Siena

We started busabout by getting the bus from Rome to Siena, i have been looking forward to Busabout since June last year when i first discovered it. i couldn't enjoy my first day though because i got food poisoning (the real king, not what dad gets occasionally on a Sunday morning) i slept for most of the bus trip. Our bus made a stop in Orvieto where we all got on a different bus and went to the top of a hill to have a look at a very picturesque town. It had a stunning cathedral and lots of cobble stoned alleyways. Ewen ran around taking photos while i sat in a cafe. i did walk around a little but was feeling pretty sick.

When we got to Siena at about 1pm i went straight to bed and slept for the rest of the day.
We are staying in a cabin in a caravan park, it is full of trees and from just outside our room we have a view right to Siena and can see the cathedral where they keep Catherine's head. We have even seen lots of squirrels running around our caravan park, jumping from tree to tree.
We spent our full day in Siena sightseeing.

one of the streets in Siena

The town is gorgeous, full of alley ways and cathedrals and their were so many people around because in a couple of days they are having a horse race that is the biggest event for the whole year in Siena.

getting the track ready for the horse race

We were lucky enought to see some marches and performances.


We went to a the Museo Dell'Opera Del Duomo which was a bit of a museum/art gallery. They had a section where you could climb to the top of the building and get the best views of Siena.

we could see the parade form the top of the tower

a view out over Siena

they had a sign telling you to watch your head

i didn't have that problem

Then we went to a Cript full of tombs and very ornately decorated boxes of various human bones.
We went to Santa Maria Della Scala which was an art exhibition and then across to the Duomo which is the largest cathedral in Siena.
It had black and white stripy pillars inside it giving you the impression of been inside a zebras belly.

We had some lunch and then went to the Battistero which was attached to the back of the cathedral and is where they used to baptise all the babies.
Last thing we did in town was walk to the Chiesa di San Domenico which is a church where St Catherines head is currently living. I'm a bit skeptical if it is really her head, they keep it in a glass box and you can only really get to within 5m of it and it still looked in pretty dam good condition for a head that is a couple of hundred years old.

this is the cathedral holding Catherine's head

We got the bus back to the hostel and while Ewen did some drawing i caught up on my blog posts and then we had some dinner at the hostel restaurant.
tomorrow we are leaving for Florence to go check out David and line up at a lot of art galleries.

Our last day in Rome, how sad!

We had a bit of a lazy day today, Ewen slept in and i had a talk to my family on skype. we wrote out a few post cards and wandered around the campsite.
we had lunch at the bar at the hostel and then sat outside our cabin reading for a few hours.
at 3pm we got the shuttle bus to the Vatican and went to St Peters Basilica & Square. i was under the impression we were going to the Popes gardens and there would be lovely green grass, sadly it was all concrete but still very nice. we got some gelato before going in (now a dietary staple for us).
We had to line up to get inside but the line was nothing compared to the Colosseum, we entertained ourselves doing a few pope poses and Ewen talked loudly about people pushing in making the pope cross. This nun pushed in front of us, actually we saw quite a few nuns pushing in, they were pretty eager to get inside.
Before going inside they put your bags through a scanner and you have to walk through a metal detector, you have to dress conservatively and they were turning away a lot of people who had shoulders or knees exposed.
The first section we went into was filled with coffins i suppose, apparantly they really do have the remains of the popes in them! it was a bit of a shock for me, dozens of nuns and other religious people kneeling in front of various coffins praying. one in particular, the display dedicated to John Paul the second, had lots of people kneeling in front of it, praying and many were crying, people threw flowers in, one lady even threw in an entire bouquet of roses, people were writing letters and throwing those in too. Ewen took a sneaky photo of some of the display.


Here is one the guards in their funky uniforms

The church here was incredible, the dome is 120m high and the walls and roof were ornately decorated. It is in this church that the Pietà is housed, it is behind glass because apparently a crazy Australian Geologist attacked it with a hammer a few years ago.

The church was a pretty serious place to be in, with lots of nuns wandering around and people making the cross on themselves, people kneeling in front of alters praying, i'm not sure me and Ewen should have been in there. I kept making jokes about the popes looking like Santa in their red and white hats and jackets and Ewen kept making jokes about the statues looking like batman.


this photo is looking out over the square. on Wednesdays this is where the pope does his thing.

posing as a statue

After leaving here we went shopping for some pope-a-ners. But most things were a bit out of our price range, we ended up getting a little calender filled with pictures of the pope and then got some more gelato.

a street outside the Vatican.

