Amazing Race : Pisa and Rome

We took the train from Venice to Pisa. Left our luggage at the train station and off we go - Piazza del Duomo. This is where the leaning tower of Pisa stands! Besides the leaning tower, there are few other monuments in that area.

Piazza del Duomo

And the signature pose one must do when taking picture with the leaning tower! Everyone does it! Including me ;p

The signature pose

My turn

doesn't turn out so cool

Leaning tower of Pisa

Nothing much about Pisa though. We spent around 1-2 hours taking pictures, and quickly took the bus to the train station. We had a train to catch up! Euro star train to Rome!

Reached Rome at night. Found a hostel which was quite expensive, but we were too tired to search for a cheaper hostel maka, layan! Off to bed early, gotta be early for the Colloseum!

Early never seems so early for us girls ;p I guess the guys were getting too much annoyed with us. Geez. It's a girl thing. You'll never understand anyway. Funny enough, this top world wonder is located just next to the main road. Sungguh tak mystical. Seriously, keluar the train station, terus nampak the Colloseum across the road. Once again, sungguh tak mystical.

In brief about the Colloseum ; it was something like the ancient version of our modern stadium where it can occupy up to 50 thousands spectators at a time. Basically, the games held were those of gladiatorial fights, men vs animals match and animal hunts. These form the basis of Roman entertainment -_-" sangat cruel kan? Mostly, the gladiators were the slaves, prisoners of the war and condemned criminals. But there were also volunteers who came up front for the sake of monetary reward and fame! Now that's my hero!

But what we see today is just the ruin of the Colloseum. All blame goes to the earthquake, fire, stone robbers and other natural disasters. Much of the original structure which are supposed to give the lavish decorations of the Colloseum are nowhere to be found. But you can see some remains at the Colloseum exhibition.

That's a very brief information about the Colloseum. Outside the colloseum, bangla-bangla sumpah bersepah and yes, they recognize Malaysians and they'll speak malay with you. Campaklah bangla kat mane2 pun, they'll survive. Ha kan dah masuk cerita pasal bangla.

Colloseum~

the ruins of Colloseum

Inside the Colloseum

The interior of Colloseum

Next, we went to the famous Pantheon. Pantheon was built during the Roman Empire, and it depicts the symbol of God, heaven, and things like that lah of the ancient Rome. It is a burial site for some important Italians. Too bad the building was under construction during our visit. Hm.

Pantheon means All Gods

Next was Trevi Fountain. Ala terlupa nak upload pic. It's somewhere in my facebook photo album. It's just a fountain, a beautiful and famous one. People are throwing coins every now and then into the fountain and they get roughly 3000 euros per day!! That's crazy man!

And did I mention that beggars are everywhere in Italy? But beggars in Rome especially, adalah sangat stylo. They don't wear shabby clothes and they don't smell like ikan kering. All they need to do is pretend to be 'someone' or 'something' amusing, and gain money out of it. Some even dance in the middle of the crowd to earn a living. But at least :)

The invisible - the beggar

another beggar

The next day we went to Vatican City, the sacred place of Christians. Nothing much really. Not lucky enough to meet the Pope LOL! Vatican City adalah sangat kecik okay I thought the area is big coz it's a whole different country kan! That makes Vatican City the smallest country in the world.

Joe is my tangkap-gambar-kasi-poyo partner. At Vatican City

Vatican City

St Angelo Castle is just a few steps away from Vatican City. Tanak cerita banyak about the castle (yes you got me right, I dunno much about the castle pun) It was originally built by Emperor Hadrian as a mausoleum, later functioned as fortress and currently is a museum. Okay, I only know that much. The history isn't that interesting anyway!

St Angelo Castle

Piazza di Spagna was up next. Also famously known as Spanish Steps. Spent a few minutes there coz really there was nothing interesting pun. Wonder why it attracts tourists, sebab cantik semata la kot? But anyway, there were churches up there, so maybe that's why.

Piazza di Spagna

Lastly, the Colloseum at night! Taraaaa, memang cantiklah at night! But you can't possibly get into the Colloseum at night, tangkap gmbar dari luar boleh lah.

Colloseum at night

That night we refused to check-in the hostel coz our bus to the airport leaves at 4am so mcm not worth la check-in hostel then dapat tidur till 3am camtu je. And anyway, there was supposed to be a 24-hour cafe so intended to just hang out at the cafe till 4am. Malang itu tidak berbau, cafe yang dimaksudkan tutup pulakkk! Tensi! And we get to know that the cafe was closed pun dah late at night. Lagilah tak nak check-in sebab rasa tak worth it.

Okay buat muka tak malu tanya the receptionist of the hostel if we could just hang around at the lobby till at least 3am. Dengan segala kesiannya, they refused to let us stay. Eiii sangat takde courtesy okay! Dahlah we stayed at the hostel for 2 nights kot! Courtesy to the guests takde kee?!

Clueless about where to lepak till 4am. McD closes at 2am, so it'll still be the same, plus you need to spend some euros if lepak in McD. So tell you what, I suggested that we just lepak dekat the ground floor of the hostel as the receptionist won't get to see us still merempat in the hostel vicinity. At least tak mati kesejukan if terpaksa lepak luar kan.

Tah macam mane, tetiba there's this one pakcik datang, halau kitorang okayyy!! I believe the pakcik is the owner of the hostel or the manager ke apa tah la. Won't forget his words.

"You better leave now before I call the police"

Okay, macam pendatang asing kan? Sumpah biadap. We stayed for 2 freaking nites at the hostel, paid quite an amount, takkan kau sikit courtesy pun takde? It's not that we don't have money at all, it's just that we need to save some for future purposes! I was not bold enough to pull a dramatic act so okay pakcik, we left the hostel. We end up joining the homeless ppl outside Rome train station that night.

Believe me when I say, kiri kanan kitorang adalah homeless yang bentang surat khabar or kotak2 utk tidur and berbau hampas hancing hamis yucks yucks but we had no choice wehhhh so terpaksa join. Baru landing beberapa minit, ada pakcik homeless selamba tahi kencing just about 10 metres in front of us. Redha.

Outside Rome train station

And I overheard a passerby said "Pity them...."

Damn it.