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Pescara: What….the f*ck…..is that!?

Monday, September 19th, 2005

From Rome, Bec and I were travelling by bus to Pescara, on the west coast of Italy, and from there catching a ferry across the Adriatic Sea to the Croatian island of Hvar. It sounds so easy, doesn’t it.

The bus from Rome was due to leave at 10.30am from a bus station on the other side of the city from our campsite. The helpful lady at the campsite information office suggested it should take around 50 minutes to get there. So, to be on the safe side, we gave oursleves and hour and three quarters. We’d rather be waiting around at the bus station than frantically running with our big heavy packs on to catch the bus just as it leaves.

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Rome: The Inconsiderate Classroom

Sunday, September 18th, 2005

On our last full day in Rome, Bec and I planned on taking a paid tour of the Sistene Chapel with Harry, our young English guide from the tour of St. Peter’s Basilica. We organised to meet at 11.30 in St. Peter’s Square, and so jumped on an 11am shuttle bus from the campsite. On each day previous, the bus took around 15 minutes to get into town, and so the 11am bus would give us plenty of time to find Harry and the red umbrella he used to distinguish himself in a crowd. 15 minutes, that is, on other days. On this particular day, it was a painfully slow 45 minutes before we got to Vatican City, and another few before we made it into St. Peter’s Square.

We optimistically looked for Harry and his red umbrella, hoping he might still be hanging around trying to fill numbers for his tour. We stood in the middle of St. Peter’s Square, up on tip toes, pirouetting like a mother looking for a lost child in a department store. But it was no use. Harry was gone, and we would be facing Michaelangelo’s masterpiece on our own. Bec had taken a tour on her visit four years earlier, and was able to fill me in on some of the little details she remembered, which at least gave me some insight into the meaning behind the artwork. The halls and chambers of the Vatican City musuem, deep within which the Sistene Chapel hides, are a seemingly endless parade of historic and priceless art, and took a good hour to amble through before we found ourselves at the door to the Sistene Chapel.

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Rome: And the Heavens Opened

Saturday, September 17th, 2005
Friday September 2nd, and Bec and I flew from the heat of London into the heat of Rome. We had booked to stay at a campsite not too far from the centre of town, which thankfully provided a shuttle bus ... [Continue reading this entry]