By Sunday I had been out 3 nights in a row and was starting to look my age so I decided to take it easy that day, as well as make up for previous transgressions by doing the Colosseum 'properly'. Off I headed, on the metro this time, to come out of the train station into a torrential rain storm.

(The Colosseum, if you've never been, is pretty much all outside)

I had resolved to do this, so, off I go to get in line, and I realise the benefit of seeing outdoor sights in a torrential rain storm - no queues. Walk straight up with my 10 euro note 'one please!' and then I learned the second benefit of being in Rome this time of year - it was the first day of national week and all museums are free!

So I wondered around the Colosseum and the Roman forum (which I really didn't know about and kinda just came upon this mass of Roman ruins in the middle of the city...oh...hey...) - getting completely drenched in the process of course.

By Monday, I'd been in Rome for 4 days and found myself actually able to navigate around the city with (reasonable) ease.

Italian Navigation Observation #3 - When it starts making sense, that's the cue to start moving on.

Planning the next move involves a bit of anxiety about where you should go, how to get there, what time to arrive, where to stay, etc. It's a lot of stuffing around and very time consuming

(awaiting the sympathetic sighs from readers...no...?...ok then...)

I decided to head north towards Florence but to stop in Perugia first to...I don't know, say I've been to Umbria I guess. So I booked it for the Wednesday after I could catch up with my friend Mark from Adelaide the Tuesday night.

After that, I walked for about 6 hours from the hostel to Piazza Venezia, up to the Spanish Steps, and across to Museo e Galleria Borghese. Around Piazza D'Espagne I had lunch and decided to indulge with a more expensive one than the 2 euro pizza/ 8 euro pasta I had been eating. The food to this point wasn't particularly great, I have to say, and that's because I'm told you have to get out of the centre Rome to get good food there - the rest is just for tourists so they don't have to put in an effort. The restaurant I chose seemed busy, and had some Italians in there, so I thought I'd give it a go.

Primi Piatti - Bruschetta con tartufo e mozzerella

Secondi Piatti - Gnocchi con crema di (artichoke) e salsicce

Bicchieri - Chianti Classico

The bruschetta was a bit of a disappointment (I have high truffle standards) but the gnocchi was sinfully fabulous.

I had tickets booked at the Museo e Galleria Borghese, a private family's art collection that I had heard was well worth the process to get through it (pre-arranged tickets for a set time, and for a set duration). It held Bernini's Apollo e Daphne, which was quite amazing when you consider that these fragile delicate leaves were carved from marble. I like Bernini. Well worth the effort (and the 4 euro Audio guide to take me through it properly)

Back at the hostel, I was hanging out in the hostel bar catching up on e-mails and such. There were lots of people around and someone asked if they could join me since seats were at a premium. Tharon was from 10 hours east of Vancouver and was Native Canadian. Nice enough guy, though he did talk about bears a lot. I was considering ditching him / making polite excuses but then thought, no, might as well hang around for a little bit more.

A good decision, as it turns out.

Travel Rule #1 - Always Give the Bear Guy a Chance (because he might have hot friends)

Turns out Tharon had met some compatriots on a walking tour that day and they were also staying at the same hostel and were going to join him for a drink later. Enter Justin, who is like 8 feet tall, and his mate Jason, who would have been 7'11". They grow them big up in Canada, evidently. We all got along like a house on fire and my quiet night at the hostel bar turned into joining these guys for a pub crawl.

The pub crawl didn't happen per se, but we made our own up and by about 4 am took the long way back to the hostel via the Fontana di Trevi. The Trevi Fountain is pretty special during the day, despite being at the peak of tourist crowd hell, but at night with not a soul around it is spectacular. A memorable night to be sure - and finally I met people who were 1) intelligent 2) older than 22 and 3) funny. Huzzah!

I had designs on going to the Girabaldi steps and gardens but time/inclination/etc didn't allow it. I did finally manage, after 5 days of searching, to get a mobile phone SIM card in Rome. It wasn't an easy feat (how do you 'sell out' of SIM cards at a mobile phone shop??). But, anyway, back at the hostel I said farewell to the Canadians who were off to Vienna, then got ready to catch up with Mark and his co-worker Walter.

Mark and his wife Kelly are from Adelaide and have been pretty influential on my trip plans, helping tremendously with organisation & planning as they did a similar thing a few years previously. Walker is based in Rome working for Mark on their business organising monastery stays for tourists around Italy.

It was one of those hilarious nights where we didn't stop laughing for 3-4 hours as I recounted my first 4 weeks of travelling throuh South Africa and Italy (finishing with the bear guy, of course!). A perfect way to say farewell to Rome!