Rome, my goodness what a city!

I’m back from a 5 day break in Rome. My goodness, that city is crazy! So much culture, so much history! March is a perfect time to visit, the temperature is nice, there are NO QUEUES for the museums and the hotels are cheaper.

Top 3:

1. Villa Borghese. Oh my my, if I think about it now I want to go back! The Bernini statues were of such glory and perfection that they almost made me cry. The whole villa is art, the ground on which it stands should be made sacred!

2. Vatican Museums. They would top Villa Borghese if it were for the amount of art and value of that art, but it was so big. I experienced ‘cultural overload’ there. If you see so many fresco’s of Raphael and his companions then you get numb for them. The culmination was the Sistine Chapel, where I just stood dumbfounded for 20 minutes, not knowing where to look. I had a museum guide with me, tried to make sense of it all and FAILED. It also didn’t help that constantly guards were bothering people to keep quiet and to forbid them from making pictures. Understandable, but it didn’t improve the atmosphere…

3. Italians. I was so fascinated by the Roman citizens! Some things I thought were totally awesome. Like, going to a little bar, ordering an espresso and drinking it at the bar. How I wished that I could speak Italian so I could’ve joined in on their little conversations. I just love how the language sounds! It’s so much better than Dutch that sounds like gutterspeak in comparison. Most Italians are dressed very well, especially the men! I took some pictures secretly with my small camera hehe. Everybody seemed to be in a hurry constantly, walking superfast. Also, the Italians drive their cars as if they should have been somewhere ten minutes ago. Crossing a road, therefore, was almost an epic adventure itself. I am very glad that I can write here on my computer now, a couple of times I thought a taxi (it’s always the taxi’s!) was going to drive over me, then at the last moment it halted and let us escape our death once more.
One thing I found totally disgusting though was the fact that so many Italians smoke. In the Netherlands, my life is virtually free of smoke since it has been banned from most places, but in Italy everybody puffs away. You keep walking in other people’s smoke, it’s gross.

My favorite pictures so far: