When in Rome

We started our holiday in Rome.  We're not really city people, but it seemed silly to travel so close to one of the most famous cities in the world and not pop in to say hello.  

We arrived on Wednesday lunch time and settled in to our apartment near St Peter's.  We then went for a wander that encompassed quite a lot of the key sights/sites in the city, as it happened.  We passed through St Peter's square and enjoyed the fountains and the columns.  The basilica and the square looked great from the outside but we didn't fancy the queue to have a look inside, and nor did we bother with the rest of the Vatican.  Maybe next time.

We ended up in the Piazza Navona, a lovely square with multiple fountains and artists selling their wares.  And many ice cream cafes, of which more later.  Here we went into the church of Saint Agnese to cool off, and found it to be incredibly ornate compared with the churches we're used to, with great frescoes in the dome.  Who needs the Sistine Chapel.  We got Marisca on board with Catholic rituals, lighting a candle to say thank you to God for holidays.  

We then headed further east to the Pantheon, once a temple to Roman gods, now a church just the one Roman Catholic God.  There's amazing stuff about the dome's construction which you can read about on wikipedia or somesuch. We were impressed.  Each of the pillars at the front is made from a single block of stone, and as Marisca demonstrates below, they're quite big.

Our last stops before heading back for tea (pizza) were the Trevi fountain and the Spanish steps.  I expected to be underwhelmed by the fountain but developed a grudging respect when I saw just how, well, big it is.  Not quite sure why it's quite as popular as it appears to be, but hey, it's big.  The Spanish steps were just steps, don't really get that one either.  Tom enjoyed half an hour sitting on the steps out of the sling though.

That was quite a lot in one afternoon really, and we felt we'd seen enough of the bits and pieces in Rome that we could slow down for the other days.  We were never going to see everything, and we didn't want to try either.  We did take an unnecessarily extended stroll over the Janiculum hill on the way home after dinner.  It was an unexpected treat do to navigational guesswork, with great views over the city and the first of many monuments to squashed fly biscuits.

On the Thursday we had already booked to visit the children's museum (that's tomorrow's blog post), and in the morning we pottered around St Peter's, had a lovely drink and ice cream (not really ice cream - so it doesn't count in our tally - more later) in a local cafe, and then wandered along the river over to the museum.  Tea that day was a recommended pizzeria after a recommended ice cream place: the latter our first experience, of quite a few, of waiting to be served for a few minutes before realising there was a take-a-ticket system in operation.

St Peter's dome from the cafe:

Friday was our last proper day in Rome, and we decided to do a bit of ancient Rome before meeting up with Giovanni & Shanti and their overseas wedding guests for a picnic and ice cream on the Aventino hill.  The forum was fallen over and old, and the Colosseum was big and old and mostly fallen over.  WE're glad we saw both and went into the latter, but it was really too warm to spend too long standing around trying to conjure up the feeling for what the place must have been like.  By the way, if Marisca asks, we focussed on the fact that it was a place where they had animals to watch.  Cos, you know, that's entirely true even if not exactly the full story.

Dinner was with Samir and James, more pizza and a rogue risotto.  And another ice cream.

And that was Rome.  I don't think there are any cities that Elspeth and I *love*, but we liked Rome well enough and won't be surprised if we come back.  Just maybe not at the height of summer next time.