Today we decided to do some ancient works – the Colosseum and my personal favourite, the Colossus of Constantine. I’ve thought he was pretty fab since doing Roman Art & Architecture at uni, and couldn’t wait to see him.
So, off to the C0losseum (thanks go to Vespasian and Titus!). Of course, it was fantastic. It looks just like all the pics you’ve ever seen, and is pretty full of tourists. We’ve had a pretty easy run on queues this trip – everyone’s warned us about how long you have to wait if you don’t book ahead or pay extra for the guided tour – but the longest queue was the Uffezi in Florence at one hour. Everywhere else has been 10 mins at the most! And at least the queue at the big C was a moving queue!
The ferry ride took about 40 mins. It was quite rough up the front of the boat, and even though I don’t get seasick, my head was a bit iffy by the time we landed.
Last night we went to Ciro’s for dinner, which was listed in the GF guide to Italy bo0k. Unfortunately they couldn’t offer me GF pizza unless we’d phoned in advance, but they had pasta. I had a seafood pasta with clams, baby octopus, prawns, mussels, tomato and olive oil. Delish! We had a white wine to go with dinner, and dessert. How temping is this dessert stand? They wheel it over to your table so you’re FORCED to have something. I had a strawberry panna cotta which was looovely.
The bus to Siena was quite an easy operation – walk to the bus station (next to the main train station), ask for “due, Siena, andata e returna”. 14E each, and we’re on our way!
We got up early to go line up, since we hadn’t managed to be at the right place at the right time with the right dosh to book tickets (the hotel website says they do hotel reservations, but that’s gone the same way as the hotel wifi – open to extremely broad interpretation!) and wandered down there. There were only about 50 people in the line when we got there so we were feeling pretty optimistic, especially when they let 30-odd people through 15 mins after we’d joined the queue. However, our optimism was unfounded, as the signs had said (min wait 1 hour). Nevertheless, we managed to be part of the second 30 people though, an hour after we started. Woo! Saved the E4 booking fee.
Two Weeks Away 