Florence & Roma

First up today we hit Florence. One of the foremost wealthy cities in Italy and a centre for arts and culture back in the day (Michelangelo was born here as an example) by and large thanks to the Medici family for paying for everything so everyone else could enjoy it. They were stupidly rich and "had their fingers in many pies" as they say somewhere.

The Medici family had about 7 popes that they had plopped on the Catholic throne and had a habit of marrying their daughters to kings of France, so they were the bees knees in Florence.

As is the way with Trafalgar tours we saw Florence in about 5 mins, but we managed to spend a bit of money here on jewelry (because that's the sort of determined people we are) even within the time constraints. Florence was a beautiful city and it wasn't really done justice by the time we spent here. The queues were too long to see David, so we took photos of the statues which weren't actually David, but looked like him. So we can call them his cousins Bob and Alan, both strapping lads.

Then we moved on.

Considering all roads lead here, it was inevitable that we would eventually arrive in Rome. We were initially treated to a walking tour with a local guide, Amelia, she was quite the personality and wasn't above poking fun at the more anxious and rude of our team in a very subtle <roman way that went over the heads of the majority we think.

Within the first 5 mins we already lost the oldest of our troop. To be fair she had been a walking liability from the start and it was really only just a matter of time. I personally think Amelia handled it very well with her "keep calm and have a gelato" approach to the situation. As it turned out, the old girl had decided to hop back on the tour bus and not tell anyone, so crisis averted. Unfortunately that means we still had to put up with her for the rest of the tour, but at least she was safe and sound.

To put it simply, Rome is impressive and beautiful. In other words it still has the exact same impression on foreigners today as intended by the ancient Romans in days of yore. They really built things to last.

Our walking tour took us through the winding streets and sprawling piazzas of the city, we saw the Trevi fountain first - of course when I say we saw it, I mean we saw the scaffolding covering majority of the fountain while it was under-going restoration. But we could still see enough to be impressed.

Hadrian's Temple was another highlight, but what was probably of more immediate interest was the underground parking garage opposite the temple. That sounds a bit strange that an underground parking garage is more interesting than a 2000 year old temple, except for the fact that it has been confirmed that they have found the tomb of Julius Caesar down there thanks to a drunken resident slamming into the wall of the admittedly very tight ramp down into the carpark. I'm not promoting drink driving, but it's clearly not ALL bad if you do it in Rome.



Next we saw the Pantheon. Wow. The largest dome ever built in Europe with all others being a copy to duplicate Hadrian's feat - this guy knew how to build stuff. The tomb of Raphael is also in here.

That night we grabbed dinner in the Piazza Navona and so we had our first Pizza in Italy. It was good, though the ingredients on my pizza had a strange dispersal pattern, almost as if the prosciutto was defending it's territory against the mushrooms and the olives while the artichokes was starting their own principality in the corner. It still tasted pretty good though and was washed down with a Pastis because I haven't really let go of France yet. Oh yeah, we also had another gelato.

Nicky's Pizza

My Pizza. I think the mushrooms are winning.

The next day we saw all the really big stuff; the Sistine Chapel, St Peter's Basilica and the Colloseum. It was at this point we all had to appreciate that Michelangelo was a bloody smart arse and was far to talented for his own good.

He seemed to feel that way too, by all reports, when he was dragged back to Rome to paint the wall of the Sistine Chapel after having spent 4 years previously painting the ceiling. He was there under sufferance, but you just don't say no to the catholic church, especially in those days, you might get killed in some horrific fashion.

So he painted a pretty impressive mural of the ascension and descension of our immortal souls based on how good or how much fun we had had in our lives. He made sure to paint the Pope's Master of Ceremonies, Biagio de Cesena, down in hell with donkey ears and a big snake biting his balls because he insulted his work too. What a guy.

Bottom Right. Ouch. Also never insult an artist while he's still painting..

While this was an impressive work, he also sculpted the Pieta and of course David. He also designed the dome for St Peter's basilica so aside from being a multi-talented artist, he was also a brilliant engineer. He apparently also wrote poetry in his spare time. I bet in these days he would shred awesome guitar too. He must have gotten all kinds of laid.

The Colosseum was..colossal. It was impressive and still a good indication of how those sort of events would have run back in the day. It was freaking hot when we were there though and being ancient ruins, there wasn't a lot of shade going. Nicky and I both agreed that we preferred the Sistine Chapel and St Peter's due to the sheer beauty of the buildings and the artwork therein.

We were both equal parts amused and astounded by how often you just casually stumble across 2000+ year old ruins in Rome. It makes sense, there's Roman ruins all over Europe so you're going to see most of them in Rome. Still, it was a little hard to wrap your mind around.

And before we knew it we were bundled on a bus headed for Naples.

More on that later.

Brandon.