And, while we were out...

More doors:

Across the road from our apartment:

Our Apartment Building door:

Mr Golightly outside a BIG door:

And outside a REALLY big door:

Prize for the shortest door:

Prize for the oldest (looking):

Prize for most interesting behind the door:

All in the Centro Storico, the historical centre of Roma.  Sometimes it pays to stick your head inside doors marked "Non Passo Carabile"...

A day-trip

To Ostea Antica... a truly fabulous Roman town, abandoned in the 5th Century CE.  It's full of half-houses, arches, mosaics and bits of statues, and according to this website, large chunks of its remnants have ended up in museums, galleries and private collections all over the world.  See, the Goths are still with us.


One of the more interesting bits we found was the remnants of a temple to Mithras, the Persian Soldiers God:

Look familiar?


We also found these:

Gum trees.   How weird is that?  We're 10,000 miles from Australia, and yet, there they are.  And about 100 years old, from the looks.  It was a nice nostalgic moment, the smell of eucalyptus wafting around the 2,000 year old ruins... and Mr Golightly was highly amused... 


We also found a bath, albeit somewhat leaky:

And some fantastic mosaics:

And the occasional chunk of carving, just lying around:

and even the occasional building:

What did the Romans ever do for us, hey?

And then...

We had seven fabulous days in Rome, and I did a lot of happy snapping of doors, which are just fabulous in Rome, some of them are soooooooooooo old (d'oh) and some are just plain interesting - and these are a few of my favourites:

We also went into quite a lot of churches.  Mr Golightly perfected "sono atteo", which means "I'm an athiest", in case anybody thought he was there for anything except cultural worship, and the richness of what's hanging on the walls in those churches is just amazing - work by Titian, Raphael, Botticelli, Caravaggio, Michaelangelo, all available for you to view for free (mostly), once you get passed the crush.  I have to say that the crowds, for the most part, were extremely well mannered, the notable exception being The French.  I try not to generalise, generally, but when you get shoved out of the way by a woman leading a group of barbarians whilst using a tricoleur as her "we're over here" marker, it's a pretty safe bet she's French.  Also, her language was a bit of a give away.  French, I mean, not "bad"!


We didn't actually make it to the Worlds Biggest Church, firstly because it was Easter and jampacked with people celebrating some festival acquired, like almost all Christian rituals,
from other faiths, and secondly, because when we came back to Rome the second time, I said jokingly to Mr Golightly that we could take the opportunity to  visit the Vatican Museum , and a huge clap of thunder sounded, and the skies opened into a hailstorm.  Seriously.  The minute the words were out of my mouth, it was as though something was saying "oh no you don't".  Not that we're superstitious, you understand, that's why we're athiests.  However, we didn't go.  Maybe next time I'll go by myself & leave Mr G in a bar?


 And in a completely related, but slightly off-topic, topic, I'm not so sure that I'm all that happy about the changes to Blogger around photo uploads - I can't get the 'insert image' to find the photos, either in my web album or elsewhere on my PC.  So I'm going back to bed.  It is 3.12AM, after all.


Ciao!

So, where were we?

First stop, Singapore.  We only had two days, but it was plenty for me - there isn't much for grown-ups to do except shop or eat - and it was way too hot & muggy for me to want to do much shopping (this may come as something of a surprise to some of you...) and when we did want to go & eat, it rained.  That's how humid it was, and it may come as a surprise to some of you that I'm not a fan of humidity, especially when the levels which are high enough to fall out of the sky...


Then we were on the plane, whoosh, and into Roma before we knew it.  The best thing about holding two passports is that the European Nationals queue is almost non-existent, coming from Singapore, and so I was through in the blink of an eye, to the change machines (what a great idea, slip in your Euro note & the machine automatically calculates what you put in there and breaks it up into smaller notes & coins) - invaluable for buying tickets on the Metro, straight out of the Airport. 


The airport was full of people going home for Easter, and the airport rang with the sounds of people saying "Buona Pasqua", or, Happy Easter.  Even the nice taxi driver who was there to meet us greeted us with "Buona Pasqua"!


Easter Sunday in Rome is fairly quiet, and the Centro Storico, where our apartment was, was even more quiet.  It was the ideal way to recover from the flight, and we wandered around getting our bearings, finding the supermercato, and the lavenderia, and round the corner, this:

Rome is truly amazing, round every corner there's something fascinating:

This was stuck on the wall of an apartment block near the river - it roughly translates as "I am making this for the landlady" - I think it's a not-so-subtle request to take your dog-shit with you when you walk your dog - there is a bit of it about, but we didn't see it nearly so much as last time we were in Rome (2008).


And this:

And finally, a great bar where I stole a rather nice beer glass.  Bad girl!


And now, Jetlag calls, gentle reader, so I'm off to bed.  Ciao!

Triptease IV - Unstuck!

Goodness me, Gentle Readers, but it's nice to be home!


We had one of those magical arrivals in Sydney last night, with the full moon shining gently down on the black velvet of Sydney, all sparkly with spangles, sequins and beads... and the harbour looking like a shiny satin ribbon woven through it all...just gorgeous.  I actually sang the first few lines of that Paul Kelly masterpiece...


"Have you ever seen Sydney from a 747 at night?
Sydney shines such a beautiful light
And I can see Bondi through my window way off to the right
And the curling waves on a distant break
And the sleeping city just about to wake
Have you ever seen Sydney from a 747 at night?"**


Paul Kelly for Poet Laureate, I say.


We were home by 8.30pm, pottered around until about 10.30pm, (actually, read that as "Mr Golightly spent time on the phone with the First Bank in Australia, convincing them we weren't committing Credit Card Fraud"), then off to bed, only to rudely awake at 3.30am.  I waited until 4.00am, then got up to fiddle with my pictures.


Oh, you want to see some?  In order of the journey, then:


Singapore:

Rome:

Ostea Antica:

Venice:

Burano:

Milano:

Rome II:

Nice Ville station:

Paris (from a taxi):

Dieppe (from the Dieppe to Newhaven ferry) :

Brighton (well, "Hove, actually"):

Home again home again jiggity jig.  Phew.


More later.  Ciao!


**Lyrics copyright Paul Kelly

Triptease III

Stuck!

Triptease II