When In Rome …

I’ve just finished my first day back in work after my amazing long weekend in Rome and I’m depressed.

This was my third visit to Rome and once again it was an amazing experience. All three visits have been brilliant in their own way, the first because it was my first big adventure. Myself, my nephew and a close friend managed to walk all the major sites of the city in 3 long and exhausting days. This was especially rewarding because it was all new and we had put in the time and hard work during the mid-summer sun, what an achievement. It was only after my second visit however that I realised I had only scratched the surface and that during my first visit I had missed out on the real magic of Rome. Since our initial visit my nephew had moved to live Rome, made friends, got a job as a tour guide and learnt the real beauty of Roman life, so my second time in the eternal city was a truly amazing experience. We visited some of the major sites, but this time armed with his massive depth of knowledge, therefore what had previously just been beautiful and impressive became meaningful and interesting, the city was beginning to make sense. In the evenings we ate well, drank plenty and on two occasions played football with his Italian friends. The locals teaming up against the foreigners, which involved people from England, Scotland, Wales, New Zealand and Argentina … the Italians didn’t stand a chance! This second experience in Rome had truly opened my eyes to the experiences that where on offer in the rest of the world, and when my better half secretly booked this trip for us I was blown away. I couldn’t wait to show her the magic of Rome as I’d experienced it.

We arrived in Rome mid-morning on Friday and with relative ease we had the journey to our hotel planned out. This was refreshing for me because I’m not the most confident in my abilities of navigating when in a new place, despite me usually being right if I pay attention. This time however I had some familiarity and the fairly constant grid system makes it easy to head in the general direction and end up in the right area. After getting the shuttle bus to Termini (the main bus/train station), we decided to brave the metro, which was fantastically easy to navigate, It’s cheap too! Once we found the hotel (Ancient Romance B&B) we instantly knew we’d be staying here again, the building was brilliantly located, the rooms where fantastic (as was the air conditioning), the staff where really helpful and the price was great.

We decided we’d take it easy, adjust to the heat (34°C) and have a gentle wonder around St. Peter’s Square, Castle St. Angelo and the surrounding area to familiarise ourselves with some shops, places to eat and most importantly, where to get nice ice-cream from, haha. As we’d been up early we had intended to take a late afternoon siesta before we headed out for the evening, but my nephew had finished his tour through the Vatican at 5, which was just around the corner from where we’d stopped for Ice Cream, so we met up on our way back to the Hotel. We all grabbed a shower and chilled out in the lovely air conditioned room before heading back out to have ‘a few beers’. We met up with a close friend of my nephews in The Abbey before heading to Campo de’ Fiori where we met up with a few more of his friends. We then headed to the river where a festival was taking place! This essentially meant lots of food and drink stalls along the rivers edge and LOTS of people. We had a great time and met up with a bunch of students from various countries, one of whom was a creepy dude who sounded German, needless to say we didn’t really entertain him for long, lol. After some drunken antics we headed back to the hotel because we had an early start!

On the Saturday morning my nephew had arranged for us to accompany him on a private tour with a lovely American family who he had been guiding around the city. We met them at 10am and the plan was to cover the Colosseum, Palatine Hill and The Forum in the morning! This was the first time I’ve seen my nephew at work and I was pleasantly re-assured that he is VERY good at his job. His depth of knowledge is amazing and he was able to guide us all on an experience that brought everything to life, despite the ridiculous 36°C heat. Come dinner time we decided that we should leave the family to enjoy the rest of their tour, so we thanked them for their generosity and wished them well. From their we decided to grab some food, get a quick shower and head to the Vatican Museums to visit the Sistine Chapel. To be honest it wasn’t quite as mind blowing as I’d hoped, but this was most likely due to the fact that the whole hour long walk is full of work which is equally spectacular. Plus, by this time I was grumpy because I’d spent 6 hours walking around in the ridiculous heat and all I was looking forward to was a cold shower and a power nap!

After a good sleep we got ready and headed out for a meal. We walked through the Vatican, past the Castel Sant Angelo and across the Bridge of Angels, before heading towards Piazza Navona. We stopped at a beautiful little restaurant in a narrow street just outside the square. The green ivy was flowing down the front of the rustic yellow building, the light was fairly dim and the shutters, tables and seats outside where typically Italian, even complete with a wobble from the uneven cobbled street, this was perfect. We had the most amazing meal, accompanied by the bustle of Rome, in a fantastic setting. The owners where even a stereotypical old couple who pottered about checking that all the guests had well taken care of and gesturing like crazy about everything! After a wonderful experience we headed off to meet my nephew and his friend. We started off very chilled and got talking with lots of people, but by the time we’d talked half of Rome to sleep and 2 o’clock had rolled around we were totally wasted, so we made our way home … this took two hours, even though we had walked it in 20 minutes on the way. Classy!

