Hello all

So, we thoroughly enjoyed our luxury house sit in Italy, and have now moved on to Rome. On our first afternoon we had a little sunshine and got to see the Trevi fountain (very impressed), Spanish steps (not so impressed as the fountain was closed off with scaffolding), the Pantheon (great architecture) and loads of Piazzas as well as some pizza and gelato (not as good as Verona)

Yesterday started sunny but within an hour it was raining and it chucked it down all day so it was a very soggy trip to see the Colosseum - it's an impressive building with a great sense of history but we generally felt a bit under-whelmed by it. The Forum was closed for some reason, so we walked about the city - it's a great place for walking, even if you are soaked through. Our highlight was seeing the Vittoriano which is a huge building, incorporating a museum about Italy's reunification and outside is the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. The building is truly stunning and we then took the lift up to the roof for views all across Rome - beautiful, again despite the rain but thanks to the weather we were the only people up there.

Today we saw Circus Maximus, where the chariot racing used to be, and The Forum - having watched so much of the series 'Rome' this was really good for us, as we could visualise how it used to be and knew some of the history although the Senate (where Julius Caesar was stabbed) now bears no resemblence to how it was.

We also went to the Vatican City, and saw the Sistine Chapel (the paintings are stunning but I was expecting it to be much more church like, it seems far more like a big room full of wall and ceiling paintings) and then we went to St Peters Square and the Basilica - the square is incredibly impressive, surrounded by high columns and statues and it was great to see the balcony where you see the Pope on tv. Unfortunately the queue to go into the Basilica was huge, we would have waited at least 2 hours in the rain, so have had to forgo this.

After almost 6 lazy weeks it's been a non stop whirlwind in Rome and we are looking forward to continuing this as we move north through the rest of Italy.

Lots of love to you all

xxxx