Rome - Day 5

Today, after a late breakfast, hubby and I headed to St Peter’s to get the Christian Rome yellow tour bus for the Line B tour, going out of the city and around the catacombs. This bus took us to the more working class and lived in parts of Rome, as well as taking us to the top of one of the seven hills surrounding Rome. A fantastic view! Hubby grabbed a baguette to eat for out lunch as we travelled on the open deck of the bus, and I had bought a hat to wear to save getting sun stroke again. We filled up our water bottles at the water fountains near the Vatican. Well prepared!

Although I did not know this at the time, hubby told me later that when we walked from the bus stop to the Christian Rome stop outside St Peter’s Square, we were targeted and followed by a dodgy character who had is eye on our bags. Hubby made him aware that he has spotted him and took extra care to protect me and him from a bag snatch. The man eventually got the message and disappeared.

Bag snatching is something to watch out for in Rome! Beware and be aware.

An interesting note, when we arrived at St Peter’s Square the Pope’s audience had just finished and thousands of people were heading away. Among those thousands were several brides and grooms in their full wedding dress, even in the heat of Rome. In fact, every site you went to in Rome: the Coliseum, the Spanish Steps, St Peter’s, the Forum, and others, we saw brides and grooms being followed by video camera’s and photographers whilst they had their wedding portraits taken on their wedding days. They travelled between the sites in their wedding day car. We had never seen anything like it before. We first saw it happening as we first arrived in Rome by taxi (Rome - Day1) and passed the side of the Coliseum, with at least 3 bride’s and groom’s having their photos taken.

At the end of the bus tour we bought postcards from the Vatican post office and posted them from there in order to get the special Vatican post mark, and bought the tea-towels for the girls before heading up to Piazza Navona for ice cream and iced coffee from an interesting gelateria near Pace 44. The gelateria was full of fresh fruit. From here we walked up to the Pantheon to join the 7.00pm free tour of the Pantheon with Angel Tours. The Pantheon tour is part of another, longer, tour by Angel Tours. The Pantheon was the highlight of the trip, in many ways, for hubby. The structure, design, and wonder of how the building stands impressed him. We had already seen much of the wonderful bronze from the Pantheon already in St Peter’s. In fact you see much of the historic and wonderful artefacts of ancient Rome in the Vatican Museums and St Peter’s.

Afterwards hubby and I headed up to a small, expensive, but excellent romantic restaurant nearby called Il Bacaro at Via degli Spagnoli 27, near to Largo di Torre Argentina. We sat inside, mainly because we were a bit scruffy still wearing the clothes we had started the day in! We had not had the time to go back to the hotel and change for the evening, which we usually did. Also, before I sit on their outside chairs I would like to be a very much smaller me. The meal was outstanding, a place to definitely come back to. After making our reservation for the dinner we had 30 minutes to occupy, so went around the corner and had wine and nibbles at a nearby wine bar sitting out an enjoying the ambiance and warmth.

After dinner we walked to the Trevi Fountain, then headed home. You can hear the Trevi Fountain before you see it, the pounding of the water dominates the nearby streets. At any time of the day the Trevi is a magnet for tourists, but is still a wonderful site. Sore feet and being very tired meant that I found the walk to the bus stop and wait for the bus very, very tiring. We tried to get a taxi but found them very, very expensive, but not as expensive as the next day! 9 euros for a 5 minute journey would seem cheap!

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