La Pasqua in Roma!

Just got back from 5 glorious days in Rome over the Easter weekend - it was superb!

I think I may just have to take some Italian lessons and go and live somewhere in Italy for a couple of months.

We got up ridiculously early on Thursday morning - 3am to be precise, got a cab just before 4am to get to Victoria bus station to make the trek out to Luton for our 7am flight. It was lucky we left when we did (we always think we have plenty of time and end up literally running to make the flight) - traffic wasn't so good and we made it with about 5 minutes to spare before the flight was supposed to leave - only we ended up sitting on the plane
for over an hour as another plane next to us was apparently missing a part, so they thought they'd borrow one from our plane - only it didn't work and simply delayed us for over an hour. :-P I love ryanair.

So we finally got to Rome at about lunchtime - got our backs and scooted
out to find a taxi. Half an hour and 40 Euros later we found ourselves in
Via Roma Libera in Trastavere being greeted by Roberto, whose apartment we
rented. The apartment was awesome and Roberto was lovely. It was a
beautiful old renovated condo with nice modern furnishings... with the
exception of a kettle. oh well...

So we dumped our baggage and headed out into Rome - we found a lovely
Trattoria for lunch and dove into our first
bruschetta/pizza/pasta/wine/beer experience - it was truly bliss. We were
all sighing with happiness and celebrating the italian lifestlye. The food
there is actually quite cheap (by London standards at least) we were stoked
to find that most meals including starters and booze came to under 20 Euros
each.

So after we refuelled it was off to explore the sights of Rome. We worked
out the buses (you have to buy a ticket from a Tabacchi which you then get
stamped on the bus - or as we later found out you can really just jump on
any buses without even having a ticket) and went to the Vatican. Oh. My.
God. It was amazing. and huge! I was in awe... the statues, the
architecture, the history, everything is so impressive. So are the
queues...

So we stood in line for a little while, maybe about 20 minutes or so (which
wasn't too bad) and then went in for a gander around Saint Peters (San
Pietro). It's a beautiful church - apparently the best in the world and
I'll agree with that, although obviously haven't seen every church in the
world :-P The roof was glimmering gold and the paintings in the domes were
stunning. I think you get the picture....

So on to find the metro and throw a penny into the Trevi fountain. This is
beautiful as well - pretty much everything in Rome is beautiful so I'll try
and trim this down to the facts. We threw our pennies into the fountain
(meaning that you will some day return to Rome) and then took a stroll to
the Spanish steps. By this time we were all pretty exhausted after our 3am
start, so we headed back to Trastavere and relaxed in the apartment for an
hour with some vino. We headed out quite late to a cute little restaurant
not far from the apartment where we ate more yummy italian food and drank
more wine.. (are you picking up on the theme for the holiday yet?) I think
this was the night we got lost and ended up walking around in circles - all
totally exhausted! When we finally got back we all fell into bed and didn't
wake up until about 11am on Friday.

To be continued...