Today I would travel to Rome for one day and two nights, before heading back. I got to have yet another Croissant breakfast – delicious as always, but monotony taking some of the earlier joy. I packed my bike, and gently laid it down to check the tyres. That’s how you do it, right?
*sigh* So what you can’t see on the picture is the massive slope, which the bike went down when I took it off the centre stand. Poorly planned – had I been on the other side it would have been fine.
But! No damage done, I really did place it down nice and gentle.
Somewhat embarrassed, after the Airbnb host helped me right the bike, I headed off.
The ride was fine, until I reached Rome. It’s yet another level of bad driving; it really is! I parked at the Airbnb and decided to walk for an hour into town, ready for my “Rome by night” tour. I crossed the Vatican and along the way I found a statue stopping to smell a tree, Romulus and Remus on a Vatican street and a winged angel with a winged devil on it…. Oh, and St. Peter’s Basilica with God-rays shooting out from behind it.
Before the tour I quickly picked up some dinner… Simple pasta, except, I would describe it as follows
It was pasta with tomato sauce, which I’m pretty sure was some sort of blood of the gods based on how good it was, with perfectly seared slithers of steak mixed in with some super tasty crumbs of the best Parmesan I’ve had. And I like my cheese!
It looked so average, but it really did taste awesome… And the restaurants sink in the bathroom was amazing enough for me to take a picture.
After this excellent meal I was ready to do the walking tour, which entered around the intrigues or Ancient Rome, telling stories of bad deeds and possible ghosts. There were plenty of cool stories, from poisoning, to crypts, to the last executioner of the Pope, to the killing of families by the pope for wealth and political gain, but my favourite was the actual story of Giordano Bruno. He was basically a philosopher monk burned at the stake, in the centre of Rome, because he told people that the earth was not flat, and that Mary was unlikely to have been a virgin. He’s still considered a martyr for freedom of speech in Italy. I took some photos, but somehow managed to loose a bunch too :/
I have to say I really enjoyed this tour, even though I’m not much for ghost stories – just the right mix of fantasy and fact. I grabbed a cab home, which had a crazy driver who cut through traffic so well he beat the google time estimate by 10 minutes on a 30 minute trip. Exhausted I fell into bed, knowing full well that tomorrow is an early start, with a day full of tours outside on a really hot day.
Listening to…
Did not know Mr Bruno, and thanks for letting the bike down gently and documenting it in the pic 🤗
I tried! Sorry you had to see an image of your beauty in such a compromising position 😉