Despite living in England for the first 23 years of my life, my travels to other European countries were actually quite limited and indeed I had only been to France, Portugal and Sweden before moving to Japan. Italy was always a country I was interested in for the usual reasons like the food and the famous Roman architecture. However, it has to be said that going to Italy was very much the warm-up act for a trip to North Africa. As I needed a transit in Rome, I decided to take advantage of this and so spent a few nights in the Italian capital.

Having arrived the previous night on a long 14 hour flight, I was up early the following morning (Wednesday 5th August) but just missed my intended 6:23 am train to Napoli. Consequently, I had to pay a lot more (28 euros) to take the Eurostar at 8:00 am to Caserta which took 80 minutes. Time is money when away though and going to the Royal Palace of Caserta was one of the main things I wanted to do in Italy. I’d like to sound sophisticated and arty by saying it was to admire the 18th century work but reality is I was only there because it was used as a filming location in ‘Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace‘ (1999) and ‘Mission: Impossible III‘ (2006)!

As impressive and beautiful as it was, I wasn’t too interested in the exhibits and pictures on display so moved onto the palace gardens which were very nice and stretched on for ages and ages as I found to my cost when I walked along them in the mid-morning sunshine thinking the end fountain was much closer than it was.

The ticket machines weren’t working back at the train station so I had to queue up for a long time at the only open window just to get a ticket the short distance to Napoli. That was followed by another to Pompei which seemed like a fascinating place but sadly there wasn’t so much in the way of information boards detailing the history of the eruption of the volcano Mount Vesuvius so it was quite hard to get a real feel for the place.

The following two days were all about Rome beginning with the Vatican Museums and Sistine Chapel.

St Peter’s Basilica was next but only the outside. I’d have to return the following day to see that.

A lot of walking then followed by way of Pont Sant d’angelo…

…Palatine…

…Roman Forum…

…and the Colosseum. All of them were hugely impressive.

I then decided to check out the simple Rome Metro system (only 2 lines at that time with a third one being added since my visit!) and took a train to Spagna to see Spanish Steps which was followed by some pasta at a touristy street cafe.

That first day in Rome included the majority of what I wanted to see and do but there were still a few other places of note on my agenda, as well as revisiting a couple of others. I’d been past Bocca della Verita the previous day but the line was so long that I decided to get there at opening time.

The beauty never ended as I continued on to Capitoline Hill, Pantheon, Piazza Navona and then followed the river round to Santa Maria del Poppo.

Piazza del Popolo finally gave me the chance to dine out in a picturesque location with a  pizza and a copy of the Gazzetta dello Sport; the pink Italian sports newspaper which I was only aware of thanks to watching Football Italia on Channel 4 in the early 90s. The person taking the photo for me asked if I could read it. I said I could but didn’t understand it!!

Reviewing the day’s sports papers!

Spanish Steps, Fontana di Trevi and Pantheon were all revisited again before ending up at Piazza Barberini.

My final port of call was to be St Peter’s Basilica so I took the train to Vatican city to go inside this time and climb up to the dome for some wonderful views of the city and beyond.

That may have been my first time to visit Italy but it whetted my appetite for more and just 12 months later I would return to visit the likes of Como, Milan, Verona and Venice.

Click here to read ‘Italy Filming Locations: Roman Holiday (1953)’

Click here to read ‘Italy Filming Locations: Star Wars Traveller – Naboo (a.k.a. Caserta)’

Click here to read ‘Italy Filming Locations: Mission Impossible III (2006)’

Click here to read ‘Italy Filming Locations: Angels & Demons (2009)’