5th Feb – Rome review

Well after driving back from Venice in some snow and avoiding too much bad weather, we decided to leave Casoli a day early (to avoid another snow front) and chose to stay the night in Tivoli (just 30kms out of Rome).

We saw the magnificent Villa D’Este, which rivals our memories of Spain’s Alhambra for the grandeur and gardens. This was built for Cardinal Este about 500 yrs ago. The following morning we saw Hadrian’s Villa which was in ruins but there was still a fair bit there so you could appreciate how they lived.

On Monday 30^th we handed the car back to the Citroen dealer and finally left the car with a LOT of kilometers on the dash! We arrived at our last stop (on the Continent), our apartment in a North East suburb of Rome (about 15 mins by train from the main Terminus). The place was on the 8^th floor with views of the distant snowy mountains. We had a little drizzle Monday, but Tuesday/Wednesday/ Thursday before I left were glorious, getting up to 18 degrees!

On Tuesday we walked for nearly 6 hrs (with breaks) and saw the Pantheon, Foro Imperiali, Trevi Fountain, Spanish Steps, Piazza Navona and an amazing church – S Maria Maggiore (amongst others).

We decided to have a quieter day on Wednesday and took a ‘hop on/ hop off’ bus tour of Ancient Rome in the glorious sunshine and saw the Colosseum, Forum, Largo Argentina temple ruins, Basilica S Maria Angelli and the outside of Basilica S Pietro (Vatican).

Thursday we packed up my stuff and everyone came to the airport to see me off. Friday, Tam and Mum plan to visit the Vatican and a final shopping day on Saturday. On Sunday Mum heads back to Melbourne and Tam goes onto Scotland for a final week. Missing her already and I’m not sure how I’ll adjust to normal stuff like work, from tomorrow!

Final installment by Tam in a fortnight – including Top Five.