I think Rome is showing off

I know I shocked a few Genuine Travellers when I revealed the other day that I'd made a point of having a very good look at where everything was on Google Earth before leaving Australia. The sentiment from Genuine Travellers seemed to be that this would spoil the trip, that it would take away from the surprise and excitement of seeing one of these Great Sites for the first time.

Well, it doesn't.

Obvious though the rest of this post might seem, there really is, no matter what preparation you've done, something absolutely incredible and unmatched about standing next to - or in - something truly ancient, or something that has otherwise greatly impacted history. When something you've seen hundreds of times in photographs is suddenly RIGHT THERE IN FRONT OF YOU.



Something amazing about actually touching it, or walking through it, rather than just looking at it in a photograph.



Something almost religious about being able to walk around it, or look at it from both sides, or appreciate its actual scale in a way you never could a mere picture.



Something humbling about realising that ancient people have stood in that very spot and left no trace, and that future generations will do likewise and there will be no trace of you.



Something chilling about imagining what events would have been occurring decades, or centuries, or millenia ago in the very spot on which you're standing. And that anyone looking at a photograph of you in that spot would immediately know exactly where on the planet you were.



It is, in fact, awesome.



PS I'm sorry, Colosseo, for taking liberties touching up your columns.

Unholy flesh

Women are not permitted to enter the Basilica with bare shoulders and/or knees.



And you can understand why.

The Vatican is a religious country, and comprises holy buildings in which bare female flesh has no place whatsoever.

Oh, except for all over the walls.


Brother Michael, why do you spend so much time gazing at the holy paintings in that corridor?


I don't know, Brother Jacob, there's just something about them...

And, to combine naked female flesh with freaky half-human half-wolf hybrid abominations:


There's someone who could have benefited from stem-cell research.

Vatican and consistency: you're doing it wrong.*

*Let's not even start on the issue of what the hell all that wealth is doing concentrated in the headquarters of an organisation whose claimed founder asked His followers to sell their possessions to feed the poor.

When in Rome

Just out of interest, do you want the photograph of the spectacular renaissance ceilings in the Hall of Maps in the Vatican* just as they are on the postcards, only less professionally-framed, or the one with my head in it?

Likewise, do you want the photograph of the enormous and imposing St Peter's Basilica** as per pretty much every shot of Rome that you've ever seen except for the ones of the Colosseum, or the one where I'm trying to look as though one of the fountains is an enormous concrete sombrero I'm wearing?

Finally, has anyone figured out why objects and places managed by people who want to sell you postcards are somehow so fragile that they will disintegrate if their light is absorbed by camera lenses? I just can't get my head around the physics.


Part of the Vatican Wall, in an anonymous shot that could have been taken by absolutely anyone any day of the week so you'll just have to take my word that it was taken by me today.

*Controversial claim for the day: the map hall was more impressive and interesting than the Sistine Chapel. (Although this might be partly because they actually let you SEE this room (as in, there's actual light) and photograph it, and because the buildup for the Chapel is so long and drawn-out that nothing could possibly satisfy you by the time you reach it.)

**We didn't actually go on a tour; we got some Metro tickets and took ourselves around. Consequently, some of the names may be approximate.

Something I probably should have thought about earlier

Weird fact about Rome: the inhabitants speak Italian, not English. True!

Surprising fact about Rome: schoolboy French is not an adequate substitute for Italian, either.

Mystifying fact about Rome: impressions of Don Homer's "Molto Bene" and "That's a nice-a donut" also do not suffice.

Fun hint regarding people who communicate exclusively in other tongues: it doesn't matter how clearly you enunciate your language, if someone doesn't know it, which they don't actually have any obligation to when you're in their country, then they're still not going to understand what you're trying to say.

Useful shopping suggestion: if you are foolish enough to leave your hat back in Australia, buy one when you're in an English-speaking country (or England, if that's the closest equivalent available) rather than waiting until after you've left it for one which isn't. It will save yourself a day of pointing at your head and trying to gesture the difference between a cap and a hat with a brim.

Independent assessment of Jeremy's preparation for and successful negotiation of his first day in a non-English speaking country: FAIL.