At home

Tim: I don't think I'll be spoiling any surprises to tell you that we got home safely.

We got ourselves out to Charles de Gaulle airport about 4 hours before the flight, which meant a lot of waiting around there but no real queues to check in - a fair trade. It's a pretty good airport for it anyway, with lots of space and some decent food.

We stopped at Saigon on the way back, as planned. As on the way to Europe, the stopover hotel was paid for by the airline, and the custom formalities were greased by a man who met us there so we were at the hotel fairly quickly.

With a 12 hour stopover we thought that we'd get out to the markets, but this time was whittled down by airport transfers so in the end all we did was shower and sleep.

Vietnam intimidates me. There is so much life here, buzzing on the streets that it penetrates, like the heat, into your hotel room. Polly loves it, but I feel that I'm always being looked at, and that I'm different from the people that live here. For instance, when we arrived at the hotel there was a couple of guys out the front who would take you for rides on their motorcycles (for a fee of course). I got the impression that they were there, waiting for the two of us to emerge, for the whole 7 hours we were at the hotel. When we emerged to wait for our minibus to the airport, they seemed disappointed that weren't going to go with them. They tried to convince us, then, asked me to buy them beers, then, just to give them money. No, no, fuck no! Next to them I'm Daddy Warbucks, able to dole out money like tissues but I don't feel comfortable in the role. I'm a walking ATM and everyone wants to try their PIN on me. I'm a combination safe and everyone wants to have a twiddle with the dial.

Back at the airport - and it ain't no Charles de Gaulle - we cleared customs and waited for our flight. All the food was crap and at vast cost (and in $US). We saw some dumb-arse Australian tourists - absolute shockers - and avoided, nodding to ourselves. The airport sure lacked a certain something.

On the plane, most passengers fell asleep but not I - at one point, looking over my shoulder, I felt like I was the only one awake, with rows and rows of closed eyes and slack jaws behind me. I also realised what the airport lacked - a bookshop or newsagent - when it seemed like I was the only one reading. Perhaps not part of the culture.

And so it came to pass that we arrived home in this wide brown land, and all was well.

Going home

Tim: Our last day in Paris, our last day away.

Finally have a French meal - breakfast in a pastisserie and it's great - then think about how we can allocate our meagre time (and after yesterday, Polly's even more limited stamina).

First stop is a short Metro ride to the iconic Arc de Triomphe - very imposing - then a walk down the Champs D'Elysee. Whilst it has some grand places - Cartier, for instance - much of it is somewhat, how do you say, trés ordinairé. Burger joints both foreign and domestic, department stores, sandwich shops. But just by being here in the thin sunlight we feel in Paris for once.

Next, the Pompidou Centre, centre of modern art in Paris. We love it. We see an exhibition by Yves Klein. Forgive this oike Australian but he seems famous for a new kind of blue - but oh, what a nice blue! We see his work and footage of him creating the work - slathering models with blue and pressing them to canvas, dragging them on big sheets of paper. We have lunch in the cafeteria - which is lovely, and hang the cost! - then look at the other exhibitions, mainly focused around Polly's passion, moving images. But in the end we had no time left for a visit to Sacré Coeur (nor anything else we would have loved to have seen). Over dinner, a pleasant enough mid-priced meal, we plotted our return.

Lost in Paris

Tim: Wrote quite a lot about our first day in Paris at the Eiffel Tower, but deleted it. Hmmm. I'll try and find a copy...

...ah, here it is:

Tim: So we wake on the train, rushing towards Paris, to find the world outside dusted with snow - and a little snowdrift inside the carriage where the door doesn't close properly. It's cold. But as we get closer to Paris and transform the cabin from crowded beds to crowded seats, it gets a little warmer and the snow disappears.

Off the train we are met by more soldiers and police; two ragged men are getting their documents checked and it looks bad for them.

We have about €3.40 left and the Metro fare to our hotel is €1.40 each. I love the Paris Metro; there's about 60 stations on 14 lines; it's clean and quick and you only wait 2 or three minutes for a ride in the little carriages. How did we end up with our system - built 50 years later - of 3 big stations and big trains that come infrequently? An opportunity lost.

