Rome - Part Seven - Spanish steps

One of the most famous tourist sites in Rome, in the past you would have picked up a hooker there, or unwittingly been enrolled into the Spanish army, but now is jam packed with people loitering and soaking up the atmosphere.

I was not expecting much, how exciting could steps be? In fact I was really impressed with the elegance and architecture of the whole area. Too busy to be romantic, but certainly has an atmosphere of its own, and from the top of the steps the view is fantastic.



I did mislead Ivonne into believing there was ice cream at the top, an honest mistake, but to be fair we did eat early that day and then find some ice cream after that!



As a vague connection with my last post, my new employer is Spanish, and it looks as though our jobs are safe for the foreseeable future, and in fact exciting new opportunities could develop from the takeover of the savings business - only time will tell! (I am an optimist, as my posts when SPCK was taken over will show (http://www.wibsite.com/wiblog/neil/read.php?19520), sometimes my optimism is misplaced though, lets hope this takeover is a little more positive)

Rome - Part Six - Ancient and Modern

Wow, Rome seems such a long time ago now, been back to work 3 days and already the sun is forgotten!

To cheer me here are a few random places in Rome that I loved, This is Hadrian's temple, which we just stumbled across, but is a lovely peaceful piazza near the centre of Rome. The columns are now part of the stock exchange building, but I am sure they will last longer than the temporal nature of the financial markets!







And in another conflict of ancient versus modern here is a very old building reflected in a modern bank building, one of the very few glass fronted buildings in the city.



And this is the modern art gallery I spent a happy few hours wandering around

Rome - Part Five - Colosseum & Roman Forum

In many ways the Colosseum IS Rome, and it is certainly an imposing and amazing building. We did not go in, but I had a good wander around the edge of it and the surrounding area. Actually for me the Forum is more interesting than the Colosseum, a wide area of fragments of building and archaeological sites where interesting things are stumbled upon all the time.

First here is the Colosseum, without tacky pictures of people in gladiator uniforms,





And some of the forum,

Rome - Part Four - Trevi Fountain

One of the most famous sites in Rome, but not the most impressive! Even though it is a lively area of the centre of Rome, and is near one of the many McDonalds which actually have a public toilet...

At night it has a good atmosphere, and is surrounded by many great Ice Cream parlours, and the more you look at the fountain the more impressive it gets!

Coins flung into the fountain,

Rome - Part Three - The Pantheon

By far my favourite individual site in Rome is the Pantheon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pantheon,_Rome). This is the oldest complete building in Rome, and was built 125AD as a temple to "all the gods", but is now consecrated as a Catholic church.

The building has to be seen to be believed, I cannot describe the feeling you get when you first walk in, or the sheer size of the place. Photos give you no idea of scale or atmosphere. It is so amazing I had to revisit it again to really try and take it all in.

Here are a few attempts of photographing the inside, and more successfully the outside.

Rome - Part One - Vatican

We are back from Rome now, as expected we had a wonderful time, the weather was glorious (unlike the awful weather here in Exeter), the food was great and Ivonne's conference and presentation seemed to go well too.

I could write lots, but I think pictures say a lot more in Rome than words, so here are some pictures of Vatican City, which we visited on our first full day.


The Dome of St. Peters.

A few pictures from inside.






Standing on the steps of St. Peters looking out.

Rome

We are off to Rome for a week now, see you when I get back!

I will leave you with 2 final Greenbelt pictures.

SPCK Exeter and the rain

Well what a rainy week it has been here in Exeter, bout 1pm on Wednesday there was a downpour that had the drains in the High Street backing up within about 5 minutes. The rain also timed itself perfectly for me going home early on my afternoon off!

I have not been out and about too much this week due to having to save money (a trip to Rome is booked for later in the year and I must ensure I can pay for that, and buy nice food and wine while I am there!), so mostly I have been staying in watching the tennis and motor racing and reading. This does not make for many Exeter things to talk about.

Last Saturday though I did meet up with some of the guys who I used to work with at the former SPCK bookshop in Exeter, 3 previous managers came along as well and we had a nice time catching up with the SPCK news (the Exeter shop is as good as closed now) and what we have been doing since we left. For those interested in what became of the shop there is a blog (http://spckssg.wordpress.com/) that gives up to date news, but warning, some of the commenters are very bitter and it does not make very happy reading!



The next Pub Guide will follow this week, I just need to get some pictures before poker tomorrow night.

Things that are free

Even though I am a Guardian reading borderline lefty (you can't be a centrey really, can you?) my heart is always warmed buy things that are free at the point of use in our society. It should not come as a shock, that is what socialism is about, but it still does.

This week I had cause to revisit the library, long forgotten since the weather turned semi reliable a few months ago and I started reading less (in fact the pile of books is accumulating, just as I thought I was going to be at a “point zero” in unread books). The reason was a trip to Rome booked for September, and the need to get some guide books, but not being able to buy them as all my money will be used paying to go to Rome. A catch 22 that the library provides a route out of.

Anyway, the point is that it feels odd to walk in somewhere, pick up books and walk out with no money changing hands. It was a bit like the time that Britannia Breakdown rescued my poor old Panda car from a busy road and got it going, I felt the need to give the repair man something (I didn't, as essentially I am tight).

I now feel a bit guilty that in my job I help people pay less tax on their savings, in fact I should be trying to encourage them to pay more, so I can read more books for free and and I remain the correct side of centre.