My first more extensive update in quite a long time will be about my trip to Rome in February of this year. Realising that what I needed was a getaway I spontaneously booked a trip to Rome.
I want to maintain a kind of less-words-more-photos policy for by blog, so I won’t talk too much and just give you the photos and a short story to each of them.
After my arrival in Rome I first went to see the Coliseum and the Palatine Hill. It was impressive seeing this huge building for real for the very first time. My visit coincided with the last two weeks of pope Benedict XVI’s popeship (is that what it’s called?), so there were huge crowds in Saint Peter’s Square, especially during his next-to-last Angelus prayer.
On the way to the Vatican Museum a lot of “guides” tried to talk me into taking a tour where I could also “skip the queue” at the museum’s entrance. My theory was, that if everyone joined the tour, the queue for the guided tours would be longer than the queue for self-guided tourists like me, and at the museum I in fact had to queue no longer than two minutes. I also visited Saint Peter’s Basilica, as well as its cupola, which is quite impressive (especially the walk up, where you walk inside the cupola), but very crowded even in February.
Rome is the perfect city for a short getaway. In February it is not as crowded as in summer I guess, although because of the resignation of the Pope Vatican was pretty crowded. There’s lots to see and if you don’t mind walking you can see all the main sights without paying for public transport.
I stayed at Hostel Mosaic in Rome, near Roma Termini station. The hostel was pretty cheap and clean, even in the evenings, staff was friendly, and security was good also (lockers in rooms, you have to ring to enter your floor or the hostel). I met some very nice people there, and I would stay again if they would somehow enhance their breakfast buffet. 😉
Mariakel von Rudelfi