On the Sunday morning we were a little on the groggy side to say the least and slept in till about mid-day. We eventually dragged ourselves out of our pits to get a slice of pizza from a little place that we’d noticed all the locals using. We stepped outside the hotel and were hit by a wall of heat! It was 38°C today and not the tiniest hint of a breeze. We immediately got a bottle of water from the shop outside and decided that today was going to be a write-off. After our amazing pizza we pottered around a little, but the heat quickly won over us, so we headed back to the hotel for a siesta. We got up about 4 and jumped the metro to Barberini so we could get a snack and visit the Trevi fountain, but it was absolutely packed! We’d only been out for an hour but already the heat was having an effect, so we headed back to the hotel. That night we’d arranged to met my nephew and his fiend for a top class meal at a restaurant we’d found on my first visit. We met about 9 and headed to the restaurant, which to my delight was rather busy. We had the most fantastic meal and I was really chuffed to have found a great restaurant that even my nephew’s friend didn’t know about, despite it being on his door step. After the meal we jumped a cab to The Abbey to meet up with everyone, including another friend of nephew’s who’s girlfriend made a surprise visit from Japan, how cool is that?! After a couple of drinks it was time for us to go because we had to be at the airport at 8am and our posh taxi was booked for 7. We said our goodbyes and set off our last walk across the beautifully lit streets of Rome.

The whole weekend was absolutely amazing and before we’d even got home that night we were already planning our next adventure!

I’ve Got Designers & Writers Block … $%&£!

Arghhhhhh! Work is totally dominating my thoughts at the moment, to the point where I’m struggling to get a good nights sleep because everything is ticking over in my head, long in to the night. As a result, and anyone who’s looked at the site recently will have noticed, my blogging has suffered. I do have a long list of articles that I’ve wanted to write over the last 6 weeks, but I just cant find the time, or focus on things long enough to write anything that remotely resembles good English language. My frustrations came to a head earlier when I read a fantastic article on Web Design Booth called 65 Absolutely Cool And Creative Twitter Backgrounds.

As I usually do when I see something inspirational, I grabbed a scrap of paper and poised myself to jot down some ideas in postage stamp sized diagrams that only I could ever possible understand. This trick allows me to get the gist of it down, then when I get home from work I can expand on the idea and have a play about in Photoshop or Dreamweaver to see what I can make of it. But this time, all I did was stare at the screen, then the paper … back to the screen, then back to the paper. Absolutely nothing sparked in my head. WTF!

Needless to say, I think I need a break from the twists and tales of the relentless paper work. Thankfully I’m off to Rome with my other half in the morning, so I’ll do lots of relaxing, plenty of sight seeing, a fair bit of drinking.

See you all when I’m back.

Arrivederci!!!

Am I Becoming Nosey?

I’m having images of Michael Paine peeping through the curtains as I write this, haha!

For a few months now I’ve been feeling the need to get my head back in to the books, both academically and as a means of chilling out in my spare time. I usually play football, relax with my lady in front of the tv or play computer games in my spare time, but with the latter usually being before bed, it takes me ages to get to sleep, so I thought books would break this cycle.

I decided that I needed to get a copy of David Attenborough’s Autobiography – Life on Air, because he is possible the most accomplished man alive today and he has dedicated his life to two of my major interests, technology and nature. I dived on to Amazon, as you do, and found his book. Just as I was reading about some of the finer details, to wet my appetite, I spotted the link to an audiobook! This was something I have never considered before, but given that having the great man himself read it out me would mean less stress on my already over-worked eyes and the fact that I own an iPhone, it could be something that works for me. To follow this brain wave up I looked on iTunes, but it wasn’t there … huh?!?!

This was seriously disappointing, so I decided to look at what other autobiographies where available. I found 4 that where of interest to me; Race to the Pole by James Cracknel and Ben Fogle, Mad, Bad & Dangerous to Know by Ranulph Fiennes, Pole to Pole by Michael Palin and Business Stripped Bare by Richard Branson. I was highly tempted to get all four of there immediately, but as I never rush in to things I thought I should play it cool and just trial one to begin with.  I listened to snippets of each and decided that I needed to have Race to the Pole first because with the exception of Top Gear, its the best program on TV at the moment, so this was to be my the one to pop my cherry!

I have listened to tasters of the others and decided that I couldn’t cope with Ranulph Fiennes monotone style of reading, despite his amazing adventures and deep personality, so I have ordered this in the old fashioned paper format, so I’ll be needing to spend some time lying in the sun and learning more about the greatest adventurer of our times. The other two are ready to be bought as soon as I’ve finished Race to the Pole.

I’m hoping this leads to a greater amount of reading and learning, but for now I’m just happy to be having a fantastic story told to me from the men who made it come true.

In answer to the original question… Yes I am, but only if your story is one of great risk, adventure and success, despite massive odds.