mybigadventures.com

Today we went to the Colosseum. We had already bought tickets online to avoid the predictable queues. We were a little disappointed when booking to find that there were no tickets left for the underground tour, but hey ho still got tickets for the Colosseum, forum and Palatine hill. After breakfast we decided to walk rather than get the underground. The Colosseum is only two stops from Termini so it was only a 30 minute walk.

On the walk over we stopped to look in Santa Maria Maggiore which was a very grand church. The outside featured a range of statues, clock tower and two domes. Inside there was a spectacular pannelled ceiling and frescoes within the domes. We sat and cooled down taking a break from the heat (31 degrees) outside surrounded by a number of visiting nuns and monks.

We walked on, stopping in San Pietro in Vincoli, a slightly more understated church with frescoed ceiling and dome. Finally a short walk on from here we arrived at the Colosseum. Prebooking the tickets online turned out to be a great idea as the queues were huge. There were a lot of people around trying to sell tours but we headed for the prebooked tickets line and were in pretty quickly. Having visited before, the Colosseum was no less awe inspiring. We spent time admiring the views both into the centre of the amphitheatre and outside to the surrounding landscape. On the second floor we admired the ancient treasures, many of which are over 2000 years old.

Leaving the Colosseum we walked palatine hill to some of the ruins of ancient Rome. The site is vast and steeped in history. We walked around admiring the panoramic views back towards the Colosseum and across Rome. We took lots of photos and then feeling flakey headed off for icecream to a gellateria on the nearby via San Giovanni in Laterano (we think we ate at a restaurant here last time we came in 2007). We decided to head back to the hotel and feeling a little weary opted for the underground buying 100 minute tickets for 1.50 Euros.

Had tea out at a restaurant near the hotel- Mamma Angela's Trattoria it was very nice and I highly recommend it if you're in the vicinity. Called it a night and headed back to the hotel.

It's that time of year again - oh yes, the summer has landed. We've been a bit rubbish at planning a holiday this year, what with buying a house and everything and so are just playing it by ear at the moment, who know's where we might end up. Dani has a few papers left to mark and then there's the move to sort out, but hopefully we might get something sorted between then and results day. I'll keep you posted! 

I've just been making a few tweaks before we take our trip and decided to add in a new feature - album comments. It seemed like a big job until a few recent changes that made it all possible so there you go. You can now add comments to blogs, albums and individual photos. The new comment link appears only on albums containing photo's and can be found under the album cover and summary which appears on the right of the screen. 

I've also added a few icons to give the site a bit of a facelift. If anyone's interested I'm using the fontawesome font set to generate the icons. Its really straightforward to use and there's lots of icons to choose from. I've got quite addicted and added them all over the place, many of which only Dani and I will ever see! That's all for now, let me know if you have any issues.