Sunday, February 25, 2007

we went for a day trip to Hangzhou yesterday. it was quite bad, the rain spoilt everything in the afternoon :( i'll blog bout it next time. gotta finish the last day in rome and europe before i move on to trips in china.

Rome Day 2 (1 Jan '07)
it was new year's day! we were lucky yet not so lucky to spend it in rome. not so lucky cos there was no massive celebration in the city. no fireworks, no crowd, no countdown.

lucky because we chose the right day to go to the vatican city. we saw the pope! ok..kinda saw him, he was real far, up in the building at the window. the saint peter's square was packed way before his appearance at 12 noon. he made a new year public address, for world peace, prosperity etc..
that speech was in so many languages! they were english, italian, french, german and perhaps some others that i didnt not catch. no chinese.


the window with the red flag in the collage, that's the spot where the pope stood. you should know by now how small he was from our angle.
the food van that u see at the bottom left, is everywhere in rome, like one in every 50-100m. they are all selling the same stuff, pizza, sandwiches, gelato, drinks. that's intense competition.

after that we made our way to the city centre. there were lots of people hanging around the squares but all the shops were closed except macdonalds and some cafes. its like 1st day of chinese new year in sg. even tourists attractions were closed. we went to the pantheon and it was closed. what a disappointment, i wanted to see the 'devil's hole'..
that's the Fontana di Trevi by day in the first piece of the collage.
we took the metro to circus maximus, its behind the palentine hill. its the ancient roman emperor stadium. right now what's left is bits of the walls and nothing left on the horse running track, its just a plain green field.
i miss the belgian waffles in maastricht.

belle * 1:32 PM