Matthias Batemus - Sunday
We left the city of Florence with great haste as we had to catch a train to the well known and popular city – some of you might have heard of it – Rome. We took a nice train ride, mostly uninterrupted, except for a guy coming around asking for money for the poor. He spoke completely in Italian, and we shot him some confused glares before some Italian girls we were sitting with translated him. But thankfully the guy had given up and walked off before we had a chance to make a definitive answer. A shame really because we were going to give him Zach’s 200 euro note that he has stowed away for a rainy day.
We arrived in Rome and it was a beautiful day – the sun was shining and there was not a cloud in the sky. So, we did what most people would do in Rome on a nice day... stay inside our hotel room. Only thing was, we didn’t end up staying in our hotel room the first night. Oh no, there was a problem with our room and thus we had to stay in the hotel next door called The Windrose which, interestingly, took its grandiose emblem located in its regal foyer from the four elements. Ok, that wasn’t interesting at all. But what was interesting was when we took a walk down the street towards the Colosseum.
The colossal Colosseum closes at 3:30pm every day, so we didn’t go in today, but we walked around its circumference and in doing so, saw two dogs fighting – one was two times the size of the other. So we stayed and watched them fight for a while, satisfied that we were able to see a battle at the colosseum.
Anyway we walked back to our hotel and set out for dinner, at a crappy restaurant featuring a waiter who told us that it was “too early” to get our bill. Also it took ages to get our meals and it took around half an hour for our waiter to get the bill.
Zacheus Rafterius – Monday
We started today by heading to our real hotel, the Eurostars Domus Aurea, for breakfast. As we’d been forced into spending the first night into the adjacent hotel as they’d stuffed up our room, and the other hotel didn’t offer a full breakfast, I talked Matt into breakfasting back where there’d be bacon and eggs. We headed on up (the breakfast room was on the sixth floor, on a penthouse level with a nice view of the city) and, while the spread was quite nice and varied, the eggs were awful. They reeked of burning. After this, we bought daily Metro passes and headed down to the Colosseum. We paid our entry fee and went inside. It was fantastic. Just how it has survived the elements, natural disasters and marble raids is fascinating in itself.
We then were pleasantly surprised to find out that our Colosseum tickets let us into the nearby Roman Forum and the Palatine Hill. The forum was like the city centre; it had a civic centre, markets, and religious areas all in one. We took many photos with various ruins, and then headed up the Palatine Hill – the hill where, legend says, the founder of Rome (Romulus) killed his brother to become the first King of Rome. Legend also says that both were abandoned by their mother, and were raised by wolves.
After this, we caught the Metro and headed to Vatican City and St. Peter’s Basilica. It was epic wow. We spent half an hour in the Square taking pictures and just generally checking it out. We’re going to return tomorrow to do a tour of the Vatican Museums and the Basilica itself. After seeing the square, we walked to the Spanish Steps and photo’d. Then we found the Trevi Fountain, threw some coins in, and photo’d. Local legend says you throw one coin into the fountain over your opposite shoulder to return to Rome, two to meet a Roman, and three for Marriage. Matt and I both threw in one.
Then we found the Pantheon. It was majestic. Inside are the tombs of Vittorio Emanuelle II, the first King of a unified Italy, and the artist Raphael. The Pantheon forms a perfect circle in that it is both as high as it is wide. It was originally constructed as a place of Pagan worship but was consecrated as a place of Christian worship after the 7th century. After this we found the massive monument to Vittorio Emanuelle II – it was HUGE. The biggest monument to one mortal man I have ever seen in my life.
We returned back to base, and went out for dinner, trying to find a new “regular” restaurant. We were unsuccessful.
Matthias Batemus - Tuesday
Tuesday. Not too many days left for our trip and already our feet are weary from the traversing of several plains around the city. Today was no exception as we were heading to a totally new country – the smallest country in the world with a population of 900. Vatican City. We already got some spoilers yesterday, but today we had our guided tour to the Vatican Museum, Sistine Chapel and St Peters. We took the metro – which always seems to be in peak hour and there are never enough lines – and when we got to the Vatican, it was raining.
Anyway we started our tour off in a court yard with a 2000 year old pine cone. Close to this was a large golden spherical statue depicting the world. In the centre of this, as if piercing through the Earth’s core, was a church. I can’t remember whether religion is the most important thing or whether it’s the centre of the Earth, but either way, their point was obvious – Religion: Serious Business. Everything was serious here. We took a stroll through another courtyard with some awesome sculptures of Apollo and other copies of Bronze statues that had melted during the time of the fires started by Nero. One particular statue caught our eye – a dramatic one of a guy and his two children being attacked by Sea Serpents. One of the boys was already dead, while the other was fighting them off his father, who had just been bitten. Melodramatic stuff. Next we walked inside and looked at some of the other famous sculptures including an original bronze work depicting Hercules. It wasn’t that great, but because it was an original bronze statue that somehow survived the fires and being melted down by the ‘money hungry corporations’ it proudly stands in the Vatican Museum for all to see. In the centre of the room was Nero’s bathtub which was sculpted from a single rock. No pictures could do this justice – trust me, this bath tub was bigger than most people’s bathrooms.
