Rome II

We sampled McDonald's in Italy while in Rome. It wasn't that good, bought from the McDonald's next to the central train station (not the outlet inside the station itself), must avoid McDonald's while in Italy in the future:

Yes we checked out the Coliseum in case I haven't mentioned that before, this pic shows how it sits alongside Constantine's arch:

Then a nice view of the Coliseum coming down from the hill Nero's golden home sits on:

Inside the structure, my daughter dryly noted the use of 2,000 year old scaffolding (not), oh and a modern concrete batching plant outside as well. In other words constant work is ongoing to keep the structure from falling down - suggestion: throw the cars out from the vicinity, that might help:

We checked out the place it is said Julius Caesar was cremated in the Forum, people place coins and other offerings there, no idea why they do that:

We took in other sights, such as the Trevi Fountain, and noted the large volume of souvenirs connecting the fountain with Audrey Hepburn's film, Roman Holiday. No surprises guessing the age of the visitors:

A short walk then to the Pantheon, the absolute highlight of our whole trip:

The famous ceiling:

And the drain holes in the floor to take away the water that falls through that hole at the top:

People seem to forget to walk around the outside of the building, just to see how old the structure is:

We then visited Vatican City, walking there from the Pantheon, and the next day for a second time by taking the hop on/hop off bus which commenced its journey right outside our hotel. By using the bus we had a lot of time to see the Vatican Museum:

Walking back from Vatican City we came upon the Largo di Torre Argentina and its Roman Republican temples. Many believe this is the location of the assassination of Julius Caesar. This is not well promoted by the Italians and the sign explaining the site is very poor:

Then heading in the general direction of the hotel, came up close and personal with the Circus Maximus:

Then on the next day we get off the hop on/hop off bus at their stop on the hill to the right, to get a view of the Circus Maximus from that vantage point and head to the Bocca della Verita or Mouth of Truth, as my daughter is obsessed with the thing. Initially we couldn't find it and that was because guide books put us badly wrong. The simple explanation to find this; from the hop on/hop off bus-stop at the Circus Maximus, head down the hill in the direction the traffic is travelling. Go over the first street, then keep going straight, the Mouth of Truth is on the next corner inside the building on the corner, the entrance just around the corner on your right shoulder.

That was fun, daughter didn't lose her hand. Then back on the bus and off to the Vatican Museum. Interesting, learnt that Raphael is much better than Michelangelo and that the Sistine Chapel ceiling is totally overrated. Another tourist trap. Though on one of the displays I did read that there is no proof at all that Christians were fed to the lions by the Romans. Thank you Vatican, I knew that, and finally comes confirmation from people with a vested interest in saying the opposite.

The Vatican Museum has a lot of really old stuff, such as Egyptian pieces 5,000 years BC:

5,000 BC are those little pieces in the middle of the pic. That's old. The Vatican Museum is better laid out but English did evaporate at times, though not as often as with Italian Museums. The museum can be beautiful:

But the exit staircase is treacherous, watch out:

Outside, the Vatican was having some festival for agriculture:

Rome

Our travels in Italy ended in Rome. I also give it top spot due to the layout of the streets which are logical and well signposted, and considering that most of the main sights are in Rome as well. My personal favourite place is Florence but I have to admit it is much smaller. If heading to Italy, you have to visit Rome.

We spent a week in Rome, the first few days just walking around, then another day using a hop on/hop off bus, then our last full day we devoted to shopping.

On our first walk around we stumbled upon the Coliseum:

It's an imposing structure and you can see how it was constructed, rather like an onion with the outer layers going higher and reaching over the lower inner layer.

But while impressive, it's still only a sports complex. For me the Forum and Palatine Hill are more interesting. The Italians get complicated with their ticketing, there is something called a Super Ticket which I'm not sure about as the place advertising it was not selling it. Italians are idiots like that. In the end we bought a ticket for the Coliseum and Palatine, which gave one entry to each, valid for two days. We visited both over one day, which was hard work, we wore our legs out.

