When in Rome...

Finally we are out of France!  After a short delay in Nice, we made it to our room ın Rome.  We dropped our bags off, and, being hungry and just off the flight, walked, no, ran to the nearest pizza joint. Boy-o-boy was it worth it.  Pizza and beer makes a long day in airports just melt away.  Our place was pretty great, nice location and we had are own bathroom.   Not to mention the breakfast "Twinky" type cakes and fruit.


 Rome is a great place.  You can walk down the streets with a list of things to see and be completely distracted by everything else you didn't know about.  There are so many beautiful statues, buildings, streets, monuments and squares. And the food....is amazing.  You can buy "deli-pizza" where they cut a slice the size you want, weigh it and you pay accordingly. 



Just look at it! A very good first impression of Italy.

 Our first destination was the Colosseum!  The mere fact of knowing what went on in there gave us the chills.
 

Just imagine the people at the bottom are wearing togas



At night!



Impressive. Church of Constantine.

Another cool place that we visited was the Roman forum.  That is where the Romans did all their business.  The ruins that were left leave a bit, well no, A LOT to the imagination.  Most of the marble that once would have covered the buildings was removed as during the Rennaissance, they recycled and reused a lot of old marble infrastructure for their new buildings. (There's a Roman joke that Rennaissance is a synonym for recycling).  The Vatican is now amazing and has a lot of this marble because of this fabulous recycling program.  The ruins however, are ruins  The sight of the forum is currently being excavated restored and preserved.  Before tourism became a popular money making business for the state, they used the ancient grounds as a pasture for there cattle.    



That's where Caesar kept his bling. His bank, if you will.  Those eight pillars are what's left of the building.

 

 Impressive building that housed something awesome (we forgot what, dang it!)



One of the old palaces that was plundered for it's marbel. Guests were entertained here.Mot of the marble from this place can be found at the Vatican.



The new built on the old. Neat!

 

Lot's of bits and bites of old buildings. Pillars are the most impressive.



Just Imagine Caesar being cremated right there (because he was)!



On another day we went for a walk 'round town.  In Rome, that's a day well spent.  And, you can save your money for pizza!  So we started on the walk and we quickly realized that something we didn't know about was going on.  There happened to be a scheduled protest against the government (elections just recently passed).  Go Rome for standing up for what you believe is right!  Boo to the anarchist who screw the message up by starting violence and playing the protesters against the police.  We didn't stick around after we started feeling uncomfortable (police barricades and protesters = not a place for tourists), but we did manage to see everything despite the craziness. Watching the news that night in the room at the hotel was shocking!




Now how do we get to the Pantheon ?



One of the many road blocks we ran into.  The Police where pretty nice as long as you didn't throw things at them.




Romans living it up on the steps.

 The Pantheon has the world's biggest dome.  It was built 126 AD.

That's a big ol' dome!

 Beautiful fountains. This is the Trevi fountain.

 He is riding a big shell pulled by horses.



 

Old and new. 

The next day we went to the Vatican. No, you do not need to bring your passport. It was a beautiful day and we were ready to be awed by the glory of the church.  Let me tell you,  it did not disappoint.  There were two things we saw, the Vatican museum with the Sistine Chapel  and St.Peter's Basilica.  The Vatican museum held a lot of artifacts from early Roman and Egyptian times.  The sculptures were amazing. All of the statues private parts were covered up by fig leafs, so I didn't mind if Renee stared.  The Sistine Chapel was very impressive.  The paintings were so awesome that getting a cramp in your neck from looking up to the ceiling is inevitable.  Security was VERY tight (noooo photos ! Nooooo telephone! Silence!).  The simple sound of velcro from your camera case could get you kicked out.  Interesting fact: Michelangelo hated the Sistine Chapel assignment that he had been given by the pope.  He found it agonizing, frustrating and was often in confrontation with the church. In fact, he didn't enjoy painting all that much.  Sculpting was his passion.

 A few neat pictures we took inside the Vatican Museum.

St.Peter's basilica is very impressive and really over the top.  Everything is grandiose and big big big. The dome itself, which was designed by Michelangelo is enormous.  Of course you would expect everything to be huge, it's the largest basilica in the world.

 A little excessive maybe?

designed by Michealangelo (although he died before they finished building it)

 We also went under the basilica, to the grottoes, where many of the popes were buried.  There, we saw the many tombs of past popes, some were fancy and extravagant, others' were very humble and plain, such as Pope Jean-Paul II's. Flowers and gifts lay around his tomb and people paying their respects, kneeling, standing, praying surrounded it.  It was one of those sights that stay in your head. 

