Back in da capital

I'm back in Roma after another super-fast Eurostar rail trip... only 1.5 hours to travel over 200 km. Nice!

I'm going to update the Florence section now, and for the rest of today I might check out the Pantheon before relaxing down to a nice pasta dish on my last night in Italy (I'm seriously sick of eating sooo much pizza all the time).

Ciao y grazie!

later...

oh my god... best deal ever is only around 300 metres from my hostel (near the Bologna metro stop)...

1 delicious pizza for 2 euros. And one 'small' ice-cream (essentially twice the size of any ice cream I've had so far) for 1.20 (usually they cost between 3-4 euros for half the size). Yum yum...

I was recommended this place by a guy in the hostel who said it's "where the locals go to eat". True dat.
When I got there it people stared at this freaky Irishman in their midst ordering pizza on THEIR turf. How wude.

How to get there...
from the Bologna metro stop, head into Piazza Bologna main, then head on down the main Valle Delle Provincie for about 200 metres, before taking a right turn onto Viale Ippocrate. The pizza place is the first on the right, and then the gelattaria is beside that.
Enjoy!

After stuffing myself silly there, I headed on down to check out everything I missed out on the first time:
- The Spanish steps (for real this time)
- The Gucci and Dulce & Gibani shops along the main fashion district.. like Milan or Santa Barbara.
- Piazza Novonna (artists in abundance)
- and finally the Pantheon

Man oh man, the Pantheon is amazing. Easily up there with the Colloseum in terms of enormous presence. It was free in too, with no queue. Essentially it was built by Hadrian back in 200AD but it looks like it was built only 200 years ago because it is so well preserved.

Add to that the fact that the ceiling of the dome has a large purpose-built hole in the celing which allows a dramatic shaft of light to pierce through to the marble floor below. It's quite a sight. (apparently when it rains, the place floods on account of the hole in the ceiling, but they've included drains in the floor of the curch).

Right, I is off to bed to get my flight back to London and then Dublin. Italy has really impressed me with it's very laid-back bohemian lifestyle (I always thought Italians were supposed to be stressed).

As Governor Schwarzenegger would say, "I'll be back". Photos coming in a few days as soon as I get rid of all the flippin viruses off my machine at home...

!!!!Important Tip!!!!
When using the Metro to tour the city, make sure to get the day-long pass for 4 euros, instead of getting individual 1 euros passes. I stupidly paid around 10 euros one day because I was sure I wouldn't use the metro enough to warrant a full ticket. You WILL! Trust me.