Roma Ancient Forum

A plague from Arch of Septimus Severus





Constantines Arch & the Colesseum






A Church inside a Temple






Early days of the Roman Empire





During the reign of
Augustus/Octavian





The Eastern & Western Empire
Rome & Constantinople





The Roman empire showing road network.

St George & the Reggae boys from Europe to Africa

Roma: GP, La dolce vita & a house of cards

I had been to Roma Countless times before but this time was different, I had come with the specific purpose to visit the Tito's Arch & set off on my journey across Europe to Africa.

At this point I had many high hopes of discovery & adventure....The Eternal city did not disappoint me. I spent a weekend with one of my closest & oldest friends Gian Paolo aka GP. After arriving late Friday we decided to do lunch at the beach.




To the beach GP!

We gourged ourselves on lobster, octopus, fresh pasta (el dente of course!) & copious amounts of wine late into the afternoon we partied until dawn!





La dolce vita

St George & the Reggae boys from Europe to Africa

Part II Italy

Technology on the go

I decided not too take my Mac computer so as to keep down on the amount of stuff I have to carry & instead decided to use my iPhone.

Electronic book:

I am using Kindle electronic book from Amazon which means I have a whole library with me but no added weight! It has the capacity to hold 1,500 books. This means for instance I can actually use it to read the hieroglyphics in Egypt on the spot (I hope it will be that easy).

iPhone Applications:

iRail - this is an invaluable tool for planning my journeys on the train. Basically I type in starting point & destination it shows me the timetables for all trains, it will even give me a map of the route ( of course it not perfect but with a little tweaking I can find the best routes to suit my Itinerary).

Voilà - tracking tool which allows me to show my current location so that friends & family can be kept abreast of where I am.

Google Maps for the iPhone - when I'm lost! Or the route from point A to B & the nearest facilities to my location (bancomat, restaurant etc).

Wikipanion - I thought this would be cool to have but have in actual fact along Wikitravel I have found it very useful for providing me pointers on the sites/museums & general places that I've Been visiting.

Trip journal - this app allows me to use tracking of my jourmey with a map view.

Tripdeck - I'm using this as a visual tool with pins on a map to show people an outline of my trip. It has a much wider range of use for planning flights etc I'm sure that @ some point my scope of use will increase.

Hotels

I'm booking about 2/3 days ahead of my location arrival using www.hotels.com which so far has been coming up trumps with the quality of rooms at really low rates.

Photos tools to be updated.

St George & the Reggae boys from Europe to Africa

Train journey into Milano

More photos from the journey thru the Alps into Northern Italy











































St George & the Reggae boys
from Europe to Africa

Zug & the journey thru the Alps

28/02/10
The journey thru Switzerland was a total breeze well, what did I expect it's the Swiss after all! (even when the train went under mountains I was still able to get a mobile signal) clean trains - communal areas with sofas & tables - free wireless to check timetables etc - people friendly (Parisiens take note!).

But the actual trip was awesome don't know how many times I said WOW looking at these big, HUGE mountains, tilting my head toward the sky only to look at clouds!! (I need to do the ski thing) good thing the carriage was empty I must have seemed like a big kid jumping from window to window.
Stayed overnight in Zurich & did a sidetrip to Zug.








Check the rainbow a good omen for my journey.









































You'll have to excuse my immaturity here, I couldn't resist taking this photo! Dorf means village (snigger, snigger).

Next stop Milano Italy......

Location:Mudroňova,Bratislava - Staré Mesto,Slovakia

Revised List of stops

From Europe to Africa overland.
This was supposed to go from Roma but In true Wayne fashion.....

So my itinerary is now below

Poitiers, Paris, Zurich, Milan, Rome, Naples/Pompeii, Venice, Ljublana, Budapest (Bratislava) Sofia, Athens, Istanbul (Bridge over Bosphorus), Damascus (Syria is still a ? Due to visa) Amman Jordan, Jerusalem Israel & Cairo Egypt & take a flight to Luxor for a 6 day cruise down the nile to Abu Simbel & then a flight to Ethiopia. - my estimate is to be gone 3months approx maybe longer with a few sidetrips. I have a Global railpass pass to get me to Istanbul thats the easy part;-). I have lost time & need to be in Egypt mid April (let's hope the force stays with me).



- Posted on the fly!

Paris to Zurich Alsace region

The train runs through Alsace & the Massif central so today I saw lots of great rolling plains of green fields & snow capped mountains rising dramatically in the distance I'm really looking forward to the journey to Italy through the Alps tomorrow - I was lucky as it was very sunny although it rained heavily in Zurich this afternoon - I even saw a rainbow which was a nice touch;-) it made me feel I have made the right decision in doing this journey by train.

My own knowledge of the area relates to the Alemanni who fought a Battle of Argentoratum against Rome in 357 (it was called Argentina by the Romans). They were defeated by Julian, later Emperor of Rome, and their king was taken prisoner. On 2 January 366 the Alemanni crossed the frozen Rhine in large numbers, to invade the Roman Empire. Early in the fifth century the Alemanni appear to have crossed the Rhine, conquered, and then settled what is today Alsace and a large part of Switzerland.




- Posted on the fly!

The first few days

I spent a few days with Mum in Poitiers getting everything ready with Mums help - it was great to see Mum although SNCF did make me quite glad I was leaving France due to well, awakwardness really - firstly, the attendant insisted there was mo such thing as a global pass for all of Europe & said she could only give me one for 2 countries - I knew this was wrong due to my research on the web and after having called the rail helpline for advice! Her Supervisor got involved and eventually got the pass I wanted - only for her to then write my name wrong & refuse to change it so now I'll have to just get on with it.

Location:Zurich

Bureaucracy Syrian style

Ok so there's a slight delay. The Syrian visa office Want more information. I'm only there for 2 weeks buy hey ho.

This means I have to stay in London longer usually I wouldn't complain @ this but as you can imagine I'm keen to get moving. I bought a rucksack yesterday & saw Alex where he outlined the best way to enjoy Egypt.





- Posted from my iPhoneo

Location:London