We check our bags and look for breakfast; it needs to be pretty cheap, sit down, and available. Naturally, we choose a Chinese restaurant - sushi and a noodle soup - and have a look round where we are staying.

When we were looking on-line for a hotel before we left Melbourne, one review of one hotel angrily said 'nothing on your website said you were next to a huge sex shop and that the hotel is the only thing on the street that isn't a sex shop'. Well, we're near there but really only half the shops are sex shops (but, in fairness, they are big) with bars, restaurants, grocery shops etc making up the balance. But it all looks harmless enough in daylight.

We make our way to the Eiffel tower. Lord, its big. It's really big. It's also cold, and there's our first real queue of the whole trip to use the elevators. From the top, the views are stunning but a little hazy, and there is a little warmth in the sun. But last night's crap sleep, a month of walking everywhere and dragging cases and today's queuing in the cold have done Polly in. When we get back to our room at at 4pm, she has a bath to get feeling back into her feet and we both nap. Later, I get dinner for us both; the closest portable meal I come across is take-away Japanese, which is pretty cheap and filling.

At the Eiffel tower today we saw a bunch of Australian boys tricked out in green and gold tee-shirts, wearing the flag, our flag, like capes (and no doubt freezing). In this city of culture, I felt ashamed; how can we be such oikes? How do others make anything positive of this? Later though, Polly reminded me it was Australia Day. Perhaps a bit of national pride - even expressed so gratingly - isn't such a bad thing, even in this city of culture (which, looking around, does really have a lot of big sex shops). Seemingly to settle the matter, I saw some sexual stimulants advertised in a window as being strong and from Australia. Is this how we are perceived - in France of all places - as a source of virility? We could do worse.

Happy belated Australia Day, mates.

Training for Paris

Tim: The next day, our last in Florence followed by a night train to Paris, was really pretty ordinary - probably the worst of the whole trip. We got a bus to the distant station our train was to leave from that night, but they - despite hosting at least two night trains every day of the year - had gotten rid of their baggage office. So we needed to wait 50 mins and get a train to another station, one really quite close to the hotel we just left.

I'm not necessarily saying it's their fault, but we got on the wrong train (there was a last minute platform change). We stopped at a station for 30 minutes, then got going again, picking up speed and passing by snow-capped mountains. This isn't a local train... We got off at the next stop, waited 30 minutes, then got the train back to distant Florence. At times like this Polly correctly reminds me of our travel mantra, which begins "it's all ..." and ends either as a) "... part of the adventure" or b) "...your fault", depending.

After a late lunch, I went to an exhibition on Leonardo's machines (which I missed when it toured Melbourne last year), then we both went to the museum of Serial Killers and The Criminal Mind. Ok, very low brow but I wasn't in the mood for Raphael. It was pretty interesting but ultimately distasteful and way too much. The best part of the day was a wander through Florence at night. Even in the heart of the old town, in the Piazza of the Signora at 7:30 there was hardly anyone around. We took in a meal, then went to the station.

Polly: Just when I thought I was totally prepared for just how fucking horrible overnight trains could be, we left for France. The first night train was from Napoli to Siracusa. A four person compartment, I slept on the bottom opposite a friendly Italian man. He and the other passenger alighted early the next morning, leaving Tim and I comfortable and spread out for the rest of our journey. I arrived tired and stiff, but chipper. It was all part of the adventure.

Our next night train was from Palermo to Rome. We had been unable to book bottom bunks - a minor inconvenience - or so I thought. With tendonitis raging through my left arm, getting up the flimsy ladder was a major production. Once I managed to lie in my bunk I had 2 mms to spare on each side of my fat butt. And not much room for error when rolling over. Did I mention that I'm someone who generally tosses and turns all night? You get the picture. The Japanese man we were sharing with snored all night - I know - I was awake.

