Rome

We are just about to leave the eternal city - what did we think of our experience here?

Replete with history and incredible buildings and monuments it has been our least favourite place so far.

Of course we visited the Coloseum,  the Vatican and Sistene Chapel and other places of interest but we both prefer Florence and Venice.

We blundered into a preserved excavation site on one of the days and that was amazing.

We were 10 metres below road level and could plainly see the paving still in tact from centuries ago. For a brief moment I ceased to be Phil Driver and was transformed into Time Team Phil.

On advice from an excited American we met below ground we walked a few kms to a nearby site preserved as a dig.

It was here apparently that Julius Caesar met his grisly end not as Shakespeare suggested in the forum.

Somehow the history sits uncomfortably in the city, it is not beautiful as most of the other places have been beautiful. Those things which need space to be appreciated do not have it and paradoxically (do I sound like a philistine) St Peter's is too big.

Off to London.