Roma

We're freshly back from a fantastic holiday to Italy. We spent 4 days (5 nights) in Rome before heading for the hills. Our B&B was a little gem, 5 minutes' walk from the Vatican. It was recommended by an Italian colleague and we enjoyed the taste of Roman apartment life. Much better than a stuffy hotel.

The first day, we hit the pavement and spent most of the day at the Colosseum, Forum, and Palatine Hill. A Roma Pass meant we jumped the healthy-looking queue, which made Ole quite pleased. After we tired of ruins, we strolled "home", catching things like the Trevi Fountain, Pantheon, Plazza Navona, and Castel Sant'Angelo along the way. It really is astonishing and overwhelming the amount of history and significant architecture prevelant throughout the city.

The next day, we hit the Vatican Museums bright and early. I booked our tickets for the first "showing" of the day and this turned out to be the best trick. We were some of the first public in (regular doors open at 9; we went at 8) which meant we had many of the rooms - including the super impressive maps room - to ourselves. We ended up spending a lot of time here, primarily because the stewards kept opening new rooms up as we went through. The downside of this was that they also closed exits off, which meant we had to keep going back through the same rooms in order to progress. As a result, we saw the Sistine Chapel about 4 times, each time it was progressively more packed with people until you could hardly move. I snuck a cheeky photo, which turned out quite blurry. Oh well.

Joni & Derek joined us later that day, after a massive delay in their flight. We visited the Spanish Steps that evening after our dinner. Even that late at night, it was still packed with tourists.

On Saturday, Ole & I got up early again to head back to the Vatican. This time we saw St Peter's Basilica. Wow. What an incredibly beautiful church. It's so different from the northern European cathedrals I'm used to. It's so ornate - guilded, frescoed, mosaiced. Amazing. We lugged ourselves up 500+ steps to the dome to enjoy the view over the city. I posted some cards from the little post office at the top - wacky! Later that day, the 4 of us visited the Borghese Gardens and sought cool comfort from the afternoon sun in the Etruscan Museum.

On Sunday we caught the train to Amelia.

I managed to snap 786+ photos during our stay. I think I've reached Dad proportions. For your sake, I've edited them down to highlights. Here are the first batch - Rome.