And so to the Paris train. After what had been a difficult day, we sat on the station for an hour (train delayed, of course) in the coldest weather we had yet experienced. This time we had learned our lesson and insisted on bottom bunks. Then we got on the train. This time, instead of 4 to a cabin there were 6 bunks. And when setting them up, the bottom one consisted of the train seat being lowered. The backrest then slid up and out to form the middle bunk. This meant that the moulded arm rests then formed the roof of the bottom bunk. It was like my own expensive reservation at the catacombs. Once I managed to crawl in I could barely move. I decided that avoidance was the best strategy and headed for the dining car. In the old days I might have helped myself to sleep with a comforting bottle of wine (how exotic on the Paris train). The new clean living me was driven out of the restaurant car an hour later by the waiter watching Saving Private Ryan with the volume on eleven as he sat under a no smoking sign working his way (quickly) through a packet of cigarettes. He laughed in the face of those authorities wishing to fine him between 27.50 and 275 Euros.

So I returned to our compartment and climbed into my grave. At least it felt familiar - along with the continual beeping of someone's low battery mobile phone, there was the regular thundering snoring from the man above me. It was just like sharing a bedroom with my mum again, only this time I had no sock drawer next to me from which to extract "wake-up" missiles.

Sorry, no photos

We haven't been able to add photos to the posts I uploaded today. I hope to be able to edit them in tomorrow .

One more post, I think, unless we do a wrap on our return. Thanks for your interest; still avid reading all comments that a;re left

A technical term...

Polly: Things to remember when shopping for a leather jacket in Florence:

* Firstly, and most importantly, you must remember that the people who work in leather shops are also the children of God, and not just the pushy, overbearing arseholes they seem;

* Whatever price is written on the tag is at least two and a half times more than they expect you to pay - at least;

* The salesmen will remember you, and as much of your life story that they have induced you to share. It is safest to work out different routes home through the market to avoid repeated attacks (although this did prove very handy when Tim and I were separated and the salesman from the day before was able to tell me what direction he went in)

* It appears to be common practice to chase customers through the streets after they have left, having miraculously discovered something in the right size or colour (3 times so far - I even tried not wearing the distinctive orange hat);

[Tim: * If they agree to the price, you paid too much;

* 'Vera Pelle' is not a person - as we first thought - but translates as 'real leather. This is not that same thing as saying it means 'real leather', though...]

Polly: * And, most importantly, remember point one.

P.S. To any of you who take exception to the language in the above entry, I wish to remind you that I have a degree with a major in professional writing and you don't.

Skin in the game

Tim: In Florence now, and it is mostly wet. We have been to the Uffizzi gallery, which I have never before visited (although this is my fourth time in Florence). I'm glad I waited to go with someone who gave a damn about art, someone who can give me a little background as to meaning and context. They too had sculptures from Roman times, but the collection was thinner and poorer than the museum in Rome. I was rather pleased that in one room I was instantly drawn to what turned out to be the best picture in the room, a Michaelangelo. I might not yet be a lost cause.

We went to the church of Santa Croce, which is a huge church, simply decorated and seemingly much bigger than the famous Duomo. Here, rather incongruously together, are buried Gallileo, Machievelli, Michaelangelo and some minor Bonapartes. Polly initially refused to enter a church you had to pay for, but I asked her to think of it as a museum. We also had a free tour given by a nice American university student.

We also shop for a leather jacket for Polly. On our first day as we approached the first shop in the market, I lost concentration for a second or two and woke to find both of us inside wearing leather jackets, and listening to talk of stupendous discounts, ruinous discounts, but for today only. Not seeing what we wanted, we went to leave but somehow found ourselves in different jackets, jackets apparently of magnificent quality, unequalled softness. Somehow we got out, but found the same thing happening at the shop next door. From that moment on, we listened to no more called imprecations and met no more eyes and got out of the market district.

The next day we went to the more established leather shops. In the first, the man tried to find the right size and style but didn't have it, but his friend who was lounging around when we arrived took us on to his shop. I was feeling good about this - personal recommendations, people you could trust. Regretfully, nothing there but 'if you try my brother's shop'...who couldn't help, but passed us on to a neighbor, who passed us to his friend...and so on. The value of the personal recommendation gets diluted when you end up at every merchant's store anyway. We ended up the day wiser but with no trophy pelts.

