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Our Magnificent Journey |
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Chapter 9 |
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Europe 2007 |
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London, Tuscany, Paris |
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We awoke to the glorious sounds of the ringing of hundreds of church bells calling the faithful to mass across this ancient city. |
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The morning is sunny and cool. We caught a quick breakfast of cappuccino and pastries at Trattoria Il Porcospino" around the corner from the hotel. |
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We are in the Trastevere area, along the western bank of the Tiber River. We walked along the river in the morning sun, and jumped aboard an "on-off" tour bus and spent the next couple of hours on the top deck enjoying the sights, sounds, smells and history. |
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| The tour took us to all the major sites such as the Vatican, the Trevi fountain, the Spanish Steps, Via Veneto, fountains, piazzas, cobblestones and hordes of sight-seers. The weather could not be better - bright, sunny and 70°. |
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We hopped off the bus after it had made one lap around Roma. We walked along the Circus Maximus to the Colisseum. It was free today, so we walked in, along with thousands of other tourists. Spent about half-an-hour there. The first time I was here was in 1971 with brother Jim, and I remember the Colisseum being inundated with thousands of cats. Nary a one was seen today. |
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We next walked up the hill past the ruins of the Palatine, once the residents of emperors and aristocrats - Augustus lived here, Nero buildt an underground gallery here. |
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| Along the way we met Bob and Linda, a charmingl couple from New Zealand. We walked and visited with them for a few blocks until they decide to stop at a restaurant. |
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| Carol wanted to be farther from the main tourist trail so we bid our new Kiwi friends ciao and walked several more blocks until we came to Ristorante Vecchia Roma, which looked promising. After a 15 minute wait we were seated and enjoyed linguine with clams, fettuccine with mushrooms, and antipasto. Very delicious lunch in a quiet, shady corner of ancient Rome. Our next-door table mates were a nice couple from Brazil . We enjoyed comparing travel notes. |
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After lunch we strolled through the old Jewish ghetto. Stopped for yummy gelato along the way. At 4 we headed back across the Tiber to the hotel to freshen up and rest. |
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We freshened up at the hotel and walked back to Piazza Des Maria en Trastevere. We entered the church - the first Christian church in Rome. There was a service in progress. The interior of the Church, particularly the ceiling, is beautiful and ornate. We stayed to listen to the choir sing some beautiful hymns, then walked into the square and had a glass of white wine while we watched throngs of people flow by our table. |
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We soon became hungry so we wandered the winding alleyways lined with cafés and pizzerias until we spied one that looked inviting. We were seated next to a young couple, Brett (another Kiwi from New Zealand ) and Quezia (from Brazil.) Brett had just proposed to Quezia, and being the romantics that we are, we were drawn to them. |
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| We enjoyed the next several hours chatting with them and bar-hopping. But at 1 a.m we had had way too much to drink. We said goodnight to our new friends and made plans to meet at the Vatican in the morning. |
| Previous Day |
copyright 1998 / david
and carol lehrman / all rights reserved |
email david@davidandcarol.com |