Bella Roma ... finally ... and other things.

Right, so I am finally sitting down to discuss Rome. I don't know if I've put it off because there is so much to talk about or if I have truly been that busy...

The Singer and Jay were here for six days over the Easter weekend and we had a lovely visit. They arrived on Thursday and on Friday we set out in the early morning to get started on what we expected to be a long day of shopping. We headed to Oxford Street, because I figured if you can't find it there - where every store in the UK has a shop (or in some cases has several) - we wouldn't find it. I did have backup plans for other places we could go but they turned out to be unnecessary. We found exactly what we wanted at Debenhams (the Bay of the UK) in a strapless tes-length dress in a lovely chocolate brown. Best part of that was that they were just off-the-rack dresses and were only £80! We had figured that we would look around in the hopes of finding something like that, but it was more likely that in order to get chocolate brown we would probably need to order bridesmaid dresses. Anyway, we were well chuffed to find these, as the dresses are lovely and very flattering on both Jay and myself. And it was only lunchtime! So we retired across the street for lunch and a glass of wine and then headed out shoe shopping. For this purpose we found cute little strappy sandals with a kitten heel, done in a gold colour but studded with "diamonds". This sounds tacky, I know, but they are in fact very cute and complement the dress very well. I hope it doesn't snow.

With all that done we had the rest of the weekend to relax. My birthday was on Saturday and Noise took me shopping in the afternoon for my present. He announced that you only turn 30 once and steered me into Harrods to look at the Louis Vuitton bags. I announced that they were too expensive and tried to talk him out of it, but he wouldn't budge and had been planning this all along. So I decided to get into the spirit of it and we left Harrods (which was a madhouse) and went around the corner to the Louis Vuitton shop on Sloane Street instead, where I picked out a bag for my present. We then found ourselves somewhere cheap to have lunch. ;)

Yesterday all four of us went to Hampton Court Palace. This was, unfortunately, a bit more awkward than normal because they are doing major engineering works in the Wimbledon area so there are no trains running through, which would be the most direct way to get there. However, with a little research on the TfL website and National Rail we decided the easiest would be to take the tube out to Richmond and then a train from Richmond to Kingston. From Kingston it was only a short bus ride to the palace. We were pleased that we decided to go anyway, as it was a nice day and we enjoyed the excursion.

Now the Singer and Jay have left to head to Heathrow and home. I won't see them again until I arrive home for the Singer's wedding! Which will be here before we know it. But I was sad to see them go...

Ok, I have been promising to talk about Rome... I guess I'll just start with our arrival. Our train arrived at Termini station and we found our way quite easily to the metro station below. We only had to go one stop for our hotel, which was on Via Cavour near the Colosseum. The hotel was on the second floor (third to those of you in North America) and was quite small - only 7 rooms, I think. It was lovely, and the lady who ran it was very helpful and friendly. For the first evening we found our way to the Piazza del Popolo and strolled down along Via del Corso and over to the Spanish steps. We had dinner in a little restaurant down a back alley, sitting out on the patio and listening to a busker playing his saxophone. Very nice ambience, too bad it started to rain partway through dinner! We made our way back towards our hotel, stopping for a gelato at this amazing gelateria where you get very generous scoops and can mix and match from about 30 flavours. That evening was the only time it rained on the whole trip, but it sure did rain! We dashed back to the hotel amid thunder and lightning and settled in for the night.

