Sept 3 - Touring & Italian Shoes

As I've mentioned several times our hotel is just around the corner from Termini (the central train station for Rome). There are several bus tours of the city that start from Termini. These are the double-decker kind with the open top. We decided to take one today to get a total overview of the city.

It turned out to be a really great idea. There was an audio guide in English that played as we drove around the city. The weather was perfect - it was beautiful to enjoy the hot sun and blue skies while feeling the breeze. And driving through the city while someone explained the significance of the many sites was fabulous. There were buildings we had been past several times already but hadn't realized what they were.

Rome is magnificent - it's a combination of old, really old, and ancient, with a little modern mixed in. It's hard not to feel sad when they tell you that 15th century building you're staring at was built by demolishing the 3rd century one that stood there before it. Luckily in most cases the old and the new are built together. For example we saw four fountains that were built into the sides of buildings. One on each street corner at a four-way stop. Turns out the fountains were there first and the buildings were built around them in a way that preserved the fountains.

One thing that was obvious on the tour is how built up Rome is - what I mean is that "street level" used to be a lot lower. Many of the excavations at the Forum show this well. They are 10-20 feet lower than the present day street level. It's hard to understand how that happens - I know that earthquakes are part of it...

We did get off the tour bus for a while to return to Piazza Campo di Fiori (where we had dinner last night). During the day it's a market that is amazing. Beautiful fruit, vegitables, cheese, spices, etc were in abundance and all were spectacular. We picked up a few nibbles that eventually became part of the "picnic" lunch we had back at the room. In particular the green grapes were delicious.

I don't think I've mentioned that the one thing I wanted to buy in Italy is shoes (hello, shoes from Italy is a no brainer). I had told Jen about the shoes I was looking for - so when we were walking up the little side alley street to Fiori we were both drawn to a little shoe boutique and quickly found just what I wanted. It was fate I think...so I'm coming home from Italy with my dream shoes, I know it's a little pathetic that this made my day, but it did. They are the best souvenir a girl could ask for.

It's 4:45pm and Jen is sleeping now. We are on totally different sleep cycles. She sleeps while I'm awake, I sleep while she's awake. Luckily it's working out so far. So far neither of us has slept more than a few hours straight but we're sleeping twice a day, so we're not feeling particularly tired. Maybe by the time we get to Florence on Friday we'll be in sync with local time.

Tonight we're going to dinner at a place that was highly recommended to us by Jen's friend "Little Michel" - we've been looking forward to it for months, will tell you all about it when we get back.

Ciao,
:) Kristin