I know I've raved about the French school holidays before, but they really are great. I am now on my third two week holiday since October, and for this one I decided to go home and get some stuff done, while having a bit of a break from France. But long story short, a selection of different circumstances fell into place and before flying home, I ended up in Rome, spending a weekend soaking up some sun, seeing some ancient stuff, and enjoying exploring a new place while practising my Italian.
Italy for me definitely has a certain feel to it, and as soon as we landed on the tarmac at Fiumicino airport, I felt an overwhelming sense of happiness to be back after 6 months away. Rome is very different to Treviso in many ways. Obviously Rome is a lot bigger and there's more to see. It's also not quite as chilled out as Treviso and Venice, but you'd expect that from a capital city. We did an extreme amount of walking and saw an incredible amount of sights in the three days we were there (I went with three of the other assistants working in Alsace), and it was the perfect way to cheer myself up after a hard few weeks in France (I won't bore you with the details, but gastric flu, getting my bike vandalised, some horrible classes and nasty weather meant I was in need of a holiday!).
We started off in ancient Rome, where unfortunately the Colosseum had scaffolding all over it, so you didn't really get the whole view, but it was still really impressive.
The Roman Forum was incredible, I'm not someone who's usually that interested in History because I find it really hard to imagine these places in the past. But a good chunk of ancient Rome is still intact, which makes it easier for people like me to see how it all fit together to make this incredible place. What struck me was the different layers of history and how they were all there side by side- we were surrounded by ancient, medieval, Renaissance and Baroque buildings and you can see on some builings where over the years it started with this one type of rock and then different layers and columns and facades were added according to the fashions and needs of the time.
What I loved about Rome was how low-rise everything was. It didn't feel like we were in a major city at all because of the lack of skyscrapers and modern architecture. Nothing in the city is allowed to be taller than the St Peter's Basilica, in The Vatican, so ancient Rome feels authentic, and not just like it's lost in a modern city and surrounded by offices or something.
The next day we went on a tour of the city centre. We saw typical touristy things like the Spanish Steps and Trevi fountain, working our way towards The Vatican. My favourite place we passed through was Piazza Navona, it's busy enough to feel interesting, but not heaving with people, and there's a pretty spectacular fountain plonked in the middle. It's the fountain where they filmed the bit in Angels and Demons where a Cardinal is drowning and Tom Hanks comes to the rescue. The fountain is made up of four statues, representing the rivers of four continents that helped the Roman Empire. Or something along those lines anyway. Gelato was in sight by that point so my mind may have wandered from what the tour guide was saying...
A gift of an obelisk from the ancient Egyptians:
And a statue of St Peter on top of a column, pointing towards the Vatican:
The mind-numbingly old (and impressively intact) Pantheon:
And a beautiful piazza designed by Michelangelo:
The tour ended at The Vatican, and we went into the stunningly beautiful Basilica San Pietro. As lovely as the church was, I think we were equally as excited to see a new country, and we really did see the entire country, it being the smallest one in the world. The Vatican is a great place, they have their own currency, and the post office is a static caravan.
I was sad to leave Italy after only such a short time being back, but the end of my time in France is coming scarily and unsettling quickly (not going to lie though, in some ways it's a bit of a relief), which means that my return to Italy is also coming quickly and as of yet, I have organised nothing... Hopefully by my next post I'll have put some plans in place!
Until next time amigos,
Alice :)
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