Without needing a ticket you can get a good view of Constantine's arch,

and the gladiator school that sat right next to the Coliseum (gladiators went into the stadium underground):

Plus, aqueducts which brought in water are clearly visible as are what is left of 2,000 year old apartment blocks.

Using your ticket to gain entrance to the Palatine, you can get a good view of the Circus Maximus, still an impressive structure today. Do they still race horses on this track and if not, why not (look out Ben-Hur)?

At the other end of the Palatine you can get a good view of the Forum:

Tomorrow I'll continue describing our Rome experiences, including the awesome Pantheon which was the highlight of the whole trip. But before I go I'll leave you with a pic of the hop on/hop off bus we used.

The advantage this afforded was the ability to quickly get to the main things, but also in having the upper deck we got a really good idea of how things looked 2,000 years ago. Take out the cars, and it would have been stunning having Trajan's column at one end and Titus and Constantine's arch at the other, to one side the Palatine, and the other side the hill with Nero's golden house on it. The Coliseum standing between the two. You can get this from up top on the bus, but while walking around on the ground down below you can't see the layout all that well.

Florence

The day following the rugby game in Parma, we travelled to Florence. The train first took us to Bologna, then we changed trains and headed to Florence. We found ourselves now travelling through very pretty countryside.

Florence is my kind of place. That's probably because it's not too large but not too small either. I've studied its history and so know a bit and that probably helps too. Did we do the 463 steps to the top of the Duomo? I tried but don't have a head for heights, so gave up, the task was completed by my wife and daughter.

You need to buy a ticket to climb the steps and this same ticket gets you in to other things as well, such as the Duomo museum, baptistery, bell tower and crypt under the cathedral. All of these are well worth the price of the ticket, especially the museum and the area under the cathedral.

Some pics: you need to make an appointment for the 463 steps and the queuing spot is to the side of the building, not the main doors. By the way it's free to just enter the cathedral proper and to look around and many choose this option alone:

Queuing for the 463 steps:

Steps:

The ceiling from a viewing spot after 100 or so steps (I gave up after this):

The view from the top (thank you to the wife):

There are other sights as well, all within easy walking distance of one another:

And of course, the one thing everyone wants to see, the statue of David which sits in the Museo Accademia:

They've built a hall to show the statue off to maximum effect and they've done this well. I failed to take a photo of my favourite painting though (dang) which sits to the right of David as we look at it. The reason I liked it was the story behind its discovery, if I remember correctly it sat in a basement for years and the owner thought it may be worth something and had it valued. Worth nothing came the answer and so being so large it just sat in the basement some more. Then the owner had another go at getting it valued, this time the valuer recognised the hand and it turns out to be worth a lot. So now it sits alongside the greats. And yes I dream of a find like that. I'll call this work the painting of the Madonna with the big boobies for want of knowing its exact name.

This was breakfast the next day, downstairs from our apartment:

Italians put Nutella in everything:

This was the place, nice people and a place full of locals:

This was the view from our apartment, run by Anna Berti, she's on Booking.com and she thought of everything, her business is very well run:

We were in Florence for a week, the wife went to the opera and travelled to the Chianti region, while daughter and I went looking for the lost Medici fortune in the Medici park. All we found was some fallen trees.

We didn't get to Pisa and other places of note, we'll be back and 'do' those places later. Daughter says I've got a serious man crush on Cosimo de' Medici. Well yes, the man was a genius.

Parma

I like Parma, probably because they have their own fully professional rugby team and the city is on a scale I can identify with. I had to inform my wife that the road sign indicating in which direction a sports stadium lay, would not be a rugby ground. No doubt the place they play rugby would be in the opposite direction and I was right.

The train from Milan to Parma revealed more industry and so we were heading toward larger population centres clustered together. On the previous journey from Venice to Milan, we had seen shipbuilding near Venice (those large cruise ships, two under construction in fact), and then large quarries, one with large blocks of dimensional stone that had been cut recently, very impressive but for most of the time we saw only farmland and farm buildings.

Once again we could see rugby pitches as well as soccer and handball plus a few athletic tracks but not many of the latter. Then arriving in Parma we discovered not to trust Google directions too much. Turns out the hotel we wanted to find was directly over the road from the station main entrance, but Google had us going in the opposite direction and turning several corners to arrive at a place clearly visible....oh it's over there. This sort of thing happened a lot and I concluded that Google can be used as a general indication and is no better than that. For instance in Venice it put the dot on the wrong building completely.

Anyway did I say there is a lot to like about Parma? We grabbed a quick snack from a local shop that was very cheap and frequented by the locals:

Wandered the streets:

Checked out some culture:

Then on the day of the game we saw a marching band playing during some religious festival. Good to see this as New Zealand bands are just about extinct now:

Then we walked to the game between the Zebre and Cheetahs in the Pro14. The Zebre represent the local region and are the bottom team in Conference A, while the Cheetahs are from South Africa and sit just above them. So this wasn't going to be a display of outstanding skill but we enjoyed the day nonetheless.

The stadium the Zebre play at is called Stadio Sergio Lanfranchi, it's small with a capacity of about 5,000 but it's quite a nice place, well laid out and sits nicely to the sun. Why oh why has New Zealand gone to night games to keep the TV audience happy, in winter mid afternoon rugby games on a Sunday are the ideal times to play. The sun is almost always out. This day was no exception.

Without the help of Google, we found the place all right. Tickets weren't expensive but they didn't sell game day programmes. Ouch, we were told that's a Kiwi thing. Well yes, I need to know who the players are in each position. Therefore I was left guessing who each player was. Programmes are also a useful fundraiser and allow local businesses to promote themselves.

We were seated in the sunny stand and watched the warm-ups, which to us looked more like practise. The South Africans got their playing shorts muddy doing this, and when the game started all they'd done is change their shirts, they started the game with those same muddy shorts. What? Warm-ups are warm-ups, when do you guys practise and do you have no self-respect? Starting a game at kick-off muddy from the warm-up is naff if you ask me.

The result doesn't tell the whole story. The score was Cheetahs 27, Zebre 12. In fact the score should have been more in the Cheetahs favour as they completely dominated the second half. What kept the game close is the annoying pursuit of bonus points. The Cheetahs were going for tries and did not attempt penalty kicks which would have made the game safe. This is meant to be entertaining but I find it tiresome.

Then the pitch itself has a slight grade toward the right hand side as we look at it in the pictures which follow. Most points were scored at that end and all play tended to go in that direction. They really need to address this, the roll of the ball is biased to the administration end.

Then finally, the role of imported players needs addressing. With 15 men on the field imports cannot have as much impact as they do with basketball. New Zealand-born forward Jimmy Tuivaiti (North Harbour) was playing for the Zebre but he also played in the centres and at fullback. He was all over the place and is your basic highly skilled New Zealand player (he currently makes himself available for Italy). Italy have got to develop their own players to this level. My guess is they struggle to do that as other sports, notably soccer, get first look at anyone showing athletic potential. They've got the facilities, now they have to find ways of keeping the players.

Anyhoo, the game was like this in pics, the teams run on, Cheetahs in white are first out:

Followed by the Zebre in black:

The game gets started:

There are lineouts (most play heads to this side of the field and to the right as this is the slope - note):

Cheetahs score and convert against the slope of the ground:

There are more lineouts and such (spot the ball in this image):

And Jimmy Tuivaiti is everywhere for the Zebre, he's the guy in black with number 8 on his back, foreground and to the right:

The Zebre have enthusiastic supporters who cheer every effort, about 2,000 at the game, along with annoying drummers which reminded us of the Warriors in Auckland (League team, different code):

And then we had gelato on the way back to the hotel. An enjoyable day:

Why did the Zebre lose? Well, they had structure but not a vast wealth of individual talent. They're good players but the South Africans had the extra edge. Also, I noticed during the game that the Zebre backs started to argue amongst one another. That's not a good sign. The South Africans kept their discipline.