15th August in Rome

The city of Rome is place of historic monuments, & it is also the romantic city. The city which is most visited single city in the world. Two days was a very short time period for the city like Roma, but still I made most of it.

The main historic city is hardly bigger, may be of the size of Thane city, From Kopari to Ghodbunder road by length & Kalwa to Upwan by width, that's all. But is packed with number of attractions. You walk across & live the history with you. Remove the modern buildings (recently built, may be during the last 100 years & that too are not so modern, simple 5 to 10 storey) & roads & Signals from the sight & you will experience as if you are in past. That is because anywhere you see, you find big grand monuments each bearing many tales with it. There are as many as 100 churches, all big, 50 big palaces & some other 20 monuments, great country-side, atleast 20 museaums devoted to some topic, as many as 1000 statues in these monuments of full & more size of angles, horses, kings & what not and many many big paintings on the big walls inside palaces & churches.

The vatican city, the smallest nation on earth, houses the biggest church in world which is founded on St Peter's tomb ( St Peter was the first pope, who was favourite/first disciple of Christ). It requires half a day to roam around this church. It has two half-circular pillar structures which lead to main church. encompoosed between these structures is St Peters' square, which can house 30000 people for pope's address. The best part of this vatican church is going on top of church via lift to the height of may be 70 floors & see Rome around. It is marvellous site 6 can not be described.

Second & Third important stop in Vatican is the museaum & Sistina chapel building where pope is elected. I could not visit both these as it was holiday on 15th August. I will not write about the individual monuments but common features. All buildings are awesome in size. You just can't imagine how they were built 1000-2000 years ago. The buildings are robust to last these many years. The architectural excellence is seen in arches & pillars. The sculpture can be admired in the form of statues & designs of the arches & pillars. The minutest of details can be seen on statues. The big paintings, frescos, have their liveliness still intact, the emotions & colour bright.

In short, Rome was engineering perfection, architectural excellence & artistic impressions. All over the city, you can travel in bus or tram or metro in just 4 Euros for full days. You see only tourists allover the city. People know English / French etc. You walk 5 minutes & you come across some marvel. It was a trip enjoyed by me beyond my imagination and was very unhappy to leave Rome on the second day. That's Rome there & now permananently in my heart.

People in Italy enjoy life. They are always joking & laughing. In the evening, you will find most of the young guys at restaurante with wine-glass. They will drink wine as if we have cutting tea, only that much quantity for 2 hours. August, people enjoy annual holiday. Even the normal shops like, stationery, chemist, they display board on shutter 'Shop closed for 15 days' in the month of August. Sunday, nobody on roads, real holiday, shops closed. Even on week-days all shops are closed at 7.00pm. & closed from 1.00 to 4.00 pm.