Monday, February 06, 2006
The Vatican, then home!
We spent our last day of our holiday wandering through St Peter's basilica and then the Vatican museums and the Sistine chapel.
No amount of reading and photographs prepare you for the vastness of St Peter's square and the church - it is just mind-blowing. The artwork in the Vatican is similarly breathtaking, and it was amazing to actually be in the rooms that Michaelangelo and Raphael and all those great religious artists of centuries ago created their masterpieces. Artists were very respected back then!
If you only ever go to one art museum in your life, then the Vatican is probably the one to go to! There are 1400 rooms of artwork, and no way can you take it all in in one day! We lasted about 5 hours.
We then decided we needed to check out the Trevi fountain again and see if the coin-stealers were back at work. FOr the first 15 minutes or so, it seemed they were gone, then the old guy from the day before turned up and cased the joint for 20 minutes or so. We think we have some photos of him, and will post them when we get home. He was an interesting old bloke for sure.
The biggest problem with the Trevi fountain is that you can't sit there peacefully for more than 30 seconds without a hawker trying to sell you a flower, or a plastic toy or what have you. Finally in exasperation, we decided to give them some of their own back, and offered a choice of hotel pens for "only one euro each" to anyone who came near us! They didn't initially either get the point, or see the humour, but after a few minutes, they finally understood, and we even managed a smile from a couple of them.
Walking at last got the better of us, so we headed to an Irish pub and caught the rugby game between Wales and England, which unfortunately was a very one-sided game, with England thrashing the Welsh side, who played atrociously. We were sitting next to a Welsh couple spending a dirty weekend in Rome - he was addicted to the rugby, and was not a happy camper by the end of the game.
A final dinner at a restaurant that must have inspired Fawlty Towers. There was a waiter who was trying to serve us, but spent a lot of time yelling at the cook because nothing arrived, a stuck up waitress, about 17, and almost certainly the bosses' daughter, who refused to wear her uniform, or serve anyone (but was quite decorative, a meal that finally arrived without the requested accompaniments, and was literally a piece of meat on a plate, and a bill that was of course completely incorrect! Still it gave us a laugh, and the red wine was quite quaffable!
Our flights home were.... long! We checked in early to ensure that we got exit row seats, and then just got on with travelling. We are currently at Qantas Club in Sydney waiting for our final flight home.
