The Capital City (Part I)

We got on the coach early Saturday morning so that we could head on down to Rome. We stopped at an underground car park before heading into the city itself. The reason for our stop was to drop off those who were only staying two weeks on the language course and so would be flying out of Rome at the same time as we would be doing our sightseeing.

We got rid of our friend from the Lebanon (I use friend loosely) and I wasn't disappointed he wouldn't be with us for the rest of the course. We carried on, past the venue for the world diving championships where my Room 101 (Tom Daley) won gold, and arrived at the Vatican.

 The coach dropped us off just in front of the Basilica and we piled off into the sizzling heat of midday. It was stunning - such a sight to behold. We wandered round the piazza and were given about half an hour if we wanted to go inside, if not we could find somewhere to sit before the tour began. Bree, Gaby, Lynette and I circumvented the fountains, taking pictures along the way.

Lynette and I eventually decided that we wanted to go inside the Basilica and so we joined the queue. Sorry, I mean the mass of thronging people. We got ourselves into some sort of order, but there was an Italian lady behind us that didn't enjoy being behind us. She kept trying to push her way forward until Lynette finally lost her rag and shouted at the woman: 'C'e' una fila!' (Or 'there's a queue' to you).

We hit a slow spot and Lynette decided that together with trying to keep this woman behind her, she'd also put on some trousers because of the whole 'don't show your knees' thing they have going on. We got into the Basilica and it took my breath away. I know I've complained in the past about the OTT nature of Catholic churches, but tecnically St Peter's Basilica is THE Catholic Church so I can excuse it there. It was just magnificent. Everything about it was beautiful: the attention to detail was just incredible. We stayed there for some time and then made our way out to join the party for our tour of Rome.

We went past the Pope's digs - made famous by Angels and Demons amongst other things, and headed away from the Vatican and into town. We passed through so many beautiful piazzas (the one to my left happened to have a sprinkler system whereby passers-by could get quite a welcome shower under the hot Roman sun).

Our next stop was the Pantheon: the oldest church in Rome. Now for those of you that have seen Angels and Demons you'll remember that the Pantheon was almost deserted when Robert Langdon and his Italian friend go on their search for the 'Path of Light' or whatever it's actually called. This is completely unrealistic. I would have gone in, but most of the rest of the world was in there and though I don't suffer from claustrophobia, I didn't want to get involved in the sweatbox that was currently going down inside.

What was more interesting was the spectacle outside: some faux Roman soldiers having their pictures taken with tourists for money. They were about as faux as you get and so I began to take stealth pictures of the one that had just lit up and was smoking a fag on the sly.

I was never cut out for MI5 because as stealthy as I thought I was being, I wasn't being stealthy enough because he clocked me, walked over, gave my camera to a friend and insisted they took a picture of us. My friends found this hilarious, and I confess I did too. Rome was proving to be a lot of fun...