"When in Rome…" has been our catchcry for the last couple of days, and today we made full use of it by hiring a Vespa for an hour. We got a zippy 100cc machine and drove in search of the Via Appia Antica (Ancient Appian Way), the old Roman road into the city. We didn't find it, but the ride was a lot of fun. It's easy to see why the scooters are so popular – it's dead easy to dodge and weave through traffic, no gears to worry about, you can skip the queue at the lights, you have better acceleration than the cars and in the city the fastest we got was 35km/h so the small engines don't really matter. The learning curve was very small and we were up and having a great time quickly. I drove most of the way, but Keeley seemed to have a lot of fun just hanging on the back.
From our quickfire hour on the scooter, we sampled Rome's limited (and very creaky and graffiti-ed) metro system, which took us to St Peter's and the Vatican. Again we were awed by the sheer size of first the piazza then the cathedral itself. Everything in there is so ornate, and the size is (again) one of those things you need to see to fully appreciate. What we thought was really cool is that there are sections of it that are screened away from the tourists where anyone can go and pray, and there are confessionals in every language so you can confess your sins in the greatest church of them all. When we left we discovered that, in the half hour we were inside, the line to get in had grown at least five times longer so we were quietly pleased with ourselves. Faced with the €8-14 entrance fee and the prospect of missing our train, we decided to skip the Vatican museum and the Sistine chapel. I'm not as disappointed as I thought I would be to not see it, I think because I don't really have the religious connection to it and it wasn't something I was dying to do.
Our train ride to Florence was unremarkable; we passed through a lot of industrial-looking towns and some hills, but nothing particularly special. When we arrived, we were impressed with the city because it seemed less dilapidated than Rome. We did manage to (almost) get lost finding our hostel because we took a slightly different route to the one we had planned, but we got here in the end. The manager is a very nice man who is eager to tell us everything he knows about the city, but is very professional and friendly. We attempted quiche for dinner, which turned out well, and Keeley made us some scrumptious pancakes. We then wiled away several hours with the rest of the guests at the hostel, swapping stories and generally talking nonsense. It was good.
Get what you want at ebay. Get rid of those unwanted christmas presents!
1 comment:
That video was lame, you could have easily found a jump.
Pat.
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