Avril 23 Trevi Fountain -Purple is it!

Trevi fountain is very big - Our first glimpse!

Another beautiful day to walk in Rome to find amazing sites around every corner and another fountain or 2 on each corner. First on the Agenda today was the infamous Trevi fountain, a seriously extravagant creation showing tritons, seahorses and Neptune. Rumour has it you throw a coin over your shoulder for a quick return to Rome. Well, we will wait and see if this happens!! We had our second brush with the law as the girls filled their drink bottles from a water spout off to the side of the main fountain, typically heaps of people had done it before us but we got whistled at!

All the water spouts in Rome, nearly every piazza and corner, has drinkable fresh and remarkably cold water. It is artesian water and is lovely to drink. Luckily for us we found them often as it saved us a lot of money on drinks!

We then headed to the Time Machine, a 4D show that takes you back in time to understand what life was like in Rome and the history behind it. The first 20 minute feature was showing how the earth developed. Then a 45 minute show about Rome. It was a theatre where you sit in seats that give you a virtual reality ride, with wind and water effects too. It was really good but with about 10 minutes left I felt so horribly motion sick I had to get off the seats and sit on a stationery one.
This was a really good thing to do as we could all visualise and imagine life back in Ancient Rome, helped us to understand the history of the place and put it in real terms.

Headed to lunch – found an Irish bar –“The Scholars Lounge” and had some great paninis.

Capitoline museums were next on the list – Another Freebie! It was full of rich Roman sculptures including many famous pieces! I never really was interested in Art much before but after visiting the Louvre and other museums, actually seeing “good” and famous art I have developed an interest in this area. Again studying this at school was so boring and just looking at pictures did nothing to inspire me in this area. Maybe we should have had a class trip to the Louvre!!!
I was particularly taken with a bronze statue of “She –Wolf” a wolf feeding the twins Romulus and Remus.

No places in Rome give you a map/brochure/pamphlet telling you anything, even in a lot of places art isn’t labelled so you could go right past incredibly famous artists work and not even realise, as I did on a number of occasions. Even the information centres are next to useless. No such thing as racks of brochures of activities or things to do – you ask them specific questions and they try to answer! Very frustrating – so all tourists are walking around with travel guides like the Lonely Planet for their information. This was incredibly frustrating and if anyone is planning to head to Rome/Italy I suggest you buy a comprehensive guide before or as soon as you get there otherwise you are walking around with no clues.

A chariot!

Everyone will be thrilled to know the latest fashion out for Italy, and thereafter the world is still the colour PURPLE!! It is everywhere and basically no other colour exists, also a lot of floral and large paisley designs – YUM!!! Shoes with big wedge heels are the craze and again many PURPLE shoes and handbags and all other accessories are available in this colour too. Luckily purple is my favourite colour but I did manage to resist buying as one look at the price tag and I was out of there! Sally, I did think of you often especially when there were so many lovely purple leather jackets that wouldn suit you.

A quick call into the supermarket for supplies for tea.