When in Rome!

To walk around Rome is to have an amazing experience!

The colosseum behind the traffic of Rome

The ruins of ancient centuries past are mixed with the hurly burly of modern day traffic and thousands of wandering people, both local and tourist to give incredible colour and a lively atmosphere to Rome.

You can feel the past and cannot help but be awestruck by the intelligence and ingenuity of the engineers of Roman times combined with the talented artists and sculptors back then. No school history book or any modern movie of the times left the imprint on my mind that 2 x10 hour days of wandering through the streets of Rome has done. It is so impressive!

 The hostel was huge, busy and friendly. They are not as comfortable as in the UK though where you have a fully equipped kitchen and a comfortable sitting room to share with other travellers.

With map plus my GPS in hand I navigated my way through the cobble stone streets to the Vatican museum, the Colosseum, the Pantheon, Circus Massima, the Trevi fountain and many, many more relics of marble, brick and stone. They are so well constructed that they are still there 2000 years on. Standing in the Colosseum and seeing where those poor wretches who fought for their lives in the arena were confined beforehand was to glimpse their pain.

The artwork in the vatican museum and the sistine chapel were very beautiful.
In the museum though most of the sculptures had their penis broken off or a rough fig leaf added later for modesty! Apparently there was a prudish era and I am told that there are huge boxes of broken Penes in the cellar waiting for someone with a large pot of glue!

Everywhere are beggars, buskers, markets, al fresco dining tables, market stalls and enterprising men selling souvenirs or their services. All have their hand out for money! As soon as I had coins in my purse they were gone again! One fellow wanted 20 euro for a photograph, I gave him 2 euro instead! Another bounded out helpfully to show me to my train, carriage and seat. Chivalry? No, strictly business although nicely done! The old universal gesture of  the rubbing together of fingers and thumb and "you pay".

A bag lady?

They come to life when money drops
 into their pot!

 Motor scooters and motorbikes in their thousands, fast traffic and so many tourist buses fill the roads. They do stop though for pedestrians. You just have to eyeball the drivers as you make your way through to the other side of the road.

Bianchina..smaller than the motorbike!

It was very hot and humid but luckily there are many small water spouts to drink from. For 3 weeks, I kept wearing the one comfortable cool  but scruffy outfit. Hostels here are very basic so I had to wash my sweaty clothes in the shower each night....eeuurk...my white shirt yellowed and I could hardly wait to throw them out on the last night. My hair had not been trimmed for 8 weeks. I felt like a frump!

A mistaken destination on my GPS led me to the door of Coiffeur Brigida,  a French named Spanish hairdresser in Rome! The hairdresser spoke no English, her assistant spoke some. An hour and a half later, after much pleasurable shampooing, conditioning, head neck and shoulder massaging  many smiles and gestures and allowing the artiste free rein...voila... a new hairdo. Ooh it's a bit short!

Now for the clothes! 

All of the shops were elite, alias outrageously expensive. I got lost in some ruins. I couldn't find my way through to the other side so did a huge detour, galloping along getting so hot and sweaty although the sun had now set. I was almost back to the hostel when I glimpsed an open door. Was it a charity shop? No it was a dumping spot for end of summer season clothes SO I now am the pleased owner of hot pink quality stretch jeans 180 euro reduced to 20 euro whoopee! They will go perfectly with my new Monaco T shirt.  I am a new woman! What fun.

Now to Portofino, with Mick and Edi, a very pretty very expensive harbour town.
Mick and Edi drove all the way down to Genova to collect me.

Next day we enjoyed a scenic drive back up to Antibes, we explored then said farewell to Edi. She will stay on Blade a little longer before hopefully transferring to Solemates to join Mick. A bigger and better boat!

Harry collected me from Stansted and Pam had a delicious meal waiting for me. We chatted and laughed until late. We have had a tasty brunch and this evening cousin George and Heather will visit and take me to their home near London ready to deliver me to Heathrow tomorrow.


Between Mick and the Hawkins family my last transitions from one place to another have been made easy. In Brisbane Kylie will collect me at 1 am on my birthday from the airport.


What a champion she is to come out at that time of night.


This has been such a memorable and  fantastic 7 months!