Rome - Part I

Rome has always intrigue me ever since I got so immensely hooked into the famous computer game 'Caesar III' during my uni days. I recall the countless days and weeks spending pretty much every spare time I can find to play the game. The opportunity came during my stay Ireland that I could visit the open air museum on Roma itself.

Spend a few hours going through the budget airlines( not too budget too in terms of ringgit malaysia) like Aerlingus and Ryanair to search for cheap airfares and cosy accomodation and after some damage on the wallet, I finally got myself a plane to Rome and a 3 star accomodation.

Next is the tremendous work of surfing through the net to look for famous and nice place to visit in Roma while I'm there for 3 days. It's no easy task to plan for travel route with potential food joints bundled in, just in case me and wife is hungry. After a few hours of intense research I have listed potential places to visit in a screenshot below.




Mostly googled out from google map, helps a lot when traveling, have a printout just in case.

The regret of traveling in europe during december is that the continent goes dark around 4.00pm, that limits a lot of good sun light for traveling. We landed in Fumicino airport and took the terravision bus to Termini. The terravision website is of no help either, I ended up on a bus to termini for about 1.5 hours and then taking the metrobus( aka underground rail in Rome) to Lepanto. Another 15 minutes walk and looking at the map, I finally found the Diplomatic Hotel. The hotel is quite cosy and nice for it's price and the proximity with the Vatican City.

Off we went to the Vatican city after unloading the luggage.


St. Peter Basilic Church at rome.


The large oval area outside of the famous cathedral or church.


Nice water fountain at the oval centre.


It's rather dark even at 3.00pm



Right smacked at the centre of the round area lies this obelisk from the Circus of Nero. Not sure if St. Peter was cruxified here.


It's almost Christmas eve, the festive mood.


The layout of St. Peter Basilica Church

Vatican city is a sovereign state in Rome, it has it's own police force, administration and some of the sites in Rome are also controlled by Vatican city. It's the city where the pope lives since I don't know when, well just google Vatican City.


St. Pietro( in italian or latin) not sure, in the evening sun.

The interior is filled with immensely crafted decoration, you get carried away easily, it's so beautiful and serene too. First, I apologize the poor photo quality.


The main hallway of the cathedral, right at the centre lies the Bernini Canopy, Bernini is a famous artiste.


To the right side of the main aisle.


To the left side of the main aisle.


The list of popes that dates back to St. Peter

After immensely wonderful tour, we stopped by via Borgo Pio to have some authentic italian food. The food was rather average, we continued out tour around rome after that. More to come...