Rome really is a gorgeous place, and having that little taste of Italy just wasn't enough for us.  I mean, you coud sped more than two weeks just checkıng out the sıghts of Rome itself !Italy has SO much on the table, Sicily, Florence, Naples, Tuscany...and the list goes on.  This being said we've added the country to our very long list of places to return as soon as we can. Ciao Italy !

Regular roadside sights

We had an amazing time driving through France. It's not just the thrill of driving in unknown territory, nor the fact that you're driving a car make that you don't have back home.  It's not the endless roads and roundabouts that you have to figure out, nor the independence that you have, going where you want when you want.  It's also the small towns that you pass by and the roadside sights that you'll never take for granted, being that you're from elsewhere and you just don't have them there.  Here are just a few:

Our first car, Norm.

Our Provence car: Marcy.  (Yeah, real cowboy-like Chris!)

Lots of castles overlooking beautiful landscapes

Monasteries and abbeys. We even stayed in a couple !

Monuments

Pretty roads

Bridges, dams and dykes

Well said! ("If you want to take my parking spot, please take my handicap as well!")

Another reason NOT to eat at McDonald's: Ronnie's a Nazi

Neat statues commemorating neat people

Last random road stop: Les Gorges du Verdon

After our three weeks in Tillac, where we did ALOT of eating and drinking, we decided it would be nice to go somewhere and do a little exercising. You know, hiking or something. So that's just what we set out to do. We rented another car (we justified this luxury with the fact that we'd been working for room and board these past three weeks) and headed for Europe's largest gorges in the alps' foothills: Les Gorges du Verdon.  Dan joined us for half the ride, up until Marseilles.  Marseilles is France's second largest city and the French port city.  We only spent one night there.  We partied late and woke up feeling like a big box of meh. We said our goodbyes to Dan, our last workaway family member, and headed off towards the alps.  We noticed that the closer we were getting to the gorge, the scarier the roads got . It took us one hour to drive 50 kms because the roads were so winding!  And no guard rails! These roads would most certainly not pass Canadian standards.  We stayed in a very small town called Castellane.  Being that this area is a summer getaway for Europeans and that we are traveling during winter, the town was empty.  Half the shops and restaurants were closed.  It was like we were in an abandoned town.   Chatting with a local, I learnt that the winter population of the town during winter is 1500. During summer, it goes up to 16 000 ! This being said, the hiking trails were virtually empty.

 

From then on, the roads got scary.

 

Our goal: to hike there.
 

Posing before starting the hike.  

  

 The hike was pretty hardcore. A GOOD workout.

   

...and beautiful sights too !

 Waterfalls!

 TEAM !!!

 We stopped at the stream for lunch.

Oh, and did I mention?  Chris saved me again ! I was walking through the trail (and not really paying attention), when I slipped on a bunch of rocks and started slipping down the gorge....destined to be swallowed by the cliffs' depths.  Chris, once again, reacted quickly, got the camera out and snapped this shot of me, panicking for my life. Afterwards, he threw the camera down (thank goodness we bought the Olympus Tough) and dove to my rescue. He hooked his foot unto the root of a tree that was not far away and reached over and grabbed my hand right before it was too late.  Phew, what a hero! 

 Happy to be alive !

 Oh, and another neat thing we figured out: in France there are different European nationalties' hotspots. For example, the Brits like hanging out and retiring in the southwest French Pyrenees area (where we worked)  whereas the Dutch and Flemish retirees are often found in the southeast Provence area.  And who told us we most certainly have to go see the Gorge du Verdon in southeast Provence? Our Dutch cousins of course!

 

Look guys! We made it there!

Enjoying the view from a lookout point.

Rabbit also enjoyed the views from lookout points. 

Vultures. They are scary, intimidating and creatures that awars your death. They ate one of the many animals that live in the gorge.  However, vultures image what we saw of the most. These birds are huge! I'm talking 1.5 metre wing span. While we were enjoying lookout points they would drift over in packs (without flapping their wings, they thrive off the air currents coming up from the gorge) and circle around as if waiting for one of us to take the plunge and be the means to satiating their hunger.  They really are miraculous intriguing creatures though.  Their sheer size and strength could easily make you their prey. Instead, they prefer waiting, letting fate come into play and profit from your misfortune. Another popular hang-out place for vultures: above rock climbers.













Before living, Chris suggested one more challenge:

You wanna climb up where?

We made it ! An old chapel sits up there.  Remember; the higher up it's built, the closer it is to God !