We bailed on this room and headed through a few corridors, getting ever so closer to the Sistine Chapel. On the way, we were told that the Catholic Church were very much against nudity in statues and other works of art, and works of art that featured nude males either; 1. Had their junk broken off, or 2. Had their junk covered up later with a leaf. Either way, the Catholic Church are to blame for the desecration of many a hundred works of art. Try getting into the museum in Florence today and chiselling off David’s Dong. They wouldn’t have any of that. Thank...God?
Anyway, we saw some nice tapestries depicting the resurrection of Jesus and the death of Julius Caesar. Some tapestries gave the illusion of a stone or table swivelling across as you walked left to right of the tapestry. This would have been difficult to weave. Next we walked down a hallway 160 metres long. It was remarkable – golden and featured paintings that looked 3D but were not at all! Ah...the ole’ optical illusion trick again. It was a shame that they had to line the entire hall with boring maps.
At the end, we saw the apartment where one Pope lived. Lining the walls were a range of brilliant Fresco paintings by Raphael. As we went further along, we saw a masterful piece by Raphael which featured a whole range of colourful characters – Plato and Aristotle in the centre, debating each other, to the left – Alexander the Great. To the right was Raphael poking his head out amongst the others. In the centre, writing on a podium, was Michelangelo who was the only one wearing boots. Apparently, when he was working on the Sistine Chapel, Michelangelo didn’t shower or remove his boots for the four years he worked on it. Michelangelo was originally not going to be included in the painting, as Raphael was jealous of him and considered him his rival, and was happy when Michelangelo was forced into painting as it meant the eventual death of his career. It was not until he walked into the Sistine Chapel and looked at Michelangelo’s masterpiece that he admired him and included him in the painting as a way to express his gratitude for his marvellous work.
Yes, the Sistine Chapel was that great. It was one of the greatest works I have ever seen in my life. It’s amazingly atmospheric (apart from the guards yelling at you to be quiet and not to take pictures, as well as a P.A. announcement requesting the same thing that kind of sounds like communist propaganda in the Soviet Union – we took pictures anyway just so you know) and it is absolutely stunning. It will take your breath away. In the centre is the most famous ‘Creation of Man’ where God (in a human brain with a group of humans that he is just about to create) is reaching out almost touching Adam, probably creating him, or he has just been created. This is highly debated. The rest of the works depict the rest of Genesis. Apparently Michelangelo was not a painter, and the pope requested that he was to repaint the roof of the Sistine Chapel with the twelve apostles. Michelangelo said that he would repaint it only if he could do whatever he wanted. The pope agreed, and now we have this. Botticelli added some paintings of stuff on the walls, which weren’t that great compared to Michelangelo’s work. Apparently Michelangelo was asked to come back and paint the wall near the podium as “no one was paying attention to the sermons, and always admiring the ceiling.” So he came back for six years and painted more. Apparently someone criticised his prominent nudity in the painting, so he painted them in hell, completely nude with a serpent around his body biting of his junk. Looks like MC Angelo had a sense of humour. He also painted himself as the skinned alive body, as if to describe how he felt ‘skinned alive’ after spending ten years working in the Sistine Chapel. Michelangelo sometimes makes you wonder – Leonardo who? We also saw the famous ‘Thinker’ sculpture, just before we entered the Sistine Chapel. I did not know that statue was featured here, and that it was so small.
We exited the Sistine Chapel and made our way to St Peters Cathedral – the largest cathedral in the world. They didn’t mind showing that off either, with markings on the ground indicating how far other cathedrals stack up in length. Surprisingly enough, you could take pictures. It just goes to show how illogical other cathedrals and Basilicas’ are requesting you not to take any photos. I should mention that we were not allowed to take photos of one statue in the cathedral because there was a sermon going on well out of the way of where the statue was located. I took a photo sneakily and quickly enough so the angry guy who looked like Al Pacino didn’t spot me and wondered whether souvenir shops inside cathedrals would stop while a sermon was on because it would be disrespectful.
We walked over to the centre, where only the pope may sit, and looked underneath the cathedra. There was this church’s relic – the bones of St Peter – the first pope and one of the twelve apostles. Of course, you can’t see the bones, but apparently they are there because archaeologists went down there one year and found bones that didn’t have feet. They would have unmistakably been St Peter as he was crucified upside down and his feet cut off, and they wouldn’t have buried his feet with the rest of his body. Underneath the cathedral was where the popes are buried. We thought we’d check that out...when in Rome right? We decided against climbing to the top of the cathedral due to the length of the queue. On our way out we looked for the Swiss Guards, but because it was raining, they were wearing raincoats. Pretty lame, but what can you do? Kill one of them and de-robe them in front of everybody? Seems pretty dangerous to me.
