DAY 38 - 18.7.2006

We woke up early and headed to Rome. We had read that it's not so joyful to drive in Italy because of the rushes and the way they drive down here. But the bigger problem for us was to find the city centrum. Rome has 2.5 million citizens, so the city is very big and directions are not that good. So driving there was once again stressful. Finally we found a private garage near the city centre so we left our car there. The place was quite expensive but we were ready to pay for our car's safety. And now we had the possibility to leave most of our stuff in the car. We had major language problems as we were explaining how long would we be there but after a while we managed to clear everything by talking bad German:)

We didn't really want to stay another day in Rome and because it's impossible to see everything in one day, we planned which sights to see and which not. First we wanted to see the Vatican as the waiting lines for Vatican museum are the longest. We got there 45 minutes before the opening and already there was over 100 meter waiting line. Once we got inside we didn't really want to see other than the Sistine Chapel where there is this famous Michelangelo's ceiling.

After seeing all the interesting sights there we went to the centre of the Vatican. The square where the Pope says new year's greetings in every language. It was quite impressive. And so was the church of St. Peter's. We payed to get up to it's tower. To there it was over 540 steps so it was quite exhausting:) But it was worth it.

After Vatican we started going through Rome's sights in the old town. Main attraction there for us was the temple Pantheon. After Pantheon and it's nearby sights we headed to the Ancient City where the Colosseum and it's friends were waiting. The whole area was amazing. We paid to get inside Colosseum and Palatine Hill. After seeing all the ruins of the old Roman Empire we went to see some other sights including the Fontana Di Trevi. Story tells that if you throw a coin into the fountain you will be guaranteed a fast return to Rome, and if you throw 2 coins you will fall in love there. We all threw just one coin:)

At 8 pm as we were walking to the new town we noticed all the fast walking in the hot sun to take a toll on our smallest traveller. Lauri (aged 14 by the way) felt sick and threw up the remains of the Pizza we ate for lunch. He got the attention of several Italians on the little street. I have to say that Italians are extremely helpful people! Everyone were offering their help to poor little Lauri:) After Lauri had rested a bit we continued our walking. Unfortunately the sun was already setting so we didn't have time to see all the famous Italian designer cloth stores like Prada and Gucci. But it wasn't such a big loss as the window shopping would have left us feeling just miserable:)

We took a taxi to our garage and said arrivederci to Rome. They say all the roads lead to Rome and so it seemed as every road we took didn't really get us out of the city, but finally we made it. I want to visit Rome again but never again by car:) On our way to highway we were overwhelmed by the number of prostitutes standing next to the roads leaving the city. I would have thought police would do something about it but I guess I not. Well, it's one of the oldest professions and we were in one of the world's oldest cities:)