A new day in Rome

In which we (eventually) settle in our new accommodation and begin to explore

And so the day dawned and we were still alive!!! You would expect that after all the trauma of last night we would have slept like logs..... wrong on every level...... I managed a few hours of alcohol assisted sleep and then woke

up ,Dear Richard hadn’t slept at all.... not because he was standing guard in case the delinquents attempted entry, more because he was so stressed out by the whole situation that he just couldn’t switch off his brain. Anyway, seeing as we were both awake we decided to pack up and leave , hopefully avoiding any further contact with the delectable Flavio and his Italian to English translation tool. There were murmurings outside our door and a steady run on the shared toilet in the hall , (even though our bathroom was really grim I was very grateful not to be sharing with our fellow lodgers,) and we certainly had no plans to avail ourselves of the breakfast or to spend a moment longer than necessary in the shit hole that was the Villino Eleda.

We opened the door and stepped out into the hall...the front door was a mere four or five paces away... holding our breath we set off towards freedom. “Buonjiorno”came the cheery greeting as we walked past the communal dining room..... we didn’t stop walking but I responded with a “buonjiorno” back ...we reached the door.... unlocked it and were just making our way out when Flavio appeared.... “no breakfast??”..... overnight he had ditched the translator and become fluent in English.... I muttered something about meeting friends and went to unlock the gate.... no need he gestured and proceeded to undo the padlock and swing the gates open.

Of course getting out of the drive involved a great deal of manoevering and once again we ran over his precious bit of grass, but by that point we didn’t care who or what we took out in order to escape..... What we really wanted was for Flavio to shut the gates and bugger off back inside so that we could put the keys in the letter box ...as we pulled out of the drive to go the correct way down the one way street on which the house was located, Flavio began to gesture wildly once again... we took no notice as we thought that he was just being over helpful in directing us out of the gate..... not so my dears....we got to the end of the road and found it completely blocked by a truck which was showing no signs of moving anytime soon... realising that that was what Flavio was trying to tell us did nothing to help the situation which was , for Dear Richard the final straw.....I’m not sure I have ever seen anyone inject such venom into reverse gear......and how we didn’t hit every car parked along that narrow road I will never know. So.... somehow we made it safely to the other end of the road..... now I had to return the keys without being spotted doing so...... I’m not really sure why we were being so secretive..... or why we just didn’t say we were going and never coming back... after all we were hardly likely to bump into Flavio again.....either way I (metaphorically pulled on my balaclava) made my way back to the gates and after satisfying myself that Flavio wasn’t about.... deposited the keys safely in the box and ran ( I know , I was that desperate , it wouldn’t happen any other time!! )all the way back to the car where my getaway driver was revved up and ready to go. And so, with Sally Sat Nav primed , we launched ourselves and the Corsa once more into the madness of the traffic in Rome. About half an hour later, after many moments when I feared we would end up in the hospital rather than our hotel we ”arrived at our destination”.... I’ve listened to that bloody woman’s voice for so long I’m even starting to talk like her....oh and a quick word here about Sally Sat Nav.... when I was making sure that the device was working I thought it would be amusing to change Sally’s genteel English pronunciation for someone called James who hailed from Australia.... and for about ten minutes it was a great laugh until I had heard the same phrase about back seat drivers and throwing them out of the car at the next roundabout, so many times I was ready to chuck James out of the window and use the f**king map instead !!! and so back came Sally ( obviously not her real name) and she has guided us around Italy ever since.....unfortunately her strangled attempts at Italian pronunciation leave a great deal to be desired and have made us laugh and cry in equal measure as we haven’t the first clue where she is telling us to go most of the time. Anyway.... back to our new hotel. It was discreetly tucked away on one of the main thoroughfares in Rome. Looking as I was for something a little fancier( and offering up the rest of my family for it to NOT to be like the place we had just done a runner from,) it took me a while to spot the door, most of the reception area was in the basement so there were no windows, however we were greeted in the manner I was hoping for.... no fag and certainly no app needed to make ourselves understood.

Our room was ready, which was a surprise as we were so early, and after we had removed all our stuff from the Corsa she was taken away by a valet to be safely parked at a location nearby( now I’m turning into Booking.com!!! ( who incidentally refused to do anything about the fiasco of the images on their website not being anything like the reality of the property except to send an email telling Flavio or whoever markets the place that they should have a look at the photos they are using!! )

And so we arrived in our room....it was a little smaller than we thought it would be, but it was clean and the bathroom was ok. We had started making ourselves at home when the phone rang.... it was the receptionist telling us that we had been put in the wrong room.... we were moved to another room....this was considerably larger with an extra bed for the sorting of luggage...Dear Richard went into the bathroom.... the shower attachment was broken.....I phoned reception.... they sent the valet up to move us to another room..... each time we moved by the way we went up a floor so we were now on the 4thfloor and they only had 5..... I had everything crossed that this one would be ok or I feared we might find ourselves on the bloody roof.... luckily it met with the approval of all

members of the party and so we breathed a sigh of relief and made it our own!!! This involved spreading my entire holiday wardrobe out on the spare bed and checking out the prices of the mini bar..... well you never know ,one day we might find one which says “help yourself, it’s all free!!!”

I suspect that will be the one just inside the Pearly Gates, my reward for a lifetime of “good behaviour!!” By now it was getting on for elevenses and we were both starving, having forgone the delicious repast on offer at the shit hole in favour of a fast getaway. So off we went in search of food, and we found it about five minutes away in a noisy, busy square ,that wasn’t really a square apart from the fact that it had a bit in the middle of two main roads with some greenery on it.

The two little drinks were like a lemon and lime slush puppy....

very refreshing but alcohol free.... unfortunately!!!

We sat by the side of the road in the blistering hot sun ..... not complaining, I’m aware that you have been having rain of Biblical proportions most of the time we have been away .... smug.... me!!!! and enjoyed a HOT and reasonably well cooked breakfast of fried eggs, streaky bacon and salad!!! It sounds bizarre but was delicious and the people watching was an added bonus. We must have been somewhere near to the local Registry Office as a steady stream of brides, grooms and associated wedding guests made their way along the pavement beside us..... it was interesting to see just what type of garment the Italians choose to sport in order to tie the knot. On display that morning was everything from jeans to a crystal encrusted effort paired with the most enormous platform shoes.... the whole party was shuffling along very slowly so that they didn’t leave the bride behind ..... she was struggling to keep up and the look on her face said plainly that she wished she had settled on the flip flops after all!!

And so.... fed and happy we set off for a bit of sightseeing...... ( it is worth noting that by this stage in the holiday I had walked up and down so many of the vertiginous streets of Tuscany that my calves, thighs and bum were a lot more able to cope with walking than they had been at the beginning of our holiday!!) I did not therefore complain about the fact that there was going to be a lot of walking in Rome.....although it did cross my mind that the Ancient Romans could have planned the layout of their monuments a little better i.e built them in one specific area with future tourists perhaps in mind!!!!

Castel Santo Angelo was to be our first destination..... it didn’t look too far away and I knew it was worth a look...... quite a lot of ancient ruins are just that ..... ruins..... and if I’m very honest, once you have seen one lot of crumbling brick walls which used to be something but now aren’t , well , most others are just the same. This place however is still very much intact and luckily it was quite easy to find and not expensive to go into.

If you have seen the film “Angels and Demons” you will have seen parts of the castle as they were used as the headquarters of the baddie..... don’t ask me, I don’t know, watch the film or look it up!

It was built as a tomb for Dear old Hadrian..... (famous for his big wall which stretches for 73 miles from one coast of Britain to the opposite one , built to guard the north west frontier of the Roman Empire and no doubt a place to which one was sent as a punishment if one had upset someone important or been caught having a bit of “hows your father, with said someone’s wife! )

.....and his family... between 135 and 139 AD. Over the course of history it also did time as a fortress, castle and prison , mainly for the Popes, of course it was....... we are after all in Rome!!!

Any road up, apparently it got its name because the Archangel Michael appeared on top of the building sheathing his sword as a sign of the end of the plague in 590. There is a very impressive statue there now which looks down on Rome and is a jolly good subject for tourist photos.

The tour of the castle takes quite a while and takes in various outside and inside areas all of which are well worth a look. We weren’t always sure what we were looking at as we had not taken advantage of the gadget which gave you a blow by blow account of the buildings history, opting instead to just wander around reading the brief descriptions which we came apon every now and then.

Surprisingly , there is a nice little cafe situated where you really wouldn’t expect to find one. It seemed churlish not to sit and enjoy a little drink so we elbowed our way to a table.... ( it was lunchtime and we were a bit peckish too!!!) .....there were a lot of other people with the same idea and ordered drinks. We had managed to bag a table with an amazing view and so when our drinks finally arrived..... they took so long I could have trodden the grapes and made the wine myself!!.... we enjoyed gazing out at St Peter’s ....well we would have done if it hadn’t been for the hundreds of people who also thought there was a view worth taking a picture of and proceeded to do just that over our shoulders.... luckily Dear Richard wasn’t in the mood for whispering sweet nothings.... being of a practical nature he was more interested in the snacks which accompanied our drinks..... I was also pre-occupied with keeping a very persistent pigeon from helping himself to said snacks.....it was a full time

job let me tell you....that bloody pigeon had clearly developed a taste for crisps and olives and no amount of shooing made a difference....the only way I could get him to fly away was to flick my drink at him..... yes I did find that difficult, alright I found it very difficult to waste good alcohol

on a bloody bird!!!!!

Eventually we had to leave as the queue of photographers and that f-ing bird were hampering our enjoyment somewhat.... we exited the castle, circumnavigated the street sellers and buskers, pausing just long enough to take a picture of a gentleman sitting happily reading his book in a very attractive pair of high heels.... not sure what Hadrian or the Pope would have made of that.... on second thoughts he was probably a priest enjoying dress down Friday....and Hadrian was a Roman and we all know what they got up to in their spare time.

It was a very hot afternoon and we were both flagging a little but St Peters was only just up the road and after a short discussion we decided to tick it off our list so that we could concentrate on all the other “must see” sights tomorrow. The place was heaving, when I say heaving , I don’t mean it was crowded, it was absolutely rammed. Ticket touts promising instant entry to the Basilica, blokes selling religious statues, rosaries, hats, scarves... tourists milling about trying to take pictures.... we had thought we might try to go inside, but the queue, if one decided to ignore the touts and go it alone, stretched for miles and no way was I going to queue in that heat, it was so hot that I contemplated a quick dip in the fountain, but was persuaded that it wouldn’t be a good idea by Dear Richard, who didn’t feel that his grasp of Italian would be enough to break me out of jail should I be arrested by the very colourfully clad Vatican guards!!! So we got as close as we could to the balcony, took some pictures and made our way back to the hotel.

After a rest and a change of clothes we ventured forth in search of a roof top bar we had seen advertised in the lobby of our hotel. Well it was a few hours since I had had a drink.... I know, but as I keep reminding you I’m on holiday....and the trauma of yesterday, although receeding, was still present!!! The roof top bar turned out to be very nice, we ordered drinks and looked forward to the snacks which we knew would accompany them..... the view was amazing ... and so were the prices ....I know Rome is a capital

city but f**k me ..... don’t they know we are on a budget!!!! Having resigned ourselves to not being able to afford anything more than McDonald’s for dinner that night ..... yes I am joking... you all know me .... I’d rather stick needles in my eyes!!!’ ..... the drinks and “ happy days “ substantial snacks arrived. Another couple of these and we might not even need dinner!!

Ha ha ..... other people were eating and after another drink we decided to eat there too..... well you know what it’s like..... and we were tired and couldn’t be asked to move on....

And so after dinner, which consisted of tempura prawns, aranchini and some very strange chips, we returned to our hotel which was not a “hostel”but an oasis of four star gentility. Climbed into a bed which had lovely white sheets which I wasn’t afraid to touch , and a brushed my teeth in a bathroom which didn’t have black mould growing on the tiles. We both fell asleep to the sound of police sirens and traffic from the street below and I dreamt of Angels watching over us.....oh alright I was tipsy again.....but it had been a long day ... ok !!!