagram. Hopefully you've found them there.