Italy-Roma

Well it's getting to be a bit of a habit where I have not updated much and end up writing what we have done over a 2-3 weeks period in one go.....sorry.

Well we landed in Roma (Rome) and went straight out to the main train station as this is where all the cheap accommodation is (according to the lonely Planet Guide). By the time we get there it is about 9pm at night and trying to find anywhere to stay is looking less and less likely :-( We finally find this dorm place that some Indians are running 25Euro each per night....grrrrrr. No the best looking place that's for sure. Well a bed is a bed.

Later that night we meet an Aussie (Steve) that had moved to Italy for to be married (earlier that night the poor bugger had found out his soon to be wife wanted to break up), he was out having a couple with some Italian friends . After a few beers we soon had them inviting us out tomorrow night for dinner at a true Italian restaurant. We could not say no :-)

The next day we got up and went to the Vatican City. It was very very amazing. Being that it was so close to Easter there were ton's of people. The queue to get into the Vatican was taking somewhere in the area of 2-3 hours so we took some photos and made our way to the Sistine chapel. We stood line for about an hour and paid our 12 Euros... we were in. Now I thought that queue could just have a quick walk down to the place with the painting on the roof and make our way out.....Wrong oh so wrong. This place is massive as well. We walked for about 45 mins just looking at statues, painting more statues more painting and we were still miles away.

We made the democratic decision to skip the next hour’s worth of art and head straight to the painted ceiling. It still took us another 20mins to get in there.............. (I can see Gracie rolling her eyes at us). It was worth the wait. To have the whole chapel packed with people all steering up at this brilliant piece of artwork was very cool. I could have stood there all day checking out all the little bits of detail but.................I didn't :-) Back to the room for a sleep......Art stuff can wear you out.

Later that night we meet up with Steve, Stefano, Simona and Zabria at the Irish pub. We all piled into their cars and were shooting off across town. I don't think they knew where they were going us much as we did because there was a lot of back tracking and going around in circles. We did make it in the end and found ourselves the restaurant. They did all the ordering as we could not read the menu but the food that came out was excellent.

Later we walked around the streets of Roma stopping into the occasional bar for a shot and then off to bed.