Day 47: Rome. Not built in a day.

Date: Wednesday 14^th May
Staying: Tiber Camping - Rome
Distance Travelled: 0 Miles
Song of the day: Roam – B-52’s

As the saying goes, Rome wasn’t built in a day, and you’d be mad to try and see the highlights in anything less than a week. Even so, there’s more here than you could do in several months of sightseeing. This is my second trip to Rome, and Cam’s third, and there is still much unfinished business. Rome has an embarrassment of riches when it comes to history, monuments, museums and ruins, without even a thought to the food or shopping to be had within its confines.

To start, let me say that we have a great campsite. It’s huge, with a great restaurant, bar, internet, 16 (whole, wonderful) Amps, free transfers to the station, and being right on the Tiber river, if you go out after dark you can hear the frogs by the river and owls in the trees. In the dead of night the whole site is swathed in fog, giving it a delicious feeling of mystery.

Anyway, back to day one in Rome. Neither of us had seen the Spanish Steps, so we made like the tourists (and a few of the locals) and sat for a while watching the world go by. The Spanish Embassy has it’s headquarters near the steps, and is possibly the origin of the name of the steps. Next it was off to the Trevi fountain, again to sit and watch, this time the Cabinieri blowing whistles at anyone that sat too close to its chlorinated waters. We both threw coins in (as is the custom) to guarantee our return to the “eternal city”.

At this point, Cam had promised me a trip to a bookshop in Rome selling English-language stuff, so we took a long walk up to Termini (with a stop for lunch along the way). We left the bookshop a little heavier (all books for Cam I might add, the things I wanted were all in hardback), and headed up to Santa Maria Maggiore, a church whose frescoes date back to the 15^th century, and the gold on it’s ceiling was some of the first brought out from the “new world”. It comes complete with paintings on all surfaces and relics, and is a must-see.

Time was getting on a bit now, so we headed up the Colosseum, one of Cam’s favourite places in Rome. While I lazed out on a shady green hill, Cam trotted about getting his fill of photos. By this stage the Rome heat was taking its toll, so we headed back to the shades of the campsite, and a relaxing dinner at the campsite.