Rome

Tradition has it that if you throw a coin over your shoulder into the Fontana di Trevi, you will return to Rome. Here is a video of Valerie doing just that. As with the other videos, it's XviD encoded, so you'll need the XviD codec package (or a compatible one), which is available from http://www.xvid.org. I chose not to throw a coin into the fountain, as I'd rather return of my own free will rather than be obligated to do so!

We got to the hotel quite late on Monday and we were quite tired from the flights and travel across Rome, so we actually just ate at the hotel restaurant and went to sleep. On Tuesday, we did most of the touristy things - the Spanish Steps (which are really rather underwhelming), the Fontana di Trevi (quite funky), the Pantheon (very cool - with a great big hole in the roof) and the ancient bit including the Roman Forum and Colosseum. We also bought some postcards and tried to find stamps... which is truly impossible to do in Rome. The post offices close at about 2pm, and the other place you are (supposedly) able to get them from are tobacconists. We went into tobacconist after tobacconist trying to find them and failed miserably. Lots of walking on Tuesday, and we did go back to the hotel rather tired! As a result, we decided to take Wednesday quite easy. We went to the Vatican City to see St. Peter's Basilica, climbing all the stairs to the top of the dome (the lift is for wusses) and were rewarded with the great view. We had intended to see the Vatican museum (where the Sistine Chapel is) afterwards, but there wasn't time (it closes at about 3:45pm), so instead we went to Castel Sant Angelo, which is also Hadrian's Mausoleum. Rather tired by this point, we decided to go and have a bottle of wine with a nice leisurely dinner and then turn in for the night. We went to Piazza Navona and had a really nice meal (though there was a rather freaky man sat on a bench just next to the restaurant who was scaring us slightly), then started walking to the Metro station at Spagna, via the Pantheon and Trevi Fountain by night (both beautifully lit). Unfortunately, we reached the Metro station to discover that the Metro line A closed at 9pm and was replaced by a bus service... which didn't go anywhere near the Metro station. We walked to the next Metro station (Flaminio), where the sign had said that the replacement bus went from... to discover that there was no ticket machine by the bus stop, that the Metro station bit was closed and the train station had a closed ticket office and three ticket machines - all out of order. To cut a long story short, we ended up walking about 3 miles back to the hotel, getting back just before midnight and very, very tired! Thursday was mostly spent at the Vatican museum (the Sistine Chapel is a bit of a disappointment), followed by sitting in the Piazza Navona. We got a really early night due to being exhausted from Tuesday and Wednesday, and also not wanting to be caught out by the Metro closure again! Alas, Friday was spent entirely at the airport. The hotel ran a shuttle bus direct to the airport, which we decided would be so much easier than taking the train again, but this meant that we spent about five hours waiting for our flight. All in all, we both had a lot of fun and really enjoyed the trip!