On Friday we visited Vatican City. We had anticipated a long queue at the museum, but were a bit shocked by the chaos of it all. There was nowhere and no one to indicate where we should actually line up, and we certainly wasted time a couple of times by standing in what we thought was the queue and then realizing it wasn't. If I ran a site which had thousands of people lining up every day, I would invest in some signage to help things along. But that's just me. Anyway, we got into the museum and made our way through, checking out the sights along the way. The most interesting for me was Raphael's Transfiguration, then the Raphael rooms, then the Sistine Chapel. Unfortunately we found the Sistine Chapel to be a bit underwhelming and also spoiled by the security guys yelling 'no foto' at regular intervals and shushing people. I would rather hear a low hum of people talking than the security guard yelling. In any case, from there we cut through and into St Peter's Basilica, which was amazing. It's just so vast. We did our little 'Rick tour' of the interior of the church and then decided we would pop out and grab some lunch and use the facilities before climbing up to the top of the dome. Word to the wise - it may look like there is no queue to get into the church when you exit, but there is in fact a line outside to get through security. When we returned from lunch we had to line up again to go through security again. However, we really needed food and to pee so I don't see how we could have done it differently. We climbed up to the top of the dome - 320-something steps but not a hardship. The views from the top were lovely. Of course we have a habit of scaling tall buildings (St Peter's, St Paul's, the Eiffel Tower, etc) when it is cold and windy which tends to make it a bit less pleasant. We did not see the Pope anywhere hanging around Vatican City. :) Dinner that night was in a little restaurant that we passed by and thought it looked nice, somewhere in the maze of back streets near the Spanish Steps and Trevi Fountain. It was packed to the rafters but they found us a table for two and we had a lovely meal.

Our last full day in Rome was Saturday, and we did the ancient Rome stuff that day. We started at the Colosseum, which I loved. It was my favourite part of Rome. We spent over an hour there just wandering around and taking about 300 photos. ;) The day was beautiful and sunny with a gorgeous bright blue sky, which made for lovely photos. It was still windy and cold which meant we needed to bundle up, but the sun definitely helped! From the Colosseum we walked over to the Forum and walked where Caesar walked. These buildings that are still standing 2000 years later just blow me away. We went up to Palatine Hill and had a view of the Circus Maximus and then back through the Forum to Capitol Hill. From there we walked up to see the Pantheon, still in use thousands of years after it was built. We have a bit of a tradition (which is embarassing) that in most major cities we've been to, we've had one meal which is not traditional local food but is in fact McDonald's. Sad, but true. Anyway, we had McDonald's for lunch that day sitting in the square by the Pantheon, out in the sun. Interesting moment when a woman that I can only describe as a crazy bag lady came up to the edge of the eating area, started screaming and ranting in Italian, then grabbed the sandwich of the guy sitting next to us and ran off screaming "grazie! grazie!" while stuffing it into her mouth. He was a bit shocked by it all, and spoke to us, saying something along the lines of "don't judge us all, every city has one", so I guess he was local. Noise and I figured it was the Canadian in us when we both said afterwards that we felt guilty for not sharing our lunch with him or offering to buy him another sandwich. Hello! Not our fault! We sat on the Spanish steps for awhile in the late afternoon sun - see if you can spot me in the "where's waldo" photos! For our last Italian dinner we ventured over to Campo de' Fiori, described as a lovely square for quiet meals. We ended up eating in a quite modern restaurant, something more like you would expect to find in Canada, posing as an Italian restaurant, however the food was good. We found, in fact, that Campo de' Fiori was run down, full of teenagers or young adults acting obnoxious, and sex clubs! Not what we had imagined as a quiet, romantic place for dinner. It was all a bit dodgy. We wandered back over for a final look at the Trevi Fountain and Spanish steps before retiring to bed.

On Sunday we did a final walkabout, which was a bit hampered by the Rome Marathon being run that day. After a quick focaccia lunch we headed back to the hotel to pick up our bags and then back to the train station to catch the Leonardo Express to the airport. Our flight home was uneventful and we were home in time to pick up Buggy and unpack and get to bed!

Overall our impression of Rome was good. It is a city that is confusing at first, but after a few walkabouts you really start to know your way around and then it makes sense and really grows on you. The metro was a bit dodgy but we only were on it a couple of times. Mostly we walked. It is an amazing mix of ancient, old, and young. It was jammed full of Canadian and American students and we heard more North American voices than we did Italian. We actually found it a bit like London in its pace and were quite at home with dashing across the streets and pushing through crowds and so on. Would I live there? Don't think so. But I would definitely visit again.

So ends the Rome saga. I'm sure I've left things out because that's what happens when you write about it weeks later and try to write so much. If I think of other tidbits I'll post them later. For today I have to jet off and get some things done. Gotta get groceries! But also we are due to move in 2 weeks so I am going to start sorting through clothes and determine what moves with us and what goes! Still haven't had definite confirmation about our supposed new flat, but Noise called them up today to see what's happening and it seems that everything is still on track. So I guess we'll start packing! Wish me luck....