4/2 Wandering Roma

Today was hard to qualify.  It started stressfully.  I tried to buy train tickets to Florence on line.  Everything worked fine until the last step of confirming the purchase.  Soooo, I didn’t know if it had gone through or not.  I decided that we had to go to the train station to find out and also to buy those tickets and ones to Venice. In all of this, something tweaked in my back.  It hurts when I first stand up and then is stiff for awhile but loosens up when I walk.

We had the adventure of our first metro ride - turned out to be easy.  A short walk to the station and then a straight shot to the terminal.  Rome only has 3 lines so it’s easy-Peasy after Paris.  

We went to a ticket office where I got a number and waited to be called.  The official spoke English, but when I was explaining my problem, it wasn’t good enough.  He handed me over to a young woman who listened to my sad tale of woe and then said, “We don’t have a train that runs at that time.” Bummer, it was the other train company.  Since I was there, I bought the tickets for Florence to Venice because they had more time choices.

Then we went to the other office at the end of the station.  Great, no line! A very friendly young man listened to my tale and searched his manifest and said he couldn’t find me, so chances are the purchase hadn’t gone through.  I rebought and he was very helpful in explaining how we were going to get the train.  He also said I should probably keep checking my credit card just to make sure.  Sooo, problem solved.

While I was doing this, B mapped out a route to the colosseum and we were on our way.  The day was lovely and sunny and warm enough that I took off my fleece jacket.  On the way, we saw a cute outside place for lunch and had Margarita pizzas. 

Found the colosseum and spotted the place we are to meet tomorrow for our no wait in line tickets.  From there we wandered through old picturesque streets to the Trevi fountain (Where the rest of the world was already gathered.) We sipped from the fountain because Alec assured us it was safe.  Then we bought gelato from the best place in Rome.  We each had 3 scoops.  I had limoncello, melon, and chocolate.  B had Nutella, coffee, and chocolate.  My eyes were bigger than my tummy, but I managed to finish. Then we strolled back to our apartment.

It was delightful.  Some how we found ourselves on a pedestrian walk that was strangely reminiscent of the 3rd street promenade.  We went into Ferrari to see the cool clothes you could get to wear while driving your Ferrari and LEGO to check if they had anything different. (No) There was a sandcastle artist and bad musicians.

And on we went over the river and about 10 blocks from home when a hailstorm with thunder drenched us.  We took some shelter in a door way, which worked for awhile, but we got wetter and the hail went from corn kernel size to large pea size.  Then we spotted a bigger doorway and moved there. A kind man had driven up and I guess was waiting, but came and opened the door and let us stand inside.  We waited until the hail stopped and the rain slackened and then hurried the rest of the way.  I was hanging onto B so I wouldn’t slip and fall because the pavement and streets were covered with hail stones.

Of course we were soaked when we got home, so we both stripped at the doorway and our clothes are on a rack on a bath mat.  We took warm showers and put on our jammies.  We had already decided we weren’t going to be hungry so would just have leftover salami from last night.  Pictures will be in a following post.