Dear Friends, we are resting in our
room tonight after our first two days in Roma. I left you in Florence in our
luxurious palace and I write to you from our tiny room that would not be as big
as our bathroom there. We enjoyed our train ride on the Eurostar with a couple
of Yanks by our sides – they with i-pads reading away, us with books and
crosswords to amuse us when there was no view. We were met at the station by
the handsome Gabriele, and driven to our hotel Barocco at the Piazza Barberini.
Whatever we were prepared for in the wonderful write-ups of this hotel, it wasn’t
for our tiny room, complete with 4-poster bed and small desk on which all the
space was taken by a bowl of fruit and a lamp. The bathroom is equally tiny and
all the available spaces were taken there. We have a miniscule dressing room
with a collapsed do-it-yourself robe, which has since been fixed. The pillows
are like sacks of wheat & today we exchanged them for foam ones and expect
a better night’s sleep. Everything is very modern and clean lines, but you can’t
operate the shower without a lesson and the heated towel-racks are only turned
on at the whim of the hotel.
Our room, which
finishes at the right of this photo & the lovely breakfast room
We couldn’t unpack until the robe
was fixed so went for a walk to a restaurant Wes had found on Facebook,
however, like most good family eateries, it was closed for Sunday, so we walked
around until we found somewhere we liked and sat outside enjoying a good lunch
with a bottle of Pinot Grigio, our first serious foray into white wine here. We
had another walk afterwards, then made our way back here where we took it in
turns to unpack and ended up in the bar where Wes enjoyed a Jameson & I had
a G&T. There is only one very small chair here, so you need to sit in a
lounge if you want to chat.
This morning we met our guide,
Daniela, and driver, Giancarlo, and set off for a short drive around Rome to
get our bearings and then visited the Roman Forum, the Senate, the Basilica of
Constantine, the Colosseum and the Basilica of St Peter in Chains where the
Moses carved by Michelangelo sits in splendour. We then drove back here via the
Palantine Hill and Monte Testaccio, an artificial mound in Rome formed almost
entirely of broken amphorae shards. I particularly enjoyed the Colosseum and
Moses.
Roman Forum& Palantine
Hill
We decided to try Osteria Barberini
again and sure enough it was open. We were welcomed and chose a table downstairs
where Maria from Rumania was our waitress. We had a bottle of frascati with our
tuna salad followed by meat balls for Wes and mushroom & truffle fettuccine
for me. The food was so good, we had to try our first tiramisu here – the whole
meal with tips cost 74€ or $99 and represents great value.
Afterwards we visited Capuchin
crypt, which is something to behold! Then a walk around a few streets, some
shopping for gifts to bring home and a couple of t-shirts for me as the weather
is so good and all my clothes are too warm.
We sat in the bar again with pots of
tea and coffee and played Travel Scrabble, which was a lovely way to unwind
from our busy day. Wes has found a TV channel playing classical music and he is
reading the last of the Sjowal & Mahloo books ‘The Terrorists’, which I
really loved and thought he would enjoy.
Tomorrow we catch a taxi to the
Vatican where we have three hours with Daniela – we are very excited about
this, especially to finally see the Sistine Chapel after all the build up in
Florence.
No comments:
Post a Comment