This year was my wife Eileen and my 25th Wedding Anniversary, so we decided to go to Italy for 17 days in June - spending our actual anniversary in Florence. I decided not to take my laptop with me, so I wasn't able to blog while we were traveling, so I am now taking the opportunity to tell the story of our "Italy 2008" trip.
Today we are off to Rome, our last stop - got up early and headed down to breakfast - Noella wasn't ready - she was used to us coming down later. By the time we had settled with Noella and packed it was ~9:30am.
Our original plan was to drop the car at Orvieto, but we did discus driving all the way to Rome. In the end, my fear of Rome traffic won out, and we headed for Orvieto – about 2 hrs drive from Val d’Orcia.
When we got to Orvieto we found the Hertz drop-off fairly easy and walked across the street to the station. We bought our tickets and caught the 11:58 express to Rome. The train arrived at about 1:10pm and we walked to the hotel - Bellesuite Roma. It was ~10 mins walk. We had considered taking the Metro for one stop, but thought that the hassles would not be worth it, and we found the hotel easily. The Hotel is very nice and air conditioned.
After we left Canada (while we were in Florence), Bishop Michael (Eileen works as Assistant to the Anglican Bishop of New Westminster) contacted us to say he had arranged tickets for the Papal Audience (tomorrow) through the Anglican Center in Rome.
I had arranged a walking tour of the Forum and Colosseum the next morning, so I phone the tour company to see if we could rearrange it for another day. Unfortunately, they were completely booked so we canceled the tour - I hadn't prepaid - so we could attend the Papal Audience for the experience.
We knew we had to pick up the tickets the next morning, but we weren't sure where to get them, so we headed for the Anglican Center (it is a couple of blocks from the Pantheon). The director's wife made us a lovely cup of tea - how English (although the Director and his wife were from Australia - he had previously been Dean of Melbourne) - and we chatted about "Anglican affairs" The receptionist at the center - an Episcopal priest from the States- phoned her contact at the Vatican to find out the exact details and so we were all set for tomorrow.
Rome - Pantheon, Trevi Fountain and Spanish Steps |
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After leaving the Anglican Center, we did a little sight-seeing between the showers, visiting the Pantheon, the Trevi Fountain and the Spanish Steps, before returning to our hotel and dinner at the Target Restaurant at the end of our street – another Rick Steves suggestion. Back in the hotel after dinner, I was able to watch some more Euro 2008 Football. This time I had a choice of watching it in Italian on RAI or in German.
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