For the Toussaint holiday, 3 other assistants (Molly, Lane and Laura) and I headed over to Italy for a 10 day trip. We started off in Rome and stayed in a really nice hostel. I’ve already visited Rome so I’d seen the major sights before like the Coliseum but it didn’t stop it being pretty impressive the second time around. We also visited the Vatican, which leaves me filled with awe every time as it’s just huge! That people would build something like that to worship God is pretty cool.
Inside Vatican city
Whilst the Basilica was enjoyable, the Sistine chapel was less so. Like the last time, I found the corridor leading up to the chapel more impressive than the chapel itself! There are tonnes of paintings everywhere and there is so much detail. In one section there are old maps painted on the walls and we managed to find Nice on one (or Nizza, as it’s called in Italian). The chapel was very full of people and we just kept getting herded in while they shouted for everybody to be quiet (slightly counterproductive…)
We also went to the opera one night, saying as we were in the country where it was invented! I love being in old theatres with red velvet and chandeliers everywhere. We saw a revue instead of an actual opera, so we saw lots of songs from various ones, which was good as we don’t really speak Italian or Spanish (there was the odd French one!) It was fun to see all the costumes and to see how much the opera singers ham it up – you can kind of see the origins of pantomime right there.
Italy wouldn’t be Italy without the food, and in Rome we had lots of it! From pasta served by white-haired men with red bow ties, to pizza topped with persimmon (after I led the group on a 45 minute detour due to a lack of mapreading ability), and to basil flavoured gelato. The gelato shops vary from being cheerful places where the gelato is displayed in brightly covered mounds, to the more clinical looking shops which serve artisan flavours and keep silver lids over their gelato, to be removed with a flourish.
A street painter's paint pots in Piazza Navona
Whilst the main tourist attractions are eyecatching and worth a visit, one sight which is an ABSOLUTE must see if you are in Rome is the Torre Argentina. From a distance it just looks like another Roman ruin (you tend to get blasé about such things after spending any length of time there) but as you approach you see are actually hundreds of cats roaming around. The longer you stand there, the more you see. Molly described it as like looking at a Where’s Wally picture! I thought it was amazing that the cats all decided to gather there as if there were some ancient cat homing device, but it turns out there is a small cat sanctuary in the corner of the site, and the cats hang around because they will get fed. Still clever of them but not quite as impressive.
Spot the cats! This is just a tiny section of the site!
After a long weekend in Rome, we were ready to take the train to Florence.
One More Step Along The World I Go... 