ROME DAY 1

Tuesday - the day started in bright sunshine but with a chill in the air.

On our way to catch the Hop on Hop off bus we met a weirdo, scammer.  He asked us for directions to the Termini Station as he was in a car with a map out.  Michael was giving him directions and he gave us this big spiel about how he worked for Armani and wanted to thank us by giving us these 2 leather jackets which were his samples. We only had to give him some cash for petrol as he had driven from Milan.  We looked at each other and laughed, the jackets were ugly anyway.  We think he was surprised and disappointed but said thank you and drove off!    

We got off the bus at the Colosseo (the Colosseum) and it is massive, almost as big as the MCG. We then got the bus to the Vatican City.   We had an amazing tour of the Vatican Museum, Sistine Chapel and St Peter Basilica.  Out of all the churches we have seen so far St Peter Basilica blows them all away.  Inside is made out of marble and the paintings are actually mosaic,  Quite incredible.  As we approached the Sistine Chapel there were lots of signs and loud speaker messages saying no photos to be taken inside the Chapel. The reason being that the Japanese paid  millions of dollars for the cleaning of the ceiling and obtained the copyright for all the paintings.  We were stunned as we walked inside because  we were blinded by the camera flashes going off everywhere.  Michael was happy because out came Junior.  We think the Vatican have to say no photos but in reality they got their money so now they don’t give a damn!

Next stop – The Trevi Fountain.  We were both surprised to see the location of the Fountain as it was at the end of a narrow street.  The Fountain is quite amazing though. The place was really crowded so we threw some coins in with our right hand over our left shoulder, took some pics and moved on.

Continued on the bus back to our hotel and sitting on the balcony having a relaxing drink before dinner.

Caio   

 What an impressive place.

 The Holy City.

 To think that this was made with a hammer and chisel.

Sistine Chapel. Michaelangelo was in his seventies when he painted this.

 We needed sunglasses to cut out all the camera flashes, even though no photos were allowed to be taken.
At least junior had no flash.

 St Peter Basilica. The Vatican has 2,500 different types of colored marble so the paintings are a mosaic not paint. I looked closely and you can tell its a mosaic. Red marble came from Eygpt.

On the floor are the names of many churches from around the world. The names are graded as the closer to the altar the smaller the church. Its 186 mtrs long. About the same as  MCG ground post to goal post

 Michaelangelo created this when he was in his early 30's. That was around 1530 AD

 Tevi Fountain. Lots of coin throwing. The police were around to make sure you didn't go in and collect some pocket money.

 Our first effort was to throw coins in over our right shoulder. A local told us we should have thrown the coins over our left shoulder. So had to do it again, the right way.

 The fountain was down a little lane and the Trevi piazza was not very big.