Fountain near the Piazza del Popolo
Originally uploaded by Son of Groucho.
As my regular reader may have gathered, I have always been a bit of a pessimist. Previous experience with Italy, as well as recent events might have made me reluctant to consider it again as a holiday destination. We arrived in Rome on Monday last to be told that, basically, the Vatican was off limits. If I hadn't previously seen St Peter's Cathedral, the Vatican Museum and the Sistine Chapel I think I would probably have had some rather uncharitable thoughts about the recently deceased Pope.
We decided, however, that there was enough to see in The Eternal City to use up our time there without visiting the Vatican. I won't bore you with the details, but suffice to say we did a lot of walking and I took a lot of photographs. Despite the unpromising 5 day weather forecast on the Internet, it was very sunny Monday to Thursday: enough to give me quite bad sunburn on my forehead, which is rather high these days. We re-experienced superb Italian ice cream, and even better Italian food: although this time we tried eating Kosher food in a restaurant in the Jewish Getto. They didn't seem to mind serving non-Jews---I certainly wasn't asked to demonstrate that I had been circumcised!
It's amazing how quickly you feel at home in Rome. It's noisy, crossing the road is a nightmare, it's not that clean, and there's graffiti everywhere, but there's something so welcoming about the place. And as my friend in the picture demonstrates, there are so many interesting things to see, even when the Vatican is closed for business.
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