Rome held a lot of walking for us. Once again I was privileged to keep the company of Jan for the whole day. In the morning we opted to follow the walking tour Pam (our tour leader) ran, starting at the Colosseum & Roman Forum ruins, making our way over to the queue for the Vatican Museum which is on the other side of town from the Colosseum and finished over 1km (literally) from the entrance to the museum. The closing time was less than 90mins after our arriving there, hence our change of plan to see St Peter’s straight away.

After St Peter’s some of us wandered over to the square with three fountains (whatever its real name is) for a fantastic meal on a side street with the most efficient and resourceful matre’d of the whole tour. The food was so great I had no trouble downing two large courses. From there we went on to the Pantheon, a building as interesting in history as in appearance, but only lingered briefly, and there we split from the group.
Jan, Gareth and I decided to head all the way back over to the Colosseum where we joined a guided tour (taken by an Italian porn star who either really knew his stuff or was very convincing at making up stories) and nearly collapsed from exhaustion during it. After though, Jan and I felt a second wind in our sails and trekked back again to the Trebi fountain that we’d visited the day before. Legend tells that if you drink of the water you become a virgin again, though nobody I knew considered the risk of cholera worth the fabled promise. Nearby we enjoyed a coffee right on the edge of a side street that was away from most of the bustle but still had enough foot traffic to make sitting there interesting. The coffee (as is now the case for every other coffee I’ve ever tried) was not as good as in Florence, but still par for the high standard of Italy.
After that, over to the Spanish Steps, just to say we climbed them, and to take daggy photos.

Flight LH776
Frankfurt -> Singapore