A funny thing happened on the way to the forum

Another day another load of masonry.

When we bought our Colosseum tickets we added entry to the Forum and the Palantine hill so that was our first visit. The scale is immense. The views are stunning and the history, well it’s all there to discover. We saw the place where apparently Romulus had a hut, where people lived, died, had gardens, kept animals all sorts, more temples than you can shake a stick at. Obviously H thought it was boring ;)

After an hour or so we made our way out then went, via Tibernia across to the hipster district of ‘Trastevere’ which was… groovy, grubby and interesting. We stopped for a beer and then popped into a particularly run down looking church, oh my word it was amazing inside. . It turns out that the church ‘Santa Maria’ is the first ever Catholic Church and the decoration and so on are utterly amazing. We had a good look round the area which has fallen victim to its own success it seems, many, many gift shops, then walked to the top of a viewpoint for a look back across the city. It’s a stunning place.

We walked back across the river and hopped back on our bus then headed back via a fine Irish pub ( and a pint ). ( there are a lot of Irish pubs here, it seems that having Guinness on tap qualifies you.).

Dinner this evening, back to our local which was brilliant and dirt cheap again then a few hands of cards and a coffee. We are now sitting outside a bar, watching the frankly lunatic driving and drinking a daiquiri.

Rome has been good.