S-e-c-o-n-d D-a-y I-n R-o-m-e

Big day of sightseeing today. we got the first shuttle bus into Rome at 8am and walked from the Vatican to piazza del popolo. this was basically a large square with a few statues and a fountain and bordered by some incredible buildings. This used to be where they held public executions up until 1826 not that you would know that when you are in the square, it is beautiful and they have no information about these executions. in the center of the square was a fountain with an obelisk in the center taken from Egypt and four lions on the edges of the fountain which were the perfect size for tourists to sit on.
After exploring the square (which had hardly any tourists in it, it is definitely worth getting up early to sight see because when we walked back through the square at 4pm there was hundreds of tourists milling about) we walked the main street of Rome which was a beautiful street with old buildings and lots of cafes and very expensive looking shops. most of the side streets were cobble stoned and very photogenic :-)

We passed a cafe where this nice cow gave Ewen some much needed caffeine

The trevi fountain was incredible, i knew it would be big but i didn't realise just how big, it was tricky to get a photo of the entire thing, and not just because you had to dodge tourists. We did the traditional thing of throwing a coin over your shoulder. and then sat back to take it all in and watch the other tourists. it is incredible how dressed up some of the tourists were, complete with high heels full faces of makeup and coordinated outfits (one woman had on bright red short shorts, a red tight top and red very high heels, it was interesting watching her walk on the cobble stones).
these little water fountains are all over Rome constantly running water into drains underneath them, we are not sure if it is drinking water or to wash your hands or both... it seems like a massive waste of water though!
we went into this wooden toy shop, you could smell the wood from outside the door, they had some incredible things in there, all hand made by the owners (husband and wife). Ewen wanted one of these swords but thought it might be a bit tricky to transport. we could have brought 50 things from here but it was all a bit out of our price range, i got a cork for a wine bottle with a wooden turtle on top of it and we left and headed for the Pantheon.
The Pantheon was having some construction work done out the front but inside everything was intact. the dome was incredible, so high! This was built in 37 BC originally used to honour the Planetary Gods but was later used as a Catholic church, it looked like it was still a functional Catholic church with an alter and pews set up at the front.
This is a big white building we went to, i cannot remember what it was called and Ewen is asleep... but it must have been important because they had security guards running around blowing whistles at tourists who did the wrong thing and they had other guards that stood at the top with guns at the ready.

A fancy BMW scooter with all the bells and whistles

Next on our list was the Colosseum, which we could see from the top of the big white building. This was very impressive, the outer wall was so big!! you see it in pictures but to actually be there in person and see it was incredible. I couldn't believe that a road runs right next to it so people on their way to work are driving right next to the Colosseum.
We deliberated for a long time on whether or not to go inside because it was quite expensive and the line was very long but I'm glad we did go in. the line was huge and we waited for over an hour to get in.

me and Ewen waiting patiently

Ewen occupied himself posing in the background of other peoples photos.

some of the people in front of us, the line went right around the corner.

Finally we got inside!! Pretty much everything seemed to be left as it should be apart from at one end they have constructed a mini stage i suppose to show you what it would have looked like back before the stage caved in, the maze you can see in the bottom was under the stage and was where they kept the gladiators and animals. they had a pretty bizarre collection of animals fighting in this arena over the years including ostriches, rabbits, lions, tigers, bears, panthers, hippopotamuses and crocodiles. at one stage they apparently filled the arena with water and put sea creatures in it. this arena used to hold 50,000 spectators!

Outside the Colosseum was the Arch of Constantine where no less than three bride & grooms were posing for photos. we also saw two more wedding parties posing in front of the Colosseum, obviously a very popular place for Romans to get their wedding photos taken... kind of like the capital in bendigo hehe!

our ticket into the Colosseum also included a visit to the roman forum and palatine so we headed there next.





Peek-a-boo!

After leaving here we went and had some lunch, we didn't take photos so i won't put it in the food blog (sorry Rik) I had fruit salad and raspberry cheesecake and Ewen had pasta. When we finished it was 3.45pm and we decided we wanted to catch the 4.30pm bus back to the hostel so we started a very fast walk back to the bus stop, which was a very very long way. when we looked it up on Google when we got home it was about 7km from our lunch spot to where the bus leaves from.
we just made it before the bus left with Ewen running ahead at the last little bit to stop it at the traffic lights. we were exhausted!! and my poor foot has blisters in about 4 different places.