The following day, Thursday, was bitterly cold and wet. We spent the first half in our room looking out our rain-streaked window at the park, then walked down towards the cathedral. Whilst I had a quick lunch at a stall in the market - a steaming soup amongst the market workers - Polly did some last-minute shopping. I finished earlier than I thought and went looking for her, only to find her surrounded by snapping sales assistants in a leather jacket shop. One of the men left the shop; he returned in 5 minutes with a jacket under his arm. It fitted, and it looked good. Mirror poses were struck. Mouths were pursed. An exploratory price was floated. Jackets were swapped for raincoats. Another price followed, and another. A leather jackets was reinstated, with more posing, pursing of lips. A minor flaw was posited, counter-claims of overall quality made. Meaningful looks were directed at me. Another price was mentioned; a jacket purchased. Casual talk of a second jacket. Minor interest, building. A price, then another, much less. Mirror posing, another sale. All during this some American girls flit around. After they have gone, the owner of the shop says they have been in 3 times today.

We return
to our rooms with the jackets, try them on, tell ourselves about how good they look (and they do) and how much under-budget this holiday was (and still is).

With the remains of the day we visit the cathedral. I'm fascinated by the basement where there are excavated layers of buildings beneath Brunellesci's dome (that which when constructed in the 1300's was the first since ancient times). There are the remnants of Roman buildings, large paleo-christian mosaics and the foundations of a previous cathedral and it's subsequent modifications, all stratified and co-existing. Fascinating. We walk until dark and the cold defeats us and we get an early dinner - as we the pass the leather jacket shop the American girls are back, still dickering - then warm bed and reading. Our last full day in Italy and we think back how long we have been doing this; it's nearly been a month. It's been great, and it is great, but we're homesick and missing our nearest and dearest.

The Siena Dream

Tim: Ok, I think this flu medicine is too strong because Siena slipped by me like a dream. We spent a couple of nights walking the Campo, the big square with the tower and horse race. We went to the Basilica twice, the second time because it closed for mass on Sunday morning. We had a quick lunch or two - we are trying to economise - and some okay dinners. It was sunny and bright, but dreamy; it all seems so vague. But the television, long standing friend, talks to me in a soothing language I can understand.




Watched the Italian
'Deal or No Deal' again. Impossibly, it sometimes goes for 60 minutes in primetime and has no ads. It is strung out by the host who struts around the set, talking on a megaphone, singing, dancing, sighing, but mainly talking and running his hands through his hair. When they want to offer a deal, the phone will ring, he will answer with 'Doctor?', talk for 30 seconds, argue a little, silently rub his chin then in a resigned manner offer the contestant a deal. When the contestant gets lucky there is barber-shop music and much excited strutting; when they guess wrong, there are funeral dirges on strings and close-ups of the tears. Polly tells me she would fail a media studies student who handed such hackneyed work in. Wouldn't miss it.

Later, I began to watch a debate on the state of Italian hospitals but began channel surfing up and down. I settled on someone singing, whilst acrobats in orange jumpsuits sprung around the set on bungy cords. Polly looked up and asked if this was still the hospital debate. I didn't know.

On another channel, women painted their breasts in bright colours, pressed them to canvases and the boyfriends had to guess whose canvas was whose. I turned the channel over; there were going to be no winners here.

Someone on another channel was singing badly as others did sychronised swimming in a round pool.

Polly : Oh, for a video recorder...my Year 11 unit on representations of women would be complete. So far they have been having orgasms whilst eating, buying cars and having furniture delivered. They show almost as much joy, but manage to keep most of their clothes on, when mopping the floor. Almost every show is hosted by a middle aged man with a spreading girth who is accompanied, it would seem, by his very attractive and scantily clad granddaughter. We wouldn't show such obvious double standards, would we Darryl...or Bert...or Ian Turpie.

