Rome - Day 1

23rd July - Update: Hi everyone - brief rundown - we're in Paris at the moment and now finished our tour - however we've had very little internet access during most of the tour and we've also been so busy the entire trip too - so not had time to go through all the photos yet, upload them or finish writing our blog entries for each of the places. I hope to get a chance to do this over the next week now that things have slowed down a bit. We said farewell to our Trafalgar friends this morning and got four more days in Paris before we're off to Vienna.

Rome!

A bit of a sleep in this morning and then we drove off to Rome. Spent most of the day in the bus really, arriving in Rome at 4.30pm. After a brief rest at our hotel (Hotel La Pergola) we headed into the city centre to do our optional tour of Rome.
We got dropped off near the Spanish Steps (all 132 of them) - the main meeting place of Rome. We were given headsets so we could wander around a bit from the guide while still hearing directions and given a history tour of the place.
Now the Spanish steps is not only a common meeting place for couples, but also where up-and-coming actors hope to get noticed by movie directors or picked up by talent scouts. Major fashion labels also get launched here, with models parading down here.

We headed down designer row after this for some window shopping - with brands like Dior, YSL, Gucci, Prada, Bvlgari, Salvatore Ferrogamo, Valentino, etc. We finally arrived at Trevi fountain, truly an incredible display - and certainly jumps out at you as soon as you round the corner and feast your eyes on the beautiful marble statues and flowing water. Absolutely amazing.
The local superstition goes that you can throw three coins into the Trevi fountain for luck.

If the first one goes in, then you will be back to Rome someday.
If the second one goes in then you will have lots of luck.
If the third one goes in you can make a wish.

Next off, we headed towards the Pantheon - it was getting close to closing time for this so we rushed there a bit and made it with 5 minutes to spare. This gave us enough time to wander around the inside of the place thoughand get a short history spiel. What an incredible building - 16 columns in front three of which are restored columns as they were destroyed in a fire, all the rest though are in their original state from 700 BC.
Each column is a single piece of marble, incredibly heavy columns (6 tonnes) and the domed roof is 42m in diameter and if it was inverted it would fit perfectly into the inside area, barely skimming it's surface. The pantheon has an open top, so there are two holes with metal plates in the centre of the floor where the rain water could drain away - amazing demonstration of both precision and mathematics and engineering ability of the time.

We headed to the Piazza Navonna after this - a lovely plaza filled with more beautiful statues, artists and craftsmen, street vendors and performers - not to mention many many restaurants offering lovely food and a chance to watch people as they strolled by. Yumi and I had Pasta and Pizza together with a glass of wine and had a great time, then finished it off with some lovely desert. Yumi had some Gelati, while I tried the local delicacy Tartufo - a thick chocolate cake with ice cream and more chocolate and a hint of rum throughout and topped off with cream - deliciously decadent and I had to share it with several others to be able to finish it.

We then had a quick stop off to see St Peters Basilica at night before heading to our hotels to sleep.