Rome Revisited

Our third trip to Rome was the most relaxed. This was helped by being accompanied by friends who weren’t into 8 hours of fast-paced walking, especially Jeff whose knees are packing up. So it was a gentle wander with plenty of stops for coffee. And even the transport was easy as we drove to a train station on the outskirts and took a local train in, figuring that we’d avoid the rush hour traffic on the way out too.

Pauline was keen to explore an area she hadn’t spent much time in and this suited us as well as we’ve been to the major tourist areas already. However we seemed to finish up in the Forum/Colosseum area anyway.

Rome is a big and busy city and you do have to be careful of pickpockets. We were in the metro and just after a stop where some people got off our carriage a chap started yelling at me. Luckily another person translated and said he was telling me the girl who just got off past me was a pickpocket. Luckily I don’t carry anything in my pockets and keep it all in my Pacsafe man-bag. But it was a timely reminder as often I’ll have my wallet or phone out and just put it back in a pocket temporarily.

Fort of Sant'Angelo

We started with a walk along the Tiber (not as impressive a river as the Thames or Seine) past the Castel Sant'Angelo, also known as Hadrian’s Tomb. For once it wasn’t too hot nor too crowded and we survived till revitalised by coffee and pastries.

The Tiber

Fountain detail, Piazza Navona

The streets towards the main historic area are full of interesting and very colourful old buildings, piazzas and markets. Very photogenic. After lunch we arrived at my favourite piazza – Piazza Navona. As mentioned in a previous post, this is dominated by three large and detailed fountains.

At the flower an vege market

We eventually found ourselves in the heart of the tourist area walking back towards the Colosseum past the various Roman buildings and statues. For the first time we got to see the Colosseum without scaffolding! So much better, so we had to spend some time contemplating the view over a glass of prosecco. An end to a very good day out.

 Because you can never have too many pictures of the Colosseum ...

And a bit of Italian style ...