And for a quick word about Siena itself...
We woke up on our last morning finally feeling that the worst of the cold was behind us. So we headed off to the Duomo. Now let me explain that I felt some reluctance here - i'm not at all fond of the idea of paying to enter churches. Let's face it - with the current state of Catholicism, they should be paying us to go to church. And I'm not just some Protestant tourist - I bat for the same team...I even promote them for a living. Anyway, my misgivings disappeared the moment I entered the building. It was glorious. In particular I fell in love with the room full of illuminated choral manuscripts from the 14th century.

Assisi & Helpful Hints

Tim: We have a new ,
way to pass the time; one of us will offer an invaluable critique of the what the other thinks /says /looks like /eats /smells like; the other will offer helpful hints on cleanliness /grooming /civility /manners. It brings us closer together.

Polly: In other words, he won't stop farting.

Tim: We spent today primarily at the two main churches of Assisi. What do I say? They were very nice and all, but the churches are all starting to run together for me. A fresco by a guy, a painting by another, statutes by a third. Great, great, and great. I'm glad Polly is still finding meaning in this. Perhaps it's because I'm

still sick. They love St. Francis so much here that they took some of his skin from around his eye and made a relic. Love's a funny thing, eh? Assisi is a long, thin town; the churches are at one end - the low end - and our hotel is at the high end, so the walk back for a nap is arduous. We come down to the middle of town to eat - at the same place as last night. There is an Australian family here, and they were here last night too, but since we ignored them last night, and again at the churches today, then we must either sheepishly acknowledge one another or feud. Let's feud. So we look at each other without smiling.



The restaurant is great. It is the off season and they are almost full, so I can only imagine what their tourist season is like (I imagine it is 'full'). It is run by a young couple who look very good together, compliment Polly on her Italian, have a beautiful restaurant, make wonderful food but who are making me poor. But I feel good.


Watching more TV at nights, after 2 weeks of none.

---

Next day, and we need to get to
Siena. We both study my encyclopedic timetable of Italian trains with more than 1,000 pages but just can't find a way that doesn't take 5 hours. I talk to the tourist office and they tell me there is a direct bus that takes less than 2 hours! Fantastic! When? In 15 minutes, from a place 20 minutes away - and after that, 6 hours from now. Ok, another day in Assisi - all part of the adventure. I take a walk up to the castle that looms over the town, and it is open. Unfortunately on the way I get some pollen (or DDT) in my eyes from brushing against a tree and so they become very sensitive; on the castle tower I have a great view of the town surrounded by a lake of cloud, or would have if I could see aught but tears.




The bus tickets to Siena are sold down near the cathedral, and the buses leave from a third point. We walk all the way down - so far down we are actually in clouds - buy the tickets, trudge up the hills again, sight-see, get our bags and go even higher so as to get a bus to the lowest point, where the bus leaves from. I think this flu medication is making me befuddled.

And we go to Siena on the bus. Highlights of the day:

* seeing the cathedral from above, floating like an island in a lake of clouds

* chatting in Italian to Sister Rita, nun of 37 years, who was very nice, answered different questions to the ones I thought I asked and had terrible teeth, and,

* watching the ugly bus driver try to chat up the Czech lady; brave but doomed.

Viterbo, Civita di Bagno Regio & Assisi

Woke to rain, and thought about our options. Over breakfast agreed we'd go to a distant village that sounded interesting, Civita di Bagnoregio. Since we were in Viterbo's old town, we went out through the closest gate to the intercity bus stop. Although Viterbo is touted as a medieval town - and it is - it is just part of a greater town of Viterbo which is more akin to Nunawading. We needed to change buses at the bus station, which was a huge patch of tarmac from which buses would arrive and depart. No-one spoke English, no-one was much interested in helping, and signs were few. No-one much wants to be a bus driver, especially if you have gits from another land hacking your language up; or so I reflected on the bus. I try to not be critical of what Italians do in Italy unless it directly effects me. I'm just an observer here, and to many an unwelcome visitor. Which is the main reason I didn't buy a ticket when we made the return trip; bugger 'em; but I get ahead of myself.


