Rocking In Rome!

The final leg of our holiday was Rome. It sounded like such a wonderful place, however even before our arrival we had an idea of things to come when people starting talking about a 'heatwave'.

And heatwave it was! After leaving our train from Florence and walking into a wall of heat, we arrived at our apartment only to find that there had been a mix-up in times with the owner and we had a two hour wait with luggage and children! Thankfully, things picked up after this and the apartment owner was fantastic following her error and offered us a bottle of wine and a little economic saving on the rental agreement!

Our apartment's position was amazing. It was literally a five minute walk to both the Trevi Fountain and the Spanish Steps and overlooked Barberini Piazza. And to make it even more pleasurable...it was air conditioned!!!!!!

We once again took the option of an open bus tour of Rome to help us find our way. We also managed to take in the obvious sites like the Colosseum and the Vatican and because of the heat, we booked ourselves on a bus tour to Pompeii and Naples for a day. Pompeii was incredibly hot once we got off the air conditioned bus and this did somewhat spoil our visit to this incredible place.

Finally, after a week, we waved goodbye to Rome and began our long voyage home to Australia. It definitely was an amazing holiday!

BEST SIGHT SEEING EXPERIENCE......the Vatican. Without a doubt St Peter's Basilica was the most beautiful church I have seen. It literally took my breath away. We joined a tour outside the Vatican which did help us avoid some of the waiting crowds. The Vatican museums were very interesting but because of the volume of people, we felt like cattle being herded through it. St Peter's Basilica, however was the opposite......no rushing, temperatures cool and architecture that was completely stunning.

OTHER THINGS WE DID.....the Colosseum (btw, only EU children get a child's entry price here....totally unfair if you ask me!), the Pantheon (lovely), Pompeii (hot), Naples (did not appeal to me), and my 'Roman Holiday' experiences....the Spanish Steps (loved these), the Trevi fountain (beautiful) and La Bocca Della Verita...the mouth of truth (which was closed by the time we got there but we still managed to snap a photo!).

CULINARY DELIGHTS......gelati! We had one every day! We did try some of the pasta dishes which were ok but we all loved the local prosciutto which was far, far better than any we've found at home!

THE KIDS RECOMMEND.....Villa Borghese is a huge park that has a zoo, which we went to and where you can hire bikes, which we did! In fact, we hired a four-person bike for an hour and laughed our heads off for most of that time!

BEST TIP......You can fill up your water bottles at many of the fountains in Rome. At first we were worried about what the quality of this would be like but after we started seeing locals doing it, we figured it must be ok. The water was cold and tasty and my family preferred it to most other water.

NEXT TIME....We would not travel in the middle of summer!!!!