Quantcast
Channel: Dolly Goolsby – Purple Roofs
Viewing all articles
Browse latest Browse all 164

Dolly Travels – Rome is a Beautiful City

$
0
0

Dolly's MokaI am sitting here with my second cup of coffee, enjoying the beautiful early morning quiet of Rome. The sky is getting brighter, but of course, I cannot see the sunrise. There are some lovely old buildings in the way.

I am getting pretty good at making coffee in this Moka pot.

Yesterday I told you only about our first day in Rome. Now, here it is Sunday, and this will be our last day in Rome. Time has flown by. We have walked, walked, walked some more. We have seen so many sights, from the Ancient Rome to the present day cafes and shopping centers, and enjoyed living in our neighborhood, the Campo di Fiori, and being temporary citizens of Rome.

Wednesday, despite the weather forecast of 90 per cent chance of rain, the sun was up, and just a few puffy clouds in the sky. After breakfast of amazing Sicilian pastries and cappuccini at a neighborhood pasticceria, we walked over to the area of Ancient Rome. The first on our list of sights to see was the Colosseum. After all these centuries, it is still an amazing sight.

From the second level, one can look down and imagine what it must have been like in Ancient times. The partial wood floor in the background is to give visitors perspective of the arena as it was in the time of Julius Caesar. The warrens under the floor were where the “performers” were kept until their time to be on stage: Wild animals, people who were going to be sacrificed for the pleasure of the crowds. The Romans were a blood-thirsty people.

After leaving the Colosseum, we walked through a small portion of the Roman Forum. I don’t think one could ever see the entire Roman Forum, if the entire Rome vacation was spent visiting this place. We went on one walk for about an hour and a half, and barely touched the sights. In that area of the Forum.

As we were approaching the end of our walk, we started moving a little faster. Looking behind us, the sky was not so pretty anymore. Dark clouds were moving in, the air became chillier, and we knew we were going to get some rain. We ended our tour a bit sooner than planned and headed back to our neighborhood, which was about a twenty minute walk. Sure enough, before we made it to the Campo, a few drops of rain hit our faces. Soon the raindrops got bigger and closer together. We ran for the nearest restaurant in the Campo before we got too wet. Once inside, we ordered our lunch and watched the people outside scurrying for cover. Soon water was streaming down the cobblestones, and the street umbrella salesmen were having a fantastic business day. Yes…despite a perfectly good jacket and umbrella in my room, I had to buy an umbrella, too. Now I have another umbrella to add to my collection.

After the rain stopped, I did have to venture out and find food for our dinner. Of course, the Mercato stalls had closed at 3:00 p.m, so I had to go further afield to try to find ingredients. This was not an easy task, as the “Supermercato” was stocked with ingredients for easy fixes, not for someone like me who wants to cook from scratch. We were glad we had eaten a late lunch, as our dinner was finally ready about 8:30 that night.

The following day, Thursday, we went to St. Peter’s Basilica and the Vatican Museum. That was our plan, anyway. We got to St. Peter’s about 9:00 a.m. and the line to enter the Basilica was already all around the perimeter of the piazza. We stood in line for awhile, but since we had a timed reservation for the Vatican Museum, we knew we would never get into the church in time to see it properly and still make our appointment at the museum. Therefore, we settled ourselves at an outdoor cafe table and enjoyed another cappuccino, then went to the museum.

The Vatican Museum is always amazing. There is so much to see that, if you saw it all, you would walk four miles. We concentrated on the main sights, ending with the Sistine Chapel.
One of the statues in the courtyard, Laocoon, from 4th or 5th Century, B.C.

We could not take any photos in the Sistine Chapel. It was crowded, of course, but still impressive, the guards were very assertive in enforcing the rules. I have noticed an increase in the number of police and military guards, moving through the crowds. I am glad to see that heightened security.

We went to a nearby restaurant for lunch, then tried to get into St. Peter’s again. However, unbelievably, the entrance line was still as long as it had been in the morning. We called it a day, and walked back home.

I had learned my lesson about food shopping. I went to the market in the Campo when it first opened in the morning and bought the ingredients for our dinner that night, before we set out for the day’s activities. On Wedensday evening, we enjoyed a great pasta with asparagus and mushrooms, the freshest salad ever, bread and of course, vino. No one has remembered to photograph our meals, so you will just have to imagine what our dinner was like. One of the things I enjoy most about traveling the way we travel, is having the apartments, preparing food in our own kitchen and having the camaraderie of sharing a meals with each other, when the laughter and conversation flows as readily as the wine.

There is so much more to tell you about Rome, but this blog post is getting too long; therefore, I will close now and write another post about our adventures of Friday and Saturday.

Ciao for now,
Dolly

By Dolly Goolsby – Full Story at Dolly Travels | Rome Gay Travel Resources

The post Dolly Travels – Rome is a Beautiful City appeared first on Purple Roofs Gay Travel Blog.


Viewing all articles
Browse latest Browse all 164

Trending Articles