The bus trip to Civita di Bagnoregio looked pretty forbidding; the rain was quite heavy, and the mist was building up. The bus was empty except for us - was this wise? The trip ended at Bagnoregio itself, where we got off in the rain. The bus driver said we needed to walk or get another local bus to Civita di Bagnoregio.

From what we could see, the town looked dead. There was a single shop open and the occasional car, but no pedestrians, just mist and light rain. When the minibus came, the driver, talking loudly on his mobile phone, took us to the village of Civita di Bagnoregio. It was unspeakably wonderful.

The village is very old, perched on a rocky crag, surrounded on all sides and only accessible via a narrow bridge. On a clear day it would be stunning; on this misty day, with the bride disappearing into cloud, and the village only visible as a looming mass above us, it was highly evocative. As we walked across the bridge, we would see it more clearly for a moment, then it would be lost again.



















Within the village itself, it was beautiful. We only saw two other tourists, and one or two locals in our entire visit. We had had the impression that the village was largely abandoned, but all the houses seemed occupied. Took many photos, and left the way we came.




After a long trip home and a nap, spent the evening in the old town, after dinner poking around the medieval quarter. The popes resided here for a few years; a couple are buried here. The story goes that the cardinals spent three years in conclave attempting to elect a pope; the locals in frustration locked them into the hall and removed the roof. Shortly after that they elected Gregory X.

Next day, both feeling sick with colds and flu. Erk. We need to leave for Assisi where we have our next room booked. Although booking accommodation in advance takes some of the stress away, it also takes the flexibility. So, we dose up, pretend we're not sick and leave. There's a bus to catch - takes us three attempts to find the right bus stop - then a train. But the sight of Assisi on the hill enlivens us; after another short bus trip and dumping our bags (in a hotel with a huge, cheap room), we have a look at the cathedral, it's crypt and museum. The museum is excellent with some expansive 16th century oil paintings, frescoes and art. Amazingly, all were unprotected; there was no security or supervision; we could have done anything. Polly was great in explaining the significance of the religious art which made me appreciate it a lot more; I was able to help here with her religious trivia;; "who was the first pope who wasn't made a saint?" [Boniface II in 532] and "did you know there are quotations nested five deep in the bible?"

After a short nap, search for dinner but everywhere is closed. It's cold and very quiet. Truly, most off the people we see tonight are monks. But we eventually have a great dinner, make the ascent up through town to our hotel, watch a little 'Grande Fratello' [Big Brother] and Italy's 'Deal or No Deal', then to restorative sleep.

Polly: Assisi is another of those places tugging strongly at my Catholic roots. Having grown up in a Franciscan parish, the tales of Saints Francis and Clare are like familiar family history. The town itself is gorgeous, some of the art quite significant and the atmosphere welcoming.

Leaving Rome

Tim: Visited the same museum as a few days ago, just to finish. Marvellous; bought ruinously heavy/expensive books there, one on museum exhibits alone. Will take you through page by page when next I see you.

Polly: It was with much sadness and many kisses that we said goodbye to Senora Olga and her lovely B&B Oasi. Staying with her was like visiting Nonna - nothing was too much trouble, the furniture was covered to protect it from her ancient cats and we were constantly being offered more food. Breakfast consisted of juice, coffee, hot and cold milk, toast, bread, cheese,
cake, croissant, fruit, pastries and cereals. Mr. Olga (we never caught his name, although we know that he was born in 1932 and doesn't sleep well) would hover throughout the meal, refilling jugs and making sure we were eating enough. Halfway through breakfast Olga herself would appear, exclaiming, 'musica, musica' and put on a damaged Mozart CD that would always stop after the first track. I wondered if this had been going on for months, and she couldn't work out what was wrong with all of her uncultured guests who kept turning it off.

Tim: Polly has cleverly skipped over the part where she bought some shoes. Never mind. Harm's done now, let's move on. We took a Metro and a train packed with schoolkids to Viterbo, then, due to my aversion to the car-bound thieves some call 'taxis' we walked to our hotel through narrow streets. In retrospect, a mistake, it was a fair distance and these cobblestones are shaking the wheels on her suitcase to bits. We napped, then took a look at the town.


