Rome, Italy, Part 2

On our second day visiting Rome, we walked in town, visiting Plazza de la Republica, fontena del Triton (unfortunately it was in a box), fontena de Trevi (a lot bigger than we expected.. and really crowded) After losing ourselves in the little streets filed with official shops and random people selling random stuff laid out on blankets, we visited Templo Adriano and the Pantheon. We saw Piazza Navona and walked on street Coronari until Ponte Sant' Angelo. On the other side of the Fiume Tevere, we saw Castel Sant' Angelo. We kept walking to the Vatican. The basilica Sant Pietro is HUGE.. and so was the line-up to get in! We met an Australian girl in the line so the 40 minutes wait went by a lot faster. We passed security and decided to start with the Cupole to get a nice view. The stairs are wide at first but get narrow and somewhat steep. There is a nice footbridge almost at the top which allowed us to see the mosaics on the walls. We climbed more stairs, getting narrower (good thing we are not overweight) all the way to the top where a nice view of Roma awaited us. We came back down to visit the actual Basilica. It was really impressive. According to Lonely Planet, if you only have one church to visit in Rome, it should be the Basilica. They were right. After spending quite a bit of time in the Vatican, we walked back to our room.

 

Rome, Italy, Part 1

After a good night sleep, we went to visit Roma. We walked all day, but spent most of our time in the Palatino and the Colosseo. The area of the Palatino is pretty big and it is full of ruins, mostly palaces and church like buildings. There are also a few arches that are still standing. The Colosseo is huge, they could fit between 50 000 and 70 000 spectators. It is truly amazing to see old buildings like that still standing. Today's architects should probably revise their notes on how to build durable infrastructure... Rome is a pretty city. At moments it feels crowded, but it is probably because Italians are used to bumping into each other. Everybody seems to think that they have the right of passage all the time, on the sidewalk, in the street, in line... anything really! We have to adjust and get in the traffic as well.

 

Matera, Italy

We took a train to Matera. We were going to leave our bags at the left-luggage in Bari, but it was too expensive, so we brought them with us. Matera is an older village built in the rocks and caves. People that lived there were pretty poor and had big families. We visited one cave, Casa Grotta di Vico Solitario, that has been refurnished as it was in 1950 (when the government realized it was inappropriate to have families living in the same room as their horse, pig and chicken.) It was a really impressive visit in the Sassi. After our visit with our backpacks, we took the train back to Bari to catch our high speed train to Rome. Matera is a must see and should be on everybody's list when coming to visit Italy.