Our last day in Rome and so much still to do! We managed to negotiate a 3 o'clock check out from the hotel and set off on a mission to see the Forum and the Colosseum, the main popular landmarks that we had not seen so far. We set off at a brisk trot from the hotel, crossed the Ponte Cavour and headed in what should have been a relatively straight forward journey towards our goal. Hold on a minute! This is Rome, and all roads lead, well, somewhere else, at leas...

Despite having the best of intentions we seemed to get a bit of a slow start this morning and did not leave the hotel until around midday. In spite of the sunshine it was still bitterly cold as we made our way towards Vatican City and there were huge piles of dirty snow on most of the street corners. Just as we reached the walls of the Vatican we saw a bemused looking gentleman being loaded into an ambulance. He had blood pouring from a cut on his forehead and we...

Today was dry and mostly sunny which was lovely. However, once outside, we sooned realised that the temperature was even colder than yesterday! We did some very brisk walking in an attempt to keep warm but this was made difficult by the fact that all the slush had frozen which made the ground very slippery underfoot. Back across the Tiber we soon reached the Piazza del Populo. Crowds of people were milling around enjoying the sunshine. We discovered that a re-cr...

More snow overnight and it looked very cold and slushy outside. In the end it seemed just too much hassle to get a bus to the ground as nobody knew how often they went or where we could get a ticket, so we decided to walk. It was about an hour's trek along the side of the river. Very enjoyable, apart from the mud and the slush! At least the weather was dry which was a nice change from yesterday. Oh dear, spoke too soon. It started to drizzle at first and then rai...

We got up quite late and had a leisurely breakfast. Full marks to th Visconti Palace, their so-called Continental breakfast was in fact a feast! It was hard to ignore the fact that the weather outside did not look exactly welcoming, grey skies and rain. We were determined not to waste the day and wrapped up warm in coats, scarves, gloves, boots, the lot. (Is this really Rome??) Once outside it was clear that whatever we were wearing it still wasn't enough. The r...