Rome including a trip to the Vatican By Naveen Agnihotri

Rome is a heady blend of artistic and architectural masterpieces, classical ruins, and extravagant baroque churches and piazzas. The city's 2700 years of history are on display everywhere you look. Modern Rome has one foot in the past, one in the present---a delighful stance that allows to have the best of both worlds.

Our train pulled into Rome at about 6am, and we proceeded to take the metro to our hotel. We had been warned by several people on several different occasions about petty theivery in Rome, so we were constantly on alert on the metro ride. And as if to reconfirm our fears, there were notices all around advising us to be careful of pickpockets. We became even more alert. The train ride reminded me of the subway in New York: a lot of people crowded into a very small space, trying not to look at each other.

Our hotel, Pensione Panda, was also highly recommended by all manners of guidebooks, and we couldn't agree more. It is very conveniently located, right at the footsteps of the Spanish Steps, in the Piazza di Spagna, half a block from the metro station. Our room was small, but bigger than our room in Venice. We dropped off our luggage, had breakfast and coffee in a nice cafe down the street, and immediately started our tour of Rome. It was 8am.

After spending a little time at the Spanish Steps, we took the Metro to the Colosseum. It looks just like it does in the books: grand and pathetic at the same time. You can squint really hard and try to imagine what the place must have looked like in all its glory, two thousand years ago. I squinted pretty hard, and almost saw what the scene must have looked like, and was pretty happy about it, until I realized that the gladiator I saw was Russell Crowe.

Right next to the Colosseum, the Arco di Constatino leads to the Foro Romano (Roman Forum), where you can walk on the same worn paving stones that were once walked on by emperors and their slaves. It is a humbling experience, even though everything is in ruins. It is very easy to imagine the gigantic extravaganza that the place was in its day. The panorama I took and then stitched with some software is quite good -- looking at it instantly takes me back to the forum.

The western end of the forum leads to the Campidoglio (Capitol), Michelangelo's piazza representing the glory of high renaissance, but which was also once the center of the Roman Empire, housing the most famous temple, that of Jupiter. The Capitol has maintained the set of the minucipal government of ROme, right to this day. The bronze statue of Marcus Aurelius in the center of the plaza dates from the second century AD, and is the only celebrated equestrian bronze statue to survive from classical antiquity.

Right down the steps, we walked into the majestic Monumento a Vittorio Emanuele II, the white marble monument created in tribute to unified italy's first king. Ironically, King Vittorio Emanuele II, who it's in part supposed to honour, probably wouldn't have thought much of it - he was by all accounts a modest man; indeed, the only person who seems to have benefited from the building is the prime minister at the time, who was (perhaps not entirely coincidentally) a deputy for Brescia, from where the marble was supplied. The equestrian statue of the king here is claimed to be the world's largest (its moustache is apparently 3m long).

From the monument, we walked down the old streets of old Rome to another famous Roman monument, the Pantheon. This Roman temple of "all the Gods" became a church in the middle ages. The magnificent building with an awe-inspiring domed interior became a symbol of the majesty of Rome itself. The rectanglular portico shields the vast hemispherical dome: only from the inside can the true scale and beauty be appreciated. The opening at the top of the dome (the oculus) provides the only source of light. The walls supporting the dome are 19ft thick; the pantheon is truly quite grand.

It was about noon, and having had an early start, we were getting hungry. One of the guidebooks suggested Del Sostegno, a small hidden restaurant on Via delle Colonnelle, a couple of obscure blocks away from the Pantheon. We found the restaurant, but they said that they wouldn't start serving lunch until about 1:30pm. That made one and a half very hungry hours for us. We could have eaten at one of the many restaurants right in front of the Pantheon that were open right then, but I didn't want to have a repeat of the bad overpriced touristy restaurant in Venice, and stuck to my guns.

We spent the time sitting in the sun, and also visited Piazza Navona, supposedly Rome's most beautiful piazza, but in our impression just the most crowded. There was hardly any space to walk. It was probably very beautiful, but all I saw was a madhouse full of tourists. Maybe it is beautiful at 4am, when it's empty.

Lunch was worth the wait: It was delicious, and even though it wasn't terribly cheap, was probably much cheaper than the overpriced tourist traps around.

After lunch, we walked back to our hotel, and found that the neighborhood around our hotel had turned into a bustling, happening place. There were young people as far as the eye could see. Elegant Italians mingled with tourists in sneakers, shopping smartly in the discreet and elegant shops. We later learned that we were staying in the liveliest area of Rome. We walked around for a bit, and then went back to our hotel room for a siesta.

In the evening, we walked the lively streets to Fontana de Trevi, Rome's best known and grandest fountain, which almost completely fills the tiny piazza de Trevi. Tradition has it that a coin thrown into the water guarantees a visitor's return to Rome. We threw in our coins immediately.

For dinner that night, we chose Il Margutta, "the first and best vegetarian restaurant in Europe." The food was really spectacular, although not by any means cheap. If both of us had chosen the standard 6 course dinner with wine, it would have come to about €100 for the meal. That's pretty pricey by my book. But the food was tasty, and they had paid as much attention to presentation as to the taste. It was inventive haute cuisine for the rich. We had a good time.

The next morning, we had breakfast in the same cafe downstairs, and found out something interesting: if you drink coffee standing at the bar, it is €1, but if you sit down it is €4. Live and learn.

We went outside and took some pictures around the Spanish Steps. I took one of the many panoramas that I took on the trip -- a series of pictures that you take in series and then stitch in some image processing software. I love panoramas: they really let you feel what the scene was like.

We proceeded straight to the Metro station in Piazza de Spagna and went to the Vatican and St Peters, and that page has the pictures from that trip.

We got back from our trip to Vatican and St Peters at about 2pm, and had lunch at a swinging pizza joint right down the street from our hotel: Fior Fiore, where the decor and the crowd was modern, and the pizza, while modern-looking, was absolutely delicious.

We collected our baggage from the hotel, and went to the train station to catch the train to Florence.