I was half way through a blog and it had disappeared from my phone. Last time this happened it reappeared after I had rewritten the whole thing. So now I will try to remember where I left off and hope I can paste them together later.
So the old one did reappear but I can't be bothered cutting and pasting so I am just posting them separately. So if you are reading this one first you might want to find the other one.
I have just gotten on the train to Naples and the person who sat down next to me reeks of cigarettes. So even though it's pretty warm I have gotten out my scarf and wrapped it around my face. My asthma has not been so impressed with europe.
But I'm getting ahead of the story. I think I left you at the vatican. There is so much there. Too much to tell. So here were MY highlights. The Laocoon: it really is pretty amazing. A vase by Exekias that shows Ajax and Achilles playing dice which I studied at uni but photographs just don't do it justice, there is so much detail. One particular picture on the roof of one of the rafael rooms which had a picture of a statute of jesus on the cross up on a pedestal with a statue of Hermes shattered on the ground in front of it, which really sums up the early christian treatment of other religions. Now the vatican collects and protects ancient art of any kind but in Rome the only way old buildings and monuments survived was if they were turned into christian monuments. I suppose after the way they had to hide for the first few hundred years they probably resented other religions quite a bit by the time they were in power but why is religious tolerance such a hard idea to grasp? There were a hundred other amazing things as well of course. The sistine chapel was pretty impressive. I had expected it to be less than it's made out to be but it was rather good.
By the end of all of that my feet were more than a little tired so I took the metro back to my hostel. Found a grocery store to get some supplies and then gave my legs the rest of the night off.
The next day I again started fairly early because everyone else in my room started even earlier. I packed some lunch food and headed out to Tivoli for the day. Except I didn't technically get all the way to Tivoli. I got off the bus at Hadrian's Villa and after 4 hours wandering around there I decided I didn't need to go the rest of the way to Tivoli and just headed back to Rome. Hadrian's Villa was big. I remember learning about parts of it at high school but I'm sure they never conveyed to me the scale of the place. It just keeps going. I didn't see all of it. But I had a lovely day walking around out there. It was nice to get away from the crowds for a bit. That's probably why Hadrian built it in the first place.
I'd had a few pretty epic days by then and decided I would take that evening and the next morning off from being a tourist. Of course I didn't get back to the hostel until after 5 so I'd still had a bit of a day.
Yesterday I didn't head out until about noon. I headed to the ara pacis augustae. Which is in pretty good condition. They were doing another special exhibition in the basement which meant I had to pay an extra €3.50 even though I didn't really care about it. It was all about Audrey Hepburn in Rome which could have been vaguely interesting if it had been about her as a person or something but it was just her as a fashion icon. An entire exhibit on the clothes she wore. I got pretty bored by the time they got half way through the 60s.
I had planned to have another tourist day with a list of the things I hadn't seen yet but I decided that instead I felt like wandering aimlessly and seeing what I found. I found the synagogue and the portico of octavia which I really liked. It was another archaeological site but it was right in a neighbourhood. It literally went houses, shops, restaurants, ancient site, shops, houses, more ancient site. The old and the new together is great to see. People have been living and working and growing in that place for millenia. If you believe the stories the city has been constantly inhabited for 2764 years. And you can see it when you look at the portico of octavia.
So that was my day. I meandered for quite a while. Got gelato, tried to shop for shoes, tried to help other tourists who asked me for directions and just generally enjoyed being in Rome.
And this morning I got on a train to Naples where I am now writing this to you. And now I'm hungry so I'm going to eat some food.
So I made it to sorrento but not without difficulty. Tired now because of said difficulty so I will tell you about it next time.
So the old one did reappear but I can't be bothered cutting and pasting so I am just posting them separately. So if you are reading this one first you might want to find the other one.
I have just gotten on the train to Naples and the person who sat down next to me reeks of cigarettes. So even though it's pretty warm I have gotten out my scarf and wrapped it around my face. My asthma has not been so impressed with europe.
But I'm getting ahead of the story. I think I left you at the vatican. There is so much there. Too much to tell. So here were MY highlights. The Laocoon: it really is pretty amazing. A vase by Exekias that shows Ajax and Achilles playing dice which I studied at uni but photographs just don't do it justice, there is so much detail. One particular picture on the roof of one of the rafael rooms which had a picture of a statute of jesus on the cross up on a pedestal with a statue of Hermes shattered on the ground in front of it, which really sums up the early christian treatment of other religions. Now the vatican collects and protects ancient art of any kind but in Rome the only way old buildings and monuments survived was if they were turned into christian monuments. I suppose after the way they had to hide for the first few hundred years they probably resented other religions quite a bit by the time they were in power but why is religious tolerance such a hard idea to grasp? There were a hundred other amazing things as well of course. The sistine chapel was pretty impressive. I had expected it to be less than it's made out to be but it was rather good.
By the end of all of that my feet were more than a little tired so I took the metro back to my hostel. Found a grocery store to get some supplies and then gave my legs the rest of the night off.
The next day I again started fairly early because everyone else in my room started even earlier. I packed some lunch food and headed out to Tivoli for the day. Except I didn't technically get all the way to Tivoli. I got off the bus at Hadrian's Villa and after 4 hours wandering around there I decided I didn't need to go the rest of the way to Tivoli and just headed back to Rome. Hadrian's Villa was big. I remember learning about parts of it at high school but I'm sure they never conveyed to me the scale of the place. It just keeps going. I didn't see all of it. But I had a lovely day walking around out there. It was nice to get away from the crowds for a bit. That's probably why Hadrian built it in the first place.
I'd had a few pretty epic days by then and decided I would take that evening and the next morning off from being a tourist. Of course I didn't get back to the hostel until after 5 so I'd still had a bit of a day.
Yesterday I didn't head out until about noon. I headed to the ara pacis augustae. Which is in pretty good condition. They were doing another special exhibition in the basement which meant I had to pay an extra €3.50 even though I didn't really care about it. It was all about Audrey Hepburn in Rome which could have been vaguely interesting if it had been about her as a person or something but it was just her as a fashion icon. An entire exhibit on the clothes she wore. I got pretty bored by the time they got half way through the 60s.
I had planned to have another tourist day with a list of the things I hadn't seen yet but I decided that instead I felt like wandering aimlessly and seeing what I found. I found the synagogue and the portico of octavia which I really liked. It was another archaeological site but it was right in a neighbourhood. It literally went houses, shops, restaurants, ancient site, shops, houses, more ancient site. The old and the new together is great to see. People have been living and working and growing in that place for millenia. If you believe the stories the city has been constantly inhabited for 2764 years. And you can see it when you look at the portico of octavia.
So that was my day. I meandered for quite a while. Got gelato, tried to shop for shoes, tried to help other tourists who asked me for directions and just generally enjoyed being in Rome.
And this morning I got on a train to Naples where I am now writing this to you. And now I'm hungry so I'm going to eat some food.
So I made it to sorrento but not without difficulty. Tired now because of said difficulty so I will tell you about it next time.
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