Essexgirl's Roman Adventures Part One

Better late than never...

We (seven of us) flew to Rome on 30th December on an early morning flight from Stansted. We checked into our rather basic hotel - Domus Mea - and went for a walk to try and find a late lunch and a drink. We ended up near the Trevi Fountain. It was packed with tourists and this was our first indication of how busy Rome was at this time of year. After a cheap lunch with expensive drinks, we split up for a wander. Ratboy and I just looked at a few shops and I bought a couple of cardigans in Blu Sand. We then walked back and relaxed in the room before heading out for a meal. We met up with two others who had flown out separately and wandered around to a local restaurant. I had stuffed aubergines which were delicious, served with roasted potatoes swimming in olive oil, although none of the meals appeared to arrive together. After this we ended up in an Irish bar before heading home about 1am.

The next day Ratboy and I headed off to the Vatican and after some aimless wanderings we joined the growing queue to get into St Peters Cathedral. In actual fact it only took 20 mins to get through the security and we enjoyed our viewing of the Cathedral which was preparing for a service by the pope later that evening, although you could not get up to the dome at that time. After the cathedral we went round to the Vatican museums, of which there are twelve or so, and you pay €12 to get in. Some museums are small, but most are interesting including the art gallery, the map room, the rooms painted by Raphael and or course, the Sistine Chapel.

We returned to the hotel to relax again before heading out to see what Rome had to offer for New Year's Eve. For a meal the nine of us went for a Chinese then to Piazza di Popolo where they played some odd music and some stuff on a big screen whilst a Peter Pan type story was re-enacted on high wire. It went on for an hour and a half before seeming to start again, until midnight. Loads of people let champagne off and we were absolutely drenched, I then had to fight through the crowds to the loo. Many people tried to leave the square at the same time as us and it got a bit hairy as Ratboy ended up hanging on to me and my other small friend G, when we all got separated in the crush of crowds. We met up with the others Ok and went to a little bar for a drink where I had hic-coughs. We left there about 4am.