Italy, part XVIII - Rome (viii): Wrapup - Roman Forum, Colloseo, Termini and Freccia Bianca

Sipping tea here and typing. Just polished off the other half of the Dominoes pizza I ordered last night. I do feel guilty about that - all the excessive food, I mean.

After the Vatican, I went over to the Roman Forum to use up the third part of my ticket, and slipped into the Roman Forum about an hour before its closing time. It was an interesting place - I know some people refer to Rome as a city with 'loads of broken bits', but to me, it was fascinating, seeing the remains of people who had lived and died here thousands of years ago. It had finally stopped raining, but the weather was still blustery, which was still vastly preferable to boiling heat.

The Collosseum from the other side

Next morning. I had an early morning train to Florence, aboard the Freccia Bianca, one of Italy's high speed trains, and I walked around the Termini whilst waiting for my train. High speed trains are the only means of transport that actually run on time here. I was honestly flabbergasted by the incredible lack of punctuality (and that is a massive understatement) of the buses here.

My favourite kind of train ride: when the day is still dark

We will meet again.

Italy, part XIII - Rome (iii): Chiesa di Sant' Ignazio di Loyola, more Pantheon, more Roman Forum, and Palazzo/Piazza Venezia - add to that a dash of street violina and Roman panini (Pane e Salame)

Palazzo Venezia

Finally here with the Italian entries as I promised, but... eh, too much has happened between the intermittent 5 months or so (was it really only 5 months? It feels much longer...) for me to remember too much about my mood when I wrote these. Oh, there is one. It was when I walked out of the Pantheon and watched a street artist play his rendition of Clean Bandit's Rockabye, and then Despacito. I don't think I can describe my feelings wholly in words, nor would there be any words in the English lexicon adequate for me to illustrate them (maybe in German though), but watching him play these mainstream songs and listening to the crowd happily singing or just tapping along, was probably one of my happiest recollections from this trip. I recorded some of his rendition of Despacito, and whenever I felt I needed a pick me up, I would watch that video, over and over again.

Here's the one picture I have of the violinist, the rest of them were videos. I've never uploaded videos here before and I don't particularly intend on starting now.

Despacito, quiero respirar tu cuello despacito

I walked around a lot more - Rome's roads are quite easy to get lost in, but thanks to my phone's trusty GPS I found my way around without too much hassle - and found one of the restaurants that I had found using a combo of google maps and tripadvisor. It was called Pane e Salame and the paninis were apparently out of this world. Sure enough, when I entered there were several tables of east Asian tourists with their big cameras slung around their necks; telltale signs that this restaurant was definitely on the radar.

I thought it was okay ish but not raveworthy, but then again I've never been a huge fan of sandwiches. And yet that was all I had in Italy because apparently that was the only thing that the good restaurants served, else I've been given faulty information. I have no complaints though, the vibes in the restaurant were good and the waiters were super nice.

Here's the menu

And the rest of ancient Rome that you know ..

And what is Rome, Maximus?

Chiesa di Sant' Ignazio di Loyola

Roman Forum, with the Piazza Venezia in the background