Gee, it was prosperous. Although after dark, its main streets were lined with expensive shops and well filled by ambling locals and the odd fat tourist. When I say, 'main street', I mean 'twisting lane' about 5m wide, closed to cars when the shops are open, that every 300m or so would open up into a piazza about as big as a suburban block. It was quiet splendid. We stopped in at the restaurant just opposite our hotel, nothing special, and had what Polly described as the best meal she's had in Italy as we watched 'Who wants to be a Millionaire?'

Rest day in rome

Tim: Paid €18 to have clothes washed. Fell into coma - nothing else recalled.

Polly's list

WHAT I'M MISSING (in no particular order):

Ellen and Tom
My pillow
The spa
Singing
More clothes
The pets
curry
Cricket
Diego, my osteopath
My hair straightener
The spa
Friends
My computer
The spa


WHAT I'M LOVING:

The coffee
No house work
watching Tim speaking Italian
The food
The shoes and bags
Buying presents
Eating out every night
The architecture
Italy itself
The dogs everywhere
The vibrant traffic
The Fanta
Ricky Gervais podcasts
The great styles of eye glasses and hosiery
The young men in their carabinieri uniforms (I'll have that one, then that one...)
My excellent miming skills
People leaving comments on our blog
The vest I'm knitting
Tim

WHAT I COULD DO WITHOUT:

The cigarette smoke
The dog shit
The tendency of Italians not to think of other people
The haggard faces of most women over 30 (I attribute it to smoking)
The price of coffee near the big monuments
Standing up to drink coffee
The beggars who take their children with them
The weight of my suitcase
Paying to use public toilets
Two single beds masquerading as a double
Tendonitis

Rome - an unexpected day

There I was, standing on the floor of the Italian parliament, thinking how lucky I was and how magnificent this all was. Not an especially large room, it was hemispherical and steeply raked, decorated in dark wood and red velvet. I looked at the crudely written name on the desk I was leaning on - D'Ippolito - who was he? Not a minister, because the ministers (including the Prime Minister) all sit at desks in front of The Speaker, looking out on the chamber. The President, when he appears here, sits at a balcony above all.

***

Over breakfast we had got talking to a couple of young women from Sardinia. They were very excited about the day they had planned, and managed to convince us that we should come along even though they spoke no English at all, and so were sketchy about what was ahead. A musical concert of some sort, then a tour of a government building, we gathered. They bustled us to the Metro, onto a train, off a train, down streets ('veloce, veloce') until we came to the building. It was grand, and we queued outside on a red carpet, behind ropes, surrounded by soldiers in ornate uniforms. Inside, we had to check everything we had in the cloakroom, so sadly no photos. But we'll remember...



Polly: As we said goodbye the girls informed us that the building is only open to the public one day per year.

After the tour we said goodbye to the Sardinettes and spent the rest of the day walking around Rome on the tourist trail - The PantheonPiazzaNavoneCampodiFioriArgentinaetcetc. Polly bought a Prada - yes genuine, fancy that? - handbag from an African that will allow him to buy enough paper and glue to make 100 more like it.











At the bus stop was a field of ruins - in the centre of the city - that was used as a cat sanctuary. Liking cats, I descended to a café to buy a souvenir but made the mistake of taking a breath - the air was yellow with cat piss! I ran away, not before my clothes permanently lost all their colouring due to the ammonia. True story.

Another nap, then out on the Metro to a new part of Rome to the movies to see Casino Royale (****). The night was full of people; it was great. But by the time we finished and walked down a long tunnel to catch a train the station had closed; we took a different exit and emerged in yet another new part. No buses here; when we got to a bus stop they were all going to destinations unknown (those that stopped). Very few people around. Polly fading fast after huge walks of the day, no taxis. Worrying. After a long walk, eventually a bus stop, eventually a bus, dinner at 11pm and fall into bed.