Monday 19th

Arrived in Rome after a 1hr 15m flight on Crotian Air - good airline didn't crash. Spent 1hr 30mins queuing for passport control!!!! Shades of Heathrow in the late 80s. Cabbed to our hotel - 40 minutes of amazing sites past the Colosseum to our nearby hotel - Hotel Grifo - tiny back street right in the centre of Rome. Great Hotel, old but tidy with helpful staff, free breakfast & Wi Fi.

Out for lunch - by this time 4.30pm - no food on the plane. Found a small cafe nearby for pizza. Then we walked ...& walked...& walked. By the time we finished we had walked for 4 hours past the Colosseum again, Markets of Trajan (Roman) Vittorio Emmanuele 11 monument -1st King of a unified Italy 1870 (absolutely huge topped off by him in bronze on horseback - 12m high). Across the Ponte Fabricio to the island in the Tevere River and then back past the broken bridge as it is called (remants of Roman bridge from 26 BC) past the Roman Forum, and then retraced our steps to stop near our hotel for dinner in a pavement ristorante.

Great experience and sights - however resolved to be a little more planned in future as we covered a few sights twice due to exploring alternative routes (lost)

Arrivederci

Tuesday 20th

Our own unguided walking tour of Rome began by setting out for the Piazza Quirinale walking through tiny cobbled back streets and also main thoroughfares over laden with designer everything shops (Obviously they haven't heard about Italy's Credit rating downgrade) The traffic is noticeable for the thousands of motor scooters, (Piaggio, Gilera, Derbi the odd Vespa or Lambretta). Most big bikes - & a few bigger scooters are Japanese. Cars in the main are small and Mercedes must have sold hundreds of thousands of Smart cars here - they are everywhere in all configurations including soft tops.

The Quiranale is where the seat of government is - Parliament guarded by machine gun toting Carabonerie (no doubt to keep at bay the papparazzi trying to cover Berlusconi's latest scandal), also an ex Papal summer palace, and a smattering of consulates.

Continued walking and found a Church which was worth seeing - amazing art works and also a dozen or so side alters, confessionals, offering boxes, huge gold cantelabra and then the crowning glory was a grand ornate entrance from the centre of the knave down into the crypt via either one of two sweeping marble staircases housing graves of departed Catholics of high standing. Quite modern for Rome only been there since the 17th century.

We continued our walk to the Villa Borghese a huge park in the centre of the city. On the way we stopped at the spectacular Trevi Fountain (along with a few hundred other tourists) and then reached the Borghese Park. We walked through this for a km or so reaching our destination - Gallerie de Borghese - according to Vicki's research one of the best art galleries in Rome. No immediate entrance available- so bought tickets for Friday when we return from our trip south. (How far ahead would you need to book at the height of the season?)

Hiring a 2 person semi-electric rickshaw type bike (you have to pedal, but only to power the motor so pretty easy going) we spent an hour cycling around the park, stopping for an al fresco lunch with a glass of wine by a pond)

Leaving the Villa Borghese we walked to the St Maria del Concezione a church of no great outstanding features by Rome's standards, but one recommended in Lonely Planet for its interesting Crypt. We went through the Crypt which was a series of around 12 rooms holding the bones of past Monks arranged in artistic fashion from the Cappucin Monastery. The history is that in the 17th century these monks had to relocate from a different monastery (probably bought by a 17th C property developer) and disinterred the remains of the departed and highly revered monks from the crypt. They took these with them and ever since have disinterred, after a period of decomposition, the monks that have departed - arranging the bones, skeletons and in a couple of dozen instance complete robed forms with mummified faces, in an artistic fashion. (Strictly no photos - however see the photos in the albums This, inspite of the macabre sounding description was an interesting highlight of the day. The only thing I am not sure about is if this practice is still continuing. None of the bones (arranged in decorative patterns in "sets" - for example all the tail bones, all the skulls all the femurs etc etc together) seem to have any individual identification so I guess you could end up having your skull next to the skull of someone you were not too keen on!!

Back to our hotel via foot and tube, after negotiating a haircut with a local Barberie we had a great meal in an inside garden of a nearby restaurant.

Tomorrow Pompeii