THURSDAY
ROMA
THURSDAY
ROMA
| I wondered how the selection of the new pope would affect my trip, either for the better or worse. It turns out they picked the guy while I was in the air between Nashville and Philadelphia. |
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| Yes, the obligatory photo of the plane. |
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| Once again, no sleep. I tried listening to some relaxing music but it didn't work. |
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| And now the obligatory photo of the map. It was kind of weird because on the maps in addition to the usual stuff (cities, countries, seas and oceans) they showed locations of shipwrecks. |
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| I walked from the terminal to the station at the airport and the Leonardo Express was waiting to depart shortly. Pretty lucky timing. |
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| In a city there is never a good neighborhood near the train tracks. |
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| Inside Rome's Termini Station. It's a big station with lots of shops, ticket kiosks and a Metro station below. |
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| Here's my home for the week, A Touch of Rome. It's just the front door actually. The building is occupied by some restaurants and shops on the ground floor and mostly apartments above. |
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| Here are the mailboxes of the residents of the building. |
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| An old-timey lift. |
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| On the right is the door to A Touch of Rome. The door on the left is someone's home. |
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| The room I reserved was the smallest of the three. Since I was travelling alone I didn't need too much space. It was just the right size for me. |
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| The place has been open for less than a year, so everything was still relatively new. Here's the bathroom. Yes, that is a bidet at the bottom and no I did not use it. |
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| The view from the bathroom window. |
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| I dropped off my stuff at the room and headed out into the city. |
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| It's not just a stereotype. Italians do love their scooters. |
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| And when they have to fill one up they stop at a little place like this. You know Q8 sounds like Kuwait. I wonder if that's where the oil comes from. |
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| First stop of the day, the Piazza del Popolo. |
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| There is an Egyptian obelisk from Heliopolis (a good song, by the way) in the middle of the piazza. It is the second oldest obelisk in Rome and was originally set up in the Circus Maximus in 10 B.C.E. It has been here in the Piazza del Popolo since 1589. |
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| Like in any other big city there are people in public spaces doing stupid thing for money. These guys are doing an illusion of one man holding up the other with one hand. It's not hard to figure out how it is done though. |
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| Up there on the hill above the piazza is a park. |
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| They used to hold public executions down there. |
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