Now for the reason why there are only two metro lines in the city. Because apparently if you dug underneath the city, you would find heaps of ruins – 65% of Rome hasn’t been excavated. Apparently when houses burned down, the Romans didn’t do the most logical thing and clear away the rubble, they actually built on top of the rubble and used that as a basement. Apparently that is why the Pantheon has only one step up to get into it, compared to it having a lot more steps in the past. Further proof that Italians are stupid, and that the Roman Empire could never last under such unintelligent people. That’s my view anyway.
Zacheus Rafterius – Wednesday
We headed out today on our Naples & Pompeii tour. Rising at 6:30am, we were disappointed that we would miss out on the breakfast that the hotel provided as it was too early. On the voucher for the tour that I’d booked, it said if you wanted a free hotel pickup, to call the phone number on the day before your tour. I didn’t do this, because when I looked at a map, the place the tours left from was only a short walk from the hotel (maybe 10 minutes max) so I thought, instead of us waiting for an hour before the tour departed, we could just walk there 20 minutes before. So we headed out at 7am, to find a tour bus waiting out the front to pick us up. It seemed I had put the name of the hotel into the website tour form when I had booked it months earlier.
We caught the first bus to where the tours set off from, and boarded a second bus. Unfortunately this second bus was almost full, there were only a couple of seats left, and we had to sit in front of a noisy American fuck. He decided that I needed to listen to whatever he was listening to with his portable listening device by turning the volume to way past the safety levels recommended by the Department of Defence. And when he wasn’t listening to it, he was talking arrogantly about some American baseball team to his equally annoying American friend behind him, and what they need to do in order to win this year. The guy was obviously an expert.
The tour bus made its way towards Naples from Rome. It was a three hour trip, and about every half an hour, the tour guide would come on the microphone for about a minute, and say “There’s some trees over there” or “There’s a castle here”, which would be followed by the exact same spiel in Russian, and then in Japanese. Thank God there wasn’t any Spaniards on board, because it would have been spewed out in Spanish too. We stopped along the way for a “pit stop”, and then continued on, Naples bound.
We drove first past the “old” part of the city, the harbour, and where most of the people live. It was quite a dive, to be perfectly honest. Rubbish was overflowing on the streets, the buildings looked like they were about to collapse, and it was just generally quite ugly to look at. I’m sure if it hadn’t have been a drizzly day, it would have had a nice view of Sorrento and Capri off the coast (as the tour guide assured us). We then headed past the “new” part of the city, which actually had skyscrapers and was recently architected by a Japanese architect (which they must have repeated about five times). Just so you know, each time something was said it was then translated into Russian and Japanese – got annoying? It also means they got away with giving us 1/3rd of the information that other, full-English tours would have provided. Bastards.
After this, we went to a Coral factory. Why? I have no idea. Most of the coral isn’t even collected here; it’s from Tahiti and the Bahamas. But they carve patterns into the side of it for some reason.
Me: “Why do you carve the coral here?”
Them: “Well, because the coral is here – can’t you see it? And... we’re coral carvers. So it makes sense”.
Me: “You know, that really doesn’t make sense. Why don’t you go to where the coral is collected?”
Them: “Because I’m here?”
You get the idea. Stupid people.
We then went to Pompeii for lunch. Just the base of it for now. Lunch was included in the tour price, and it was pretty decent albeit small, and they charged a fortune for drinks (three euro for a can of coke – that’s like 5.50 Australian dollars). There was an American family sitting opposite Matt and I, and I kid you not, they are the most annoying people on the earth. This woman was extremely offended that her spaghetti didn’t come with any eggplant on it, and had no problem announcing it to her family, to our table, and finally to one of the waiters. I would have loved to break an eggplant in her face, if you know what I mean. I would have given her mine, but the only thing I wanted to give her was some hurt.
Matt and I bought a couple o’ souvenirs from a nearby shop, and then we headed to the ancient city of Pompeii on the mountainside. It was pretty amazing, and I’m really glad we did it despite the rest of the day being mediocre at best. We spent two hours looking around the ancient city with the guide showing us a typical house, a rich family’s house, a wine store, a brothel, a bathing area for men only, a temple and finally a basilica. The most amazing sight was probably the brothel; on the walls, it had erotic frescoes that were perfectly preserved, sort of like a “menu” – the man would pick which position he so desired by pointing at it on the wall. The beds looked quite uncomfortable though – they were made out of solid rock. Bedrock. Get it?
We walked down the mountain, and waited for the tour bus to pick us up. Pompeii is filled with stray dogs that people leave when they don’t want them anymore, so Matt and I befriended a dog which we named many things, but among the most prominent were Russell, Failhound, Gnarls Barkley, Barkey McBite, Barkey McDog, Bitey McBark, Russel Barker, and Wolf.
We jumped back on the bus, and restarted the three hour journey back to Rome. By this time it was dark, and the journey was relatively uneventful.
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