Bing, show us your....

[Bing]

Fair enough, it is a bit of a trek! Can you recommend the hotel you stayed in? I'm considering Rome this summer.

It was the Kolbe Hotel - right behind the Palatine Hill, 5 minutes walk from the Tiber, 10 from the restaurant Carol suggested on the island in the river called Sora Lella (THE best chocolate ice cream on the planet Carol, great call ), and 15 minutes walk to either the Colosseum in one direction past the Circus Massimo or the other direction to Piazza Venezia. We caught a bus to St Peters from just round the corner, took about 20 minutes. Great location, well looked after hotel with friendly and helpful staff, though if I'm honest the beds in our room were not comfortable... And we only really slept and ate breakfast there.

Cool pics Bing. Looks like giving this work lark a miss at the moment is suiting you

Yes, indeed I do however have to start applying myself to getting back into employment... It would be very easy to coast for just a wee bit too long :roll:

Glad you went up the cupola more fun crawling round the Vatican museums for wee Bing. Inspired me to book a week in Italy in June.

Yeah, we got there late, I lost my temper with all the hawkers outside trying to sell us skip the queue tickets and stomped off to a legit place to pay some sheckles to get in faster - then we got in a queue we thought was for the Basilica but was actually for the Cupola ... I am very glad Wee Bing decided not to jump out of it because we spent all of 20 minutes in the church itself before his boredom threshold was breached. Enough time to go through the grottos though :lol:

I will stick some more pics up in a wee while this evening. Be rude not too :wink:

 

[gallaghb]

Nice pics!

Not been to Rome, but is on the to do list!

 

[Bing]

Ok, this thread just got officially Pic Heavy :-D

Theatre of Marcellus, just round the corner from the hotel. It is totally nuts how much 2,000 year old architecture in the city is just subsumed into the more modern and is often still in daily use :

National Museum, and a shot up toward the Colosseum in the evening :

Mrs Bing, and Wee Bing with his large ring.... of donut :lol:

Forum Romana from City Hall up towards the Colosseum in the evening :

A rather nice statue shot in the queue for the Cupola Dome :

View down from inside the dome itself, also some shots of the inside of the dome – hard to convey how huge the place actually is :

The stairs to and from the Cupola – got a bit tight in places :-o

View of a quiet and beautiful part of the Vatican City from right at the very top of the Dome, plus a lovely wee grotto that made me think of someone definitely not religious...

The Pantheon in the distance :

And probably one of the most famous shots of the Piazza in front of the Basilica :

A shot from the top of Castel Sant’Angelo across the city :

The rest of Mrs Bing’s meal at Ristorante Eleonora D'Arborea on Friday, plus the Limoncello and Grappa they gave us for free... Which resulted in me staggering out.

Turns out the owner is married to a (rather attractive) American lady, hence the decent portions (we were stuffed), and their tendency to look after ‘tourists’ well. We were the ONLY non-Italians in the restaurant all evening, and we watched large numbers of people get turned away as they were fully booked. Great place.

If you don’t mind I will stop now and put some more pics up tomorrow... Though I will leave you with this quite cool graffiti I spotted on the wall outside the Colosseum Metro station that appealed to my sense of humour :

 

[LeeZ4MR]

Cracking pics Bing

 

[Carol M]

:wub: Roma (but not as much as Venezia) superb pics J. Loving the size of wee J's doughnut!!
Your hotel mustn't be too far from the one we stay at.
Thought you'd like this, people chilling outside the Coliseum at night (only taken with my phone so not brilliant quality)

 

[Bing]

WB said he wants to go to Venezia, but that is reserved for me and Mrs Bing - probably for 'our' 40th later in the year. I wanted to go to Ibiza and watch the sun go down - and come back up - at Cafe Del Mar (never done it, always wanted to), but I think we'll have to be a bit more grown up

The only thing we didn't do was get some night time shots like yours above Carol - we were all walked out by then and couldn't get motivated to go back out after eating

 

[Carol M]

I agree. We didn't take our son to Venice until he was about 15/16 as we don't think it's a place for kids until they are older. You will walk and walk and there's not much kid stuff. He will probably like the canals and bridges and if you go over to the Lido (which you probably will) he'll like it there but apart from that he won't enjoy it nowhere near as much as you and Mrs B.
It's one of the most special places on the earth and you need to go with Mrs B for the first time on your own.

Edit. Did you see the Pieta by Michelangelo in St Peters? I could look at that all day. One of the most beautiful things I've ever seen.

 

[NeilP]

Those are some fantastic pics Bing!

I'd love to return to Rome (now I'm a little older!)

I do like the look of that z3 coupe. Shame they didn't have the numbers in production

 

[jaRED]

Great pics Bing. Glad you had a good time. Rome is a city I could just keep going back to, there is so much to see and eat