All roads lead to Rome And all the drivers on them are out to kill you !

And so this morning... thankfully no thunderstorms to disturb my beauty sleep.... and with the amount of alcohol I am knocking back I bloody need it !!!!!............we made preparations to depart for Rome.

This of course meant packing ..... a-f**king-gain!!! Neither of us had really unpacked properly, opting instead to just spread the contents of our cases out on the beds in the second bedroom. As I have already mentioned.... I am getting well and truly hacked off with the whole stuffing things into the case thing....what the f**k happens to clothes that when originally packed went into the allotted space perfectly easily and yet after a few days of general routing about,have grown to double.... nay treble their original proportions!!!!!

This morning, after a meagre breakfast of toast and honey I attempted to re-pack my case..... in the end I was just poking things in wherever I could find a hole..... why I ever thought travelling was a good idea I will never know.....whose bloody idea was it to hump a suitcase around from pillar to post and expect me to be organised enough to remember exactly where, in the jumble sale that it has become, I put my bikini bottoms as we might need them today ...... I don’t even know what fu**ing day it is anyway....

So, we packed everything up, loaded the car, programmed Sally Sat Nav and set off towards Rome. We had decided to stop on the way in a place called Santa Marinella, a seaside town about an hour from Rome. We arrived there around lunchtime and located the beach , parked the Corsa and set off for a few hours sunbathing. After coffee and a sandwich , well I say sandwich, we paid about 8 euros for one round of bread with a bit of tuna inside which came out of a cellophane wrapper!! , we wandered down to the beach and went in search of a sunbed. There were quite a few people taking advantage of the sunshine....( it was very hot) and some of them had loungers so we surmised ( correctly thank goodness ) that there must be some to hire . Joy of joys we found the place from which we could rent a couple of beds.......

10 euros a pop and no discount for cash, multiple purchase or because my mother loved spaghetti.... the lady who brokered the sunbed deal.... was enormous and had somehow managed to squeeze her generously proportioned behind into a deck chair... she was sitting, sucking on a ripe juicy peach with all the gentility of a warthog devouring its lunch...... my attempts at humour were met with a stoney stare as she lumbered off into the gloom of the bed store to locate our beach furniture.?

Deal done we found a spot and settled down for an afternoon catching the rays.

Now .... I’m sure you remember my comments regarding “speedos”...... oh yes you do, I cannot be the only one fascinated by this mode of apparel.... anyway ...... it didn’t take long for me to realise that there were a several good examples wandering up and down the beach..... because that’s what they do........just wander up and down the beach..... so I attempted to take a couple of pictures for those amongst you who also think that they are wrong on every level. ( that is my story and I am sticking to it !!!!! )

In order to make the most of our expensive beds we took our time on the beach, both of us enjoying a little snooze before deciding it was time to head on to Rome.

I’m not sure what we had expected, but nothing prepared us for entering the city during the rush hour! it was mayhem, or it seemed to us to be..... the Roman drivers appeared to have no problem..... whoever wrote the Italian Highway Code would have wept to see countless lunatics rip it up and toss it out of the car window as they pulled out in front of us ( from a side road onto a fast two laner ) chatting gaily into their phones whilst pulling on a cigarette!! Sally Sat Nav was working overtime and Dear Richard and I had to concentrate like mad, trying to follow her directions.... which.... and I told her off several times, ( not always kindly I might add,) more often than not, came at the last minute and involved crossing four lanes of traffic in front of drivers hell bent on our destruction!!! I’m sure she knew where we were going but she appeared to be giving us a full tour of the sights of Rome on the way there.... we crossed the river, passed the Vatican and several other important monuments which neither of us could take a lot of notice of due to the aforesaid need for total tunnel vision, suddenly the Coloseum loomed up in front of us..... although I have seen it before, it was so unexpected that we both did a double take.... but no time to enjoy it, off we careered with the rest of the flow, all of whom probably passed it everyday!!!

Things appeared to be going well, we were getting closer to our destination, and for a brief second we relaxed a little...... when we saw the Policewoman waving a table tennis bat at us we didn’t take much notice ..... when she stepped into the road and directed us into a lay-by we looked at one another in astonishment......but did as we were bidden and pulled off the road. Well, I for one am not going to argue with a female officer of the law carrying a gun, no matter how attractive she is!!!!!

I wound down the window and she looked in..... I smiled,but refrained from saying “ is there a problem officer !!!!”

she said something in Italian.... well she would wouldn’t she !!! then asked, rather brusquely I felt, for our passports and documents. Once she had everything she wanted she disappeared to a nearby Police car and we were left wondering what we had done wrong..... now I know that due to our friend Sally’s lack of notice regarding certain manoeuvres Dear Richard had made some interesting and at times mildly dangerous sudden lane changes, but we didn’t think they would have been the reason for stopping us, neither could we have been speeding as the volume of traffic wouldn’t allow it, so we were both at a bit of a loss.....

After about ten minutes, during which time the lovely Police lady and her mate had obviously come to the conclusion that we weren’t International criminals hell bent on getting up to no good in the Capital, she returned, thrust our documents through the window and said we could go!!! Our joint sigh of relief was so loud it was probably heard by the Pope deep inside the Vatican Palace, probably sipping a glass of something cold and watching the Italian equivalent of Eastenders!!

And so Dear Richard eased the Corsa back into the rush hour chaos and we were off again. Gradually, Sally Sat Nav began to show that we were getting somewhere....i.e .... near to where we were staying which was a welcome bit of good news as we were both tired and hungry and were really looking forward to a shower and something to eat. I suppose we should have realised that things were possibly not going so well when the streets became grubbier and the buildings took on the look of a not so well looked after neighbourhood. But we naively thought that all would be well..... ha ha thought the God of ” you must be f**king joking, “clearly he had it in for us!!!......., it’s those two again, time for more fun!!!!

And so we turned into the road where our B and B was ( according to Sally) located. It was a narrow little road and the property was a single storey house with large iron gates. Said gates were heavily padlocked and in front of them stood a bent old woman dressed all in black, feeding a number of overweight cats with cold spaghetti.

To say our hearts sank would be the understatement of the year..... they disappeared through the floor of the Corsa and down into the bowels of the earth. At that point a man came from the house to the gates...... he removed the padlock and chain.... and swung the gates open..... it was a very narrow gap to negotiate and there was a lot of arm flapping followed by a lot of head shaking and then pointing..... Dear Richard, as confused as I was, took the directions to mean pull onto the small patch of grass in front of the gate and reverse back in front of the house..... this led to more furious arm waving and now shoulder shrugging.... the patch of grass was clearly very precious and not to be sullied by motor vehicles......finally we appeared to be parked to his satisfaction and he locked the gates up again!!!

We looked at one another, and I think I muttered something about it being nicer on the inside..... and got out of the car to meet our host. He introduced himself as Flavio..... he was short and scruffy and was smoking a roll up cigarette.... we were beside ourselves!!!

It soon became clear that Flavio spoke very little English ..... and as we couldn‘t help him out by speaking in his native tongue he had to rely on a translation app on his phone.....and so off we went on a tour of the Villino Elda during which Flavio spoke into the phone and then showed us the translation, I could barely bring myself to speak and so nodded a lot and tried not to look as depressed as I was feeling.... first he showed us the garden.....pointing out the two areas for outdoor dining.....both of which looked like animal shelters with a table inside , and the children’s play area, which consisted of a dirty plastic playhouse and an old bike. Through the medium of electronic translation he told us that there was a problem with mosquitoes and that he had attempted de-infestation but had not had great success..... he pointed out a couple of things burning in saucers which were clearly about as much use as a fart in a colander..... the place was crawling with little biting bastards!!!

And so we came to the house.... with a flourish he swept back a dirty curtain to reveal the shared breakfast/dining room... I’m not sure how I would describe this room.....but then he very proudly showed us the kitchen .... not even going to try with this one.... and the communal fridge.... we had been allocated the shelf with yellow electrical tape.... the breakfast fare.... all in plastic packets.... there were a few proper loaves of sliced bread and some jam laid out and boxes of tea bags which for some curious reason , were stuck to the wall. My heart was now somewhere near Australia and showed no sign of making a return as we followed Flavio to our room ........by now I had had it with the bloody translation thingy.... and so I think had he as there was a lot of sighing and head shaking going on ...

Up until this point I had been afraid to look at Dear Richard but as we went into that room and Flavio showed us the bathroom and then demonstrated that the windows and shutters worked, narrowly avoiding allowing one of the mangey cats in and filling the room with f**king biters, I caught his eye, and instantly knew that he was deeply disturbed!!!

And so we were swept out of the room into the shared hallway towards the front door for a demonstration of the use of the key for locking and unlocking.

The final straw for me was the moment , on the way to the door, that we passed the washing machine sitting in the hall and Flavio informed us that this was also the location for spare toilet rolls. After about half an hour of to-ing and fro-ing on his phone we had been informed that the area was safe and did not house any delinquents and that the water was indeed drinkable...( I wasn’t in the least bit interested in the water being desperate by now

for a bloody huge drink.....washed down with liberal amounts of insect repellant )...and was in fact the best in Rome as this part had the ”good aqueduct “!!

Finally we were alone in the room..... I looked at Rich and he looked at me and I honestly could have cried....there then followed a long debate as to whether we could move on that night or stay and look for somewhere else. In the end I could see that Dear Richard was really tired after all the stressful driving and so we decided that we would stay but look for somewhere else after we had eaten. And so bless him he got the cases out of the car and we took out just what we needed for the night and then he put them back in the car again ready for us to leave as early as we could in the morning. I had made sure that I knew which key opened the gate so that we could flee without having to see Flavio.

Unfortunately we had already paid for the room, and yes we should have guessed (but I will show you the pictures on Booking.com ) which led us to believe that we were getting a bargain, as we only paid something like 40 per night.

This is what we were expecting.....

This is what we got ....

Having made our decision we set off into the neighbourhood of no delinquents to find food....easier said than done my friends..... we passed a couple of places that didn’t look open.... it was quite early by Italian standards.... bless him Dear Richard, was very patient with me. Not only was I dreading a night in the hostel from hell ..... yes have a good laugh all those of you to whom I swore I would NOT be staying in any f**king hostels!!!! I was also tired, hungry and in need of a drink, and it didn’t look as though I was getting any sleep, food or alcohol in the foreseeable future!!! So I was a bit grumpy.... alright I was very grumpy... FINALLY we found a place.... I’m not going to call it a restaurant because it looked like a canteen with outside seats....but it sold food..... and more importantly drink..... so it ticked all my boxes and we sat down. It transpired that the menu was quite limited so I have to confess that I had a burger....... I thought I had ordered chips and was very disappointed when I had a pile of crisps on the side..... but we were able to order wine and so I set about getting drunk......to be honest it was the only way I felt able to face that disgusting hole again and I went at the task with gusto. We returned to the hovel ( I must confess I wasn’t quite as inebriated as I would have liked,) barricaded the door.... despite Flavio’s earnest recommendation that the area was safe, our fellow guests were almost certain to be delinquents, .... and set about finding alternative accommodation. Money was not going to be an object as to remove the memory of the trauma that was Villino Elda I needed a bit of luxury. It turned out that luxury in Rome was very expensive so we found somewhere which didn’t require either of us to sell a kidney and booked it before some other bugger got it. We then tried to settle down for the night. Showering or indeed removing any of my clothes in the bathroom was out of the question so I settled down for the night in tracksuit bottoms and a T-shirt, Dear Richard, similarly attired , attempted to rid the room of the few remaining biting bastards, and then because I was a little tipsy.... absolutely necessary this time!!! I went to sleep.....dreaming of the vastly improved accommodation to come and hoping we wouldn’t be murdered in our bed before we got to enjoy it!!!!!