On to Roma!

We spent most of the last day in Paris shopping and doing errands with Angie and Michael. Yeah, I know really exciting stuff – but it was a great way to get to know the city and the people. Every little stand that we stopped at in the Bio Market (an open air farmer’s market) was another French language lesson. – too bad my pea brain can’t retain all I learned! That and samples of everything – way better than a Sam’s Club lunch! We did however get everything we needed for dinner on the train – bread, wine, cheese, canard pate (duck meatloaf) and, of course, chocolate! After walking all the errands, we were famished so we stopped at a small café near their house for lunch. What a great city for enjoying food – there’s no such thing as a bad meal in Paris! Vicki had a nice grilled white fish (including head and tail!) and I had boudin and cooked apples – nothing like Cajun boudin, but it was excellent!

Then we left Angie and Michael to go to the Louvre and do some last minute souvenir shopping.

Finally, Angie and Michael went with us to the train station and we were on our way to Rome! The 14 hours on the train went fairly fast as this was an overnight trip and our seats converted into bunk beds. The lesson we learned from this train trip though was that we don’t want to sleep on the bottom bunk. It is the smallest of all of them. Of the six people in our compartment, 5 were born in the US. There were 2 girls in Rome for a semester and a man that has lived in Paris for 18 years and our 6th companion was a young lady from the Brittany section of France but living in Paris. She told us we must be French because we brought our wine, bread, pate and cheese with us on the train for dinner. We shared our wine and chocolate and had a wonderful time looking over our travel plans for Rome and getting advice on the best places to go and see.

When we arrived in Rome, we loaded on our backpacks and started walking to begin our quest for a place to drop those heavy things! Before we got too far we found a nice little Pensione, put down our bags, and started walking.

We started by seeing another church, Santa Maria Maggiore – imagine that, a Catholic church in Rome! The churches here seem much more light than the Gothic cathedrals in Paris. All the gold gilding was beautiful but we could only take a few pictures since Mass was being held.

As we walked along the streets of Rome, we both became acutely aware that we would have to follow our map very closely – this is the easiest city to get lost in I’ve ever seen!
Here’s Vicki checking our where we are on a bridge over the Tiber River.

There was also a wedding going on while we walked and it seemed that the wedding party was at every monument or site we visited. It must be a tradition to go from site to site and have your picture taken at each, blowing horns loudly as you travel!

Next we walked thru the ruins of the ancient main city of Rome.

Under the Arch of Septimius Severus,

down the Sacred Way

Thru the Forum


and the Arch of Titus


to the Colosseum – the same route that triumphant Legions would march as they returned from conquest for the glory of Rome!


Then it was on to Circus Maximus, where chariot races were run for the entertainment of the citizens of Rome (think the movie Ben Hur!)
Then we really started walking! Over to the Temple of Hercules and Bocca della verita – an ancient sewer grate that you put your hand in the mouth and the legend says if you have lied your hand will be bitten off – the lines were too long so we just watched to see how many in line were lying. None that we saw!!
Then over to Piazza Navona and the Pantheon – originally a pagan temple, converted into a church in 608 AD. It is the best preserved monument of Imperial Rome!
Wow! These guys didn’t believe in doing anything small! Here I am next to the doors of the Pantheon:
Then thru Palazzo Venezia, down Colonna traiana, to the Trevi Fountain –yes, we each tossed a coin into the fountain to guarantee our return to the Eternal City!


We had some gelato as we were strolling (life’s short, eat dessert first!) and dinner was a ham and mushroom pizza at Pizzeria Olympia.

As we walked back to our hotel, we passed the Piazza della Repubblica (opera).
Finally, after 9 hours of walking, we collapsed exhausted into bed! What a day! We need to go now though as we are off to the Sistine Chapel and the Vatican!

Ciao and a domain (bye & see you tomorrow!)