Rome is one of my favorite places, although at first sight I wasn’t sure I would like it very much. Rome is the capital of Italy and about 2.7 million people live there. When our tour bus left the airport all we saw was graffiti, miles of graffiti, I HATE graffiti so I started wondering if Rome had a lot of crime and was more like our big cities that have a lot of problems with crime. I am not a fan of big cities but Rome is a very lovely and romantic city, the architecture is unlike anything I have seen and the history is unfathomable.
On our first day we took a nice little walk to explore the “Eternal City” and then we met our Tour Director Francesca Bossi and our Globus tour group for dinner.
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| View from my hotel room in Rome. |
It was fun to meet the group because there was a quick little meeting where everyone stood up and said where they were from and we learned the lay of the land. Our tour group had people from Canada and Australia as well as Americans from Pennsylvania, Chicago, Arizona, California, Florida, Nevada and South Carolina. Our tour guide Francesca was a nice Italian lady, she reminded me of the older Italian Aunt I never had. Whenever she wanted our attention she would yell “Information” but it sounded more like Innnfor-mashun when she said it because of her accent. Francesca made us feel right at home and welcomed us. She was a great tour guide, someday when I have more money I hope to take a Greece tour with her and Globus.
After our group meeting we went to dinner at an Italian restaurant and ate dinner “family style.” Our table was a lot of fun. We had a newlywed Australian couple on their honeymoon and also a mother and daughter from Australia as our dinner companions. Things were going great, we were drinking wine and laughing and we even talked a little politics. People were very curious about what it was like to be an American and were curious about our politics. Since our country is such an international leader everyone had an opinion. Our new Australian friends were really fun to talk politics with, although the next morning a few of us thought maybe it was taboo, but in hindsight I think it only bonded us because we we had very similar beliefs and we all became good friends on this trip. Last year was an election year so I was completely submerged in politics when I went on vacation, and when you are around politics as much as I am you forget that not everyone thinks it is appropriate to talk about politics. I don’t really mind talking politics. I think the sign of a civilized society is when you can discuss politics and religion and if you don’t agree you just agree to disagree and respect each other’s opinions.
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| I had an eye infection so I had to wear my glasses the first half of vacation. |
After our delicious dinner we walked back to our hotel and took a short walk to see what was near our hotel. This was a great opportunity to burn some of those calories from dinner. Then we were off to bed so we could wake up rested the next morning. It was a good plan, but the fire alarms went off and we had to get up and evacuate, the Italians at the hotel looked at us like we were crazy when we asked if it was safe after a good half hour of standing outside and in the lobby. Apparently fire alarms don’t mean much to them or they go off frequently. Most of the people on our tour slept right through the fire alarm.
These pictures are across the street from the hotel, Visconti Palace, Rome.
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