Day Ten

It’s my birthday!!! It was officially my birthday sometime last night, but here in Italy it’s finally here, today, Friday. The day before I fly to Crete.

Today, I have booked a tour of the Coliseum including the underground and upper levels, courtesy of mum and dad by way of birthday gift.

I’m running late in the morning which starts stressing me out, and I was really hoping to avoid Termini station. It’s awfully busy, way too many people, and appears to be the main hub of the train lines, where all (tracks) lead to Rome. (Hahahaha) I do, however, require to take the train which will half my 30 minute journey by foot. I swear it was even faster than the 15 minute estimate because the train had just pulled into the station when I got down the steps.

We spend little time on the main floor of the Coliseum, turns out its quite handy Jasmine really wanted to see that on Sunday.

We go to the arena floor, I skype my parents like I promised – ’cause it’s my birthday and I’m in the Coliseum. The tour guide is really knowledgeable and if I hadn’t learnt this information a hundred times throughout my studies I imagine it would have been really interesting, but I unplugged her for most of the trip so I could focus on my bits and pieces.

Under the arena floor, it’s chilled. Some water flows around us from when Vespian drained the lake that the land used to be, and being surrounded by cold bricks from the shade it’s really nice compared to the outside sun.

We head up lots and lots of really steep stairs to get the best view. The view the plebs would have had, actually.

I think this might be my favourite photo ever taken.

I start messaging Janneke because I’m getting grumpy. I have done SO MUCH walking in the last week and my feet kill me as soon as I step out the door now. I’ve just remembered that this tour also includes the Palatine hill. So many more steps.

We cruise around Palatine Hill, I found as many places to sit as I possibly could.

Sometimes, the low angles are better for pictures anyway.

The tour ends and I head back to the hostel. Daniel (the owner) is waiting, says Happy Birthday and asks if I want pancakes for lunch. He sends me on an errand to the supermarket and we make pancakes, cheese savoury ones and jam sweet ones. It’s probably the best birthday lunch I could have asked for in Italy.

For dinner, Vyy – the evening receptionist – makes a quick curry and lets me have some. I chill out before my early wake up for my flight, and eventually head to bed.

Crete, and beach life, is so close!

Regards,

Alex

Day Nine

Today, Tivoli! A lot of people in the hostel have recommended Tivoli when chatting about places to go, luckily I had this tour booked. Hadrian’s Villa, or Villa Adriana, was one of my favourite things to study, and this tour includes entry to Villa d’Este as well, which was a minor recreation and remains in much better condition.

We arrived at Hadrian’s Villa first, and walked around a lot of ruins. The guide did an excellent job of bringing things to life for us – it can be hard to picture what used to be there.

This was a bathhouse in the Villa, a gigantic structure. It would include tepid baths, and saunas.

Here, the end of a “canal”. A replica of what you might find in Egypt as Hadrian paid homage to the different cultures the Roman empire controlled. This was also a shrine of sorts to a young boy he loved, who drowned. The faces on the statues of the gods were all modelled to look like him.

We moved on to lunch, and then into the Villa d’Este. The inside of which was very gaudy. I didn’t like the inside so much, but it is excellently preserved and reconstructed where necessary. I don’t think I’d have liked living in the decoration of that era. However, the gardens were really the showstopper.

We descended further and further into the gardens, which are terraced, and about halfway down we realised we’d have to climb all those stairs back up again.

The fountains kept getting larger and more intricate.

Until, finally, the end.

This post has more pictures than words, because what can I really say about this beauty except to show you.

Apollo, help me up these stairs. They’re not even half of them.

Regards,

Alex

Day Five

I have discovered that Romans do not drink a lot of tea. When they do, it’s mostly herbal or fruity ones. I made friends with the receptionist at this hostel and she smuggled me in some individual packets of tea bags to hide away in my room. It’s great to be nice and friendly.

Today, I have no plans except laundry. I’m out of undies, so it really needs to happen anyway. I have also spent the last three days walking non-stop, so my feet are sick of doing that.

Sunday was my first full day in the city. I swooped in on the American I was sharing a room with and we grabbed a hop on/hop off bus tour. We stopped at the Altar of Rome, a colossal structure of marble. It was huge, and amazing.

There was a little gated entrance to get in around the front, where a lady says you cannot smoke or eat or sit on the structure. We pass through and take it all in from the base. My phone camera couldn’t get the entirity of it in from down there, so there’s no awesome photo of that.

I lay down in one of the many vast platforms to get a better angle for a photo, and a guard came running over reminding me we’re not allowed to plant our bums. I though I was safe here because there were people sitting around the edge of this platform not being told off, and the lady downstairs had specifically said steps. I was wrong. I did get the photo though.

From there we walked around the back, and surprise surprise came across an elevator that takes you right to the top of the monument. It was €7 when original entrance was free, but we knew it would be worth it.

Jasmine and I moved on, and she really wanted to see the colosseum. I already have a full tour booked for Friday (my birthday!) but entrance was only €12 and I felt bad for abducting her to accompany me when she only had a few days in Rome v my whole week. So we went in, I pretended not to be totally excited by being there, saving all that elatement for Friday, and I let her lead the way around at the things she wanted to look at. On Friday, my tour is going to include access to the upper levels, underground levels, and the reconstructed arena floor which standard entry doesn’t get you.

We started making our way to the next place, walking back to where the bus dropped us off. After 30 minutes of waiting for our “every 10/15 minutes” bus, we walked back to another stop to ask what was going on. Turns out there was a marathon in the city that morning so some of the stops were altered, and we weren’t informed, so we got on and headed back to the hostel instead, deciding now that we were over it all.

We stopped at Eataly for some dinner, and put our feet up once back in our hostel. Preparing for tomorrow’s adventure.

Regards,

Alex