Rome and pope country.

2/28 - 3/1

All the Colosseum shots with us in them were blurry or otherwise screwed up. I like this one though. Rome is a great place, and I think both of us wanted to spend some extra time there, but we got kicked out of our hotel and went to Piano di Sorrento in a huff.
We'd booked two nights in a nice hotel in a cheap district full of Chinese-run businesses. As soon as we arrived we decided to stay an extra night and arranged that with the hotel manager. The morning of the third day we're told we have to leave by 10am! Not a word of apology, some mumbled excuse about an internet booking and we were out on the street.

Still, in the two days we had there we saw quite a lot of impressive sights, some of which are pictured below:

A 'big white monument with horses', is the informative entry in my diary.

The forum. I'm sure you get the best view from here, without paying to enter.

This thing apparently featured in an Audrey Hepburn film and is required viewing for Japanese tourists in Rome. You're supposed to stick your hand in its mouth?

No visit to Rome would be complete without a trip to pope country. This is a nice angle I found in the basilica.

More awesome costumes. Italy is great for 16th century guard fashion.

As we were walking back into Italy from pope country some guys with signs saying they were 'ex-addicts' asked me if I wanted to 'sign against drugs?'. No, no, I quite like drugs and they have a hard enough time without anti-drug petitions thankyouverymuch.

The Pantheon ceiling, with a little bit directly below cordoned off, perhaps to prevent people taking pictures like this.

These guys did fairly good paintings in under 5 minutes as you watch.

The Trevi fountains, as busy as you'd expect. Apparently the coin-throwing tradition results in ~3,000 Euros piling up in the fountain every day.

This looked so much better on our retinas.

1 Euro ice cream from 'the oldest gelato factory in Rome'

So aside from our hotel we had a great time. Certainly somewhere Hozumi wants to return to when we can.