Bearings

Not a great sleep, worried I’d miss the alarm, but did get some before getting up at 2.30am and getting ready and the taxi arrived bang on 3.15am.
All went very smoothly at the airport and we had coffee and our BLTs then boarded….very busy plane.
We were both able to sleep most of the way, thank goodness, and arrived feeling not too bad. Delighted to find it was sunny rather than