The gypsy visits Rome ... after many years of absence

It was quite a whirlwind tour of Rome ... a dusty, dirty, noisy and extremely hot city ... full of cafes, piazzas, lively music and interesting people to watch... so much to see ... Elisabeth and I walked our little feet off over the three days that we were together. It was wonderful to see her (and Rome) after not having seen one another for five years ... or so.

The hotel that I booked online ... Hotel Medici (I liked the name, it sounded so Italian)... was typical Italian ... quite small, full of character, very nice really for a three star. There were two extremely small single beds for us ... bumpy and hard unfortunately ... we were too tired to care much. Breakfast was much more than we/I expected ... quite large with fruit, croissants and other baked items, juices and cereals. We were fortunate to have air conditioning and a fan to cool us down each afternoon for siesta and then each evening. The food throughout Rome was delicious, lots of lovely vegetables, pasta, bread and cheese. We tried a small variety of white and red wines as well ... and the coffee, one Euro (approx $1.40) for a cappuchino in a small bar ... for a seat it tripled in price. There were little fountains throughout the city for refilling water bottles ... life savers in the heat. People were wonderful, especially the people in the small bars that we would drop in to for coffees or juices, sometimes conversations are conducted with much more than words!

We chose to spend time just wandering around and enjoying the various sites but because Rome is such a huge city, it meant that at times we (or I, when Elisabeth left Rome to return to Stockholm), jumped into taxis or buses. They drive like maniacs (Wally would probably not agree with me!) and I always used my seat belt.

My last day in Rome wandering around, the shopping and even window shopping, was amazing, especially shoes and accessories, everything on sale this time of year, I wandered through a huge beautiful and very cool, park in the north of Rome ... spent the entire morning just walking and sitting enjoying the coolness. The most exciting piazza of all was called Piazza Popolo (I liked the name and description in my little guide book) ... a huge place with churches and columns and tons of history and large cafes (my last day so I splurged and sat in a cafe for my cappuchino) ... then wandered down the Via Veneto and other shopping streets, stopping in little churches to cool down (shoulders covered, always carried a scarf with me for this purpose) ... then had a lovely fish and salad dinner in a cafe near the hotel ... the next morning I was up at 0415 for taxi to the airport and on to Crete.