Rome

After one week in Artimino we left for our second visit to Rome. We have been there in 2007 and just wanted to have another look at the Eternal City.

Things have changed a lot. While in 2007 (we were there at a similar time of the year) there were a lot of visitors, this year it was mad. Lots of people especially around the Colosseum and Forum Romanum and a lot of people in Selfie-Mania, like in Firenze and Pisa. I hate it. People are very often not looking but just setting themself up, take a picture and walk away. They do not look whether they stand in anyone else’s way or not. Here’s a good example of what I mean (video clip was taken in Firenze)… Maybe this guy is the solution to it 🙂

Anyway, we did 2 guided tours and 3 days on our own. It was not as good as in 2007 but still some fun.

The first tour we did was Ancient Rome. All around the Colosseum and Forum Romanum. The guide was very knowledgable and it was not only informative but also fun.

In the afternoon we took the Vatican tour. Also very informative but after the 3 hours walk around in the morning, it was exhausting to spend another 3 hours in the Vatican museum and Sistine Capella In the chapel photography was not allowed and it was asked for silence. In fact the chapel was noisier than the museum. Everybody was talking and the guards were the loudest. When we entered, one of them was shouting “Avanti, avanti” and this part of the tour was really bad and not impressive. Two or three times the guards were heard over the loudspeaker “Ssssssshhhhhh, NO PHOTOS!”. This was more like in an amusement park than the so called “holy place”.