Rome wasn't built in the hay... or something

Gotta make this brief on account of the 17 minutes left to me...

I woke up early-ish today to try and take in the Colosseum and the Vatican, plus fit in a few other things if I got time... unfortunately I didn't take into account the one thing Rome's tourist attractions are plagued with: queues.

Yep, this was a major set back... in the end I only managed to fit in the colosseum and the sistine chapel (didn't get into St Peters... I probably would have been struck down by lightening on setting foot in there anyway, so not a biggie). I then went to Termini and bought my ticket to Florence on the Eurostar train. Only 29 euros one way, not bad!

The colosseum was amazing... everywhere I went I imagined the cheers rising up as yet another Christian was mauled to death by a rampant lion. There is a cross in the middle of the arena, I'm supposing, in dedication to those that lost their lives here. The photos I put up will tell the real story. Apparently 5000 exotic animals were slaughtered here on the first day of its opening.

Unfortunately they weren't letting people down into the catacombs below so we couldn't get a view of the prison cells etc

The Vatican was great too... some fantastic works of art abound. It took a while to reach the Sistine Chapel, but it was every bit as breathtaking as its described to be. It's unbelievable to think that the entire room was painted by one man. Cameras were banned, but I still managed to grab one or two 'secret' shots that turned out a bit blurry.

Ah well... time to move on... tommorrow it's Firenze (florence)... I'm then back in Rome for one more night before the hols are over and back to the old grind... oh joy.

Another sidenote of what I've noticed about Italy. It's uncanny how many people here speakl English quite fluently. It certainly makes it a lot easier to get around here than, say, Spain - where few, if any, of the locals speak English in the main cities.