Rome

On the last weekend of Simon's visit, we went to Rome. It was the first time there for Simon and I, and the second for Peter. As with most of our trips, we were on a tight schedule. Our flight landed early on the Saturday morning and our first mission was to get to the Vatican and see the Sistine Chapel before it shut at 1pm.

We dashed onto the Metro and arrived to find the queue snaking around the city walls (as we'd been warned). A woman was milling about waiting to get unprepared tourists to join her expensive but 'no waiting in queues' tour. Given the time limitations, we parted with a pile of euros and went (pretty much) straight in.

Anyone who has been to the Vatican Museum will know, the place is absolutely packed with tourists!! The artwork is incredible, but what an amazing display of opulence and wealth. Towards the end of the guided tour, we joined thousands of other people in the Sistine Chapel, where the crowds had to compress from about 100 wide down to single file to get out of the narrow door at the other end. You definitely wouldn't want to be claustrophobic!

People say that Rome is a great city for walking, so we spent the rest of the afternoon, wandering back towards our hotel and soaking in the atmosphere. The weather was beautiful with the sun shining and temperatures around 8 degrees (much warmer than Geneva in early January!).

Sunday was a full-on day of sight-seeing. First we did the hop-on, hop-off bus tour to get an overview of the city (bit of a time waster), then it was straight to the Colosseum and the Roman Forum for a long wander around the incredible ruins. In the afternoon we went to the Pantheon (wow!) and the Trevi fountain, ending up at the Spanish Steps, where we watched the sun set over the city.

Rome is an amazing and chaotic city - the history, art and of course, the stylish Italians. We definitely enjoyed our whirlwind tour, but I didn't toss a coin in the Trevi fountain.