James & Heather Travelogues

After Nanjing, we caught a train back to Shanghai and then it was straight on to a plane to Singapore, where we had a couple of hours to kill before we got our flight to Rome. We arrived at the hideously early time of 7am after having flown overnight - Heather had managed to sleep, but as we were flying Singapore Airlines there was just too many movies for me to watch so I didn't get that much kip.

On arrival, we dumped our bags at the hotel we were staying in as our rooms weren't ready, and headed in to town. First stop was the Colluseum, as seen in the hammy movie Gladiator, and the nearby Forum. As a kid, I had read a lot about Roman history and it was a great experience to walk around the things that I had read about. While admiring the Colluseum, we also got to see the Aquaduct that used to transport water in to ancient Rome for the locals.

The following day, we went on a self-guided walking tour of Rome, looking at countless piazzas and Catholic churches. One such piazza housed the Fontana de Trebi (or something like that), where if you threw a coin over your shoulder into it, you would come back to Rome. Well, we had a couple of Yuan left from China, so they went over our shoulders. We will be coming back to Rome, except next time it will not be backpacking!

The last full day we had in Rome, we went to the Vatican. Neither Heather or I are particularly religious, but we considered it was something that needed to be visited. It was a vast sprawling complex, with a number of chapels inside it - we were fortunate to see a service being conducted in one, although not by the Pope (he didn't have lightning bolts coming from his fingers). One thing we noticed was that the statues of the earlier Popes had them in either very regal poses, or even more inappropriately, Christ-like poses. For instance, one statue had a Pope was carrying a large wooden cross. A bit of a God-complex going on there, I think. While in the Vatican, we also went to the Sistine Chapel where photography is prohibited. I saw someone else taking a photo, so decided that it wasn't enforced so pulled my camera out. Immediately, an official put his hand over my lens and told me to put it away. Deciding that discretion was the better part of valour, I turned it off. When he wasn't looking, I discretely took a picture of the Birth of Man (which actually isn't as big as I was lead to believe). I wasn't going to be beaten easily