She says: Holy heat wave, Batman. Despite there being relatively low humidity here, today while we explored Rome, it may have been the hottest day of my life. I'm sure we were a lovely, sweaty, sunburned picture of tourist perfection.

I came to Rome for a week two years ago with my mom, dad and Mike. I am amazed how well I remember the city, can orient us with the help of a map, and regale Matt with boring anecdotes (Mike and I watched a log there!; we christened a clump of dirt "poo mountain" there!; we had a photography contest of who could take a better photo of that spout!; there used to be a graffiti heart there!).

However, I did have a few good tips to make our day awesome, and keep us (ever so slightly) cooler. We visited my absolute favourite place in Rome, the ruins of Torre Argentina, where Julius Caesar was assassinated and where some amazing squatters set up a cat sanctuary to deal with Rome's stray cat problem. Eighteen years ago, an incredible lady got sick of seeing all the stray cats in her city and decided to do something about it. She set up the sanctuary under the excavated ruins and they have sterilized over 17 000 cats, the government is so appreciative of the efforts that they've turned a blind eye to the fact that the clinic is set up right amongst the ruins. It's a great place. Mikey and I visited last time I was here and the people and cats were incredible. Today, we found respite from the heat and met "an old gentleman", a super friendly 18 year old cat and I got to snuggle a forty day old kitten, the smallest I've ever seen as the "piccolino" had his first bite of dry food. We then visited the handicapped cats, those with feline AIDS, leukemia, one with his nose removed due to cancer, ones with one eye, and those with missing limbs and neurological disorders. They were super friendly, way less standoffish than the Cat Cafe residents in Tokyo. I made special friends with a blind , fHIV+ kitty with a chronic cold named Lucky. I wonder if Trixie and Ap would bully him if we brought him home.

My other good tip was to bring Matt across the Tiber to the Trestevere neighborhood. We had our best ever Italian meal, complete with beer and wine for under 40 euros.

Of course, we've stopped a few times and powered up on gelato between seeing the sights and hopping on and off a trusty HOHO bus.

I'm finishing this post on the morning after our epic day. We are both pooped, surely dehydrated despite drinking at least 3 l of water each and ripe with new blisters. We are looking forward to boarding another ship this aft.

Off we go to the train station with a quick stop to pick up our huge bag of laundry we dropped off yesterday!