Roma, Italy, Wednesday 23 September
Decided this morning to try and get my bearings. Woke up at five. It was a cloudless blue sky so I joined an open top double-decker city tour bus, some time after fivew!. One of several thousand with the same idea by the looks of it. Two hours didn’t seem like a long time to be taking in the sights this morning, but mama mia… there is just so so much here… I need to stay for a month. I have snapped a hundred pics, god knows what some of them are of but everything was awesome. I will go through them later to try and remember. As for getting my bearings…a complete waste of time… it felt to me like we were going around and around in circles. I still have no idea where I am really.
Essentially I have been across the Tiber and to the Vatican and back and passed through over 2000 years of Roman history in the process. The most recent event presented seems to have been Mussolini’s reign (I now have a visual of the balcony from which he addressed the masses - which looks over the massive Piazza in front of the monument topped by chariots I came across yesterday). Gave me goose-bumps to think about it. As did the visit to the place it is thought that Marcus Brutus murderered Julius Caeser on the ides of March in 44BC (had to get that down there is no way I will remember this...but I do need to tell you that Marcus Brutus was one of 77 senators that took a stab, Caesar was (I informed from an excellent source) unrecognisable. Brutus along with Casius topped themselves after an important defeat at Philippi. The other 75 got there's too because there treachary marked the end of the Roman Republic). I am overwhelmed!
I have checked out of the Accademia and am in a styley little café just around the corner enjoying a mozzarella and tomato Panini and a Peroni birra. I’d be doing this standing at the bar if I could (cheapest way to eat here) but I have my huge handbag with me as well while the hotel looks after my other stuff till I come back and I am very conscious of the thievery (is there such a word?) here. The waiter has done his best to try and get me to move out onto the street (premium pricing) but actually watching the locals come and stand and scoff faster than the speed of light while I do this is far more entertaining.
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