It is Sunday evening and Leslie and I will be getting dressed to go out for dinner shortly. We spent the day at the Capitoline Museum – which is stunning – and then a couple of hours at an Irish pub. A couple of Harp lagers went down really well with a plate of Irish/Italian variety Nachos. The Museum is beautifully laid out, spacious and bright – indeed the rooms themselves are as much a part of the exhibits as the individual items in them. Glorious statues, mosaics and smaller pieces of pottery, coins and jewellery.The equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius is worth the visit even if you don’t see anything else. The effort that has gone into carefully preserving it – the entire building created to house it and the immaculate reproduction which now stands exposed to the elements are all superb!
Yesterday we took a taxi out to the Via Appia Antica with the intention of walking the entire length, viewing the tombs and catacombes. We should have started from the furthest point and worked our way back. Despite what the guidebooks say – IT IS NOT A 90 MINUTE WALK!!! You can easily spend that much time just in one of the miles and miles and miles of catacombes! Amazing places but definitely not for the faint of heart or claustrophobic types. We were with a group of teenage Belgian students and their teachers. Really nice kids, polite and well informed and of course rather bizarrely dressed. I mention this for a reason so bear with me. There was a large group before us – trust me you do need a guide in the catacombs! As we were waiting to enter, they all lined up for photo-ops. There were two monks in the group – cowled robes and rope belts and all. The funny thing was that under their robes – no I wasn’t being a voyeur – they wore jeans – rolled up but jeans none-the-less. One even had on sandles but on closer imspection they turned out to be Teva’s! Sorta seems like cheating to me!
Today at the Capitoline museum we were dogged by another group of teenagers but of a vastly different disposition. They were uniformly loud, obnoxious, pushy and incredibly rude – to the point that Leslie who has the best temperment, snapped at a couple of them as they were – again crowding us away from the view! Does it mean I’m getting old when I “dispair of the manners of young people these days”? Probably not, as I was quite tempted to kick a few of them in the shins – which would have been SO adult of me!
Tomorrow is my very last day in Rome! I shall have to spend most of it trying to repack my bags with everything I brought PLUS an aweful lot of new stuff. I did pack reasonably light coming here but I suspect there will have to be some ruthless culling done!
This has been such a brilliant trip, I love Rome and believe me I wasn’t sure that I would when this all started. I’ve made some lovely new friends and I think we will remain in contact – gotta love the internet! I’ve learned a few new things about myself and reaffirmed a few others. The key to growth is self-knowledge? I’ve made a start on learning another language, one which I shall continue to work on through other courses and wine tours – hey combining Italian and wine is a natural!
I can’t post any pictures – AGAIN – so they will have to wait until I get back to Toronto. At this point I’m starting to look forward to my own things, bed, shower -oh yes! It will be grand to play with all my beasties and catch up with my friends and all their adventures these past two months.
It has all gone by so fast…

Alla prossima volta,

kim