Roma

You'll probably remember me mentioning my trip to Rome a couple of weeks ago - here's the lowdown on what went on...

It was an early start. We had rather optimistically booked a train for 6.15 in the morning, and it pretty much killed us.
Alex and I were particularly unhappy about it...

I'd say Helena was equally unimpressed...

And Charlie had just gone full on mental at the idea of rising so early...

After a three hour train ride (nap), we arrived in Rome.
After a quick bag drop, we headed to the Colosseum.

Since I'd visited it twice before, I didn't go in.
Instead we basked in the Roman sunshine before heading to lunch, followed by another nap, and then a rather traumatic night out (Alex and Charlie got their wallets stolen with all their ID, not ideal).

Day 2 wasn't really much more of a success than day 1.
With good intentions, we got up early (although we were a man down because Alex couldn't get out of bed) and headed to the Pantheon.
Despite this being my third visit to Rome, I had never actually been inside the Pantheon, so I was happy to have found something new and interesting to do.

After a little wander around, we popped round the corner to that classic tourist spot, the Trevi Fountain.

But alas, the traumas of the night before were still fresh in our rather foggy minds.
Rome became too much for us and we headed back to sleep off our stresses.

Day 3 was arguably even more unsuccessful than days 1 and 2 in some senses.
We woke up feeling fresh (good start) and planned to do basically the whole of Rome in a day.
Unfortunately, this was not meant to be.
Apparently, Rome is basically shut on Mondays.
The Ara Pacis, Castel Sant'Angelo - you name it, they'd shut it. Everything apart from the Vatican, which was the one place we didn't want to go because:
a. It's expensive
b. It's massive and you need the entire day to do it
and c. Because we'd all done it before
I took the opportunity to purchase some pistachio gelato to cheer myself up...

Instead, we headed up to Piazza del Popolo, and climbed the steps to the Borghese Gardens to get a good view of the city.

The girls looked lovely as I photographed them on the ledge...

Whereas I went for a more windswept and interesting look...

We spent the rest of the day wandering around the gardens.
The final night was spent out on the town, student style.
We regretted it on the train the next day...