Senior School News & Events Rome Visit 2008
Rome Visit 2008
Veni, Vidi, VICI!
Such was the battle cry of Clayesmore School’s plucky band of dedicated classicists. We set off on Saturday, and returned on Tuesday, the same approximate time that Julius Caesar spent in our green and pleasant land.
After an S-Club 7 themed journey to the airport, we disembarked at Heathrow. Unfortunately, due to poor planning, we were unable to take the 2 MASSIVE crates of food with us on the plane. And so, knowing that we would return to a bus smelling of rotten tuna and apples, we departed the chilly shores of Britain, for the even colder climates of Italy.
We arrived late in the evening, and were driven to our hotel immediately. “Surely this is far too posh for a 2 star hotel!” exclaimed Bragg, staring at the Dior and Miss Sixty shops that lined the streets. When we arrived, we put our living translator and guide to the test. Miss Side got us into the hotel and then broke the news to us that the only lift was broken, and so we would have to climb four floors before reaching our hotel on the very top floor. And so, sweating blood, we began the ascent of Mt Parlamento; once there a very polite, well spoken young man gave us our keys and we staggered up another flight of stairs to our rooms, where we promptly collapsed. However, supper was in order and we had to see the Trevi Fountain. So we changed, and grabbed our cameras for the evening ahead. We saw the Trevi Fountain, which was, I assure those of you who haven’t been near it, absolutely stunning. Then we bought ice-cream, and plotted where we were going to go for supper. We found a charmingly stereotypical restaurant and supped on Roman pizza, which is ambrosia compared to Pizza Hut’s paradoxical facsimiles.
The next morning we tripped downstairs refreshed and prepared to transmigrate across half of Rome to find the Forum and the Colosseum. And so we did. We got into the Colosseum for free; thanks again to Miss Side for negotiating so skilfully and diplomatically. Then we were set loose to see the awesome structure alone (well, alright, groups “no less than 3”) we admired the views and the structure itself, marvelling at how one could almost hear the screaming of the Christian victims, the roar of the crowds and the savage snarling of the beasts which rended flesh from bone with one angry swipe. We then headed for the Forum, the centre of Roman culture and also the centre of a number of illegal vendors selling fake Prada handbags. The Forum blew our minds as we stood on history itself. We even saw the supposed final resting place of Julius Caesar, (some people still laid flowers on the spot – a rather touching thought, really).
As well as Roman ruins like the Pantheon, the Palatine Hill and a number of fabulous museums, we also decided to trickle over to the Vatican for the day. Upon arrival, we learned that the queue for the Vatican museum and Sistine Chapel was a quarter of a mile long, and it would take us 3 hours of solid queuing before we got through the front doors. So we decided to go around the square, up the basilica’s dome and look around the basilica itself instead. However, due to over half of the group suffering from vertigo, (shame on you, Tiffany!) only four of us made the epic climb of 551 steps up to the top of the basilica. Miss Side, Tashi, Fran and Chrissie are to be commended above all others for such an epic feat. Much later (i.e. after lunch), we found that the Vatican Museum was clear. There was not a queue in sight! So, thanking the powers that be watching us from up on High, we sidled into the museum. We were saturated with priceless artworks by Rafael, Da Vinci, Rodin and many, many, MANY more! In fact, we went through so many priceless rooms, filled with equally priceless and astounding art, that by the time we got to the Sistine Chapel itself, we were only able to gawp stupidly at the masterpiece, (not dissimilarly I believe to the dinosaurs, when they observed an abnormally large comet pelting towards their exact location.)
We then departed to a cafe for more ice-cream, before heading back to the hotel.
There were many wonderful sights still to see, and we did see them. The Spanish steps, the River Tiber and Mr Browning (unwillingly) dressed up in a mock toga fashioned from a couple of tea-towels and a purple pashmina; he’d earned the title Senator Browning, for such a commendable and educational trip to one of the European capitals of culture, cuisine (although Ollie Walker’s stomach was never silenced by the food!) and love (in the case of our insatiable ice-cream-o-philia).
Thanks should go to Mr Browning, for being our protector (described by Tashi as “our very own great, big, bad-tempered gladiator, just waiting for his chance to eviscerate the waiters”) and director; Miss Side for translating everything that we wanted to tell the waiters, (apart from comments on the appalling state of the service); and to Mr Hall-Palmer , whose remarkable quiff struck terror into the Italian people’s aesthetic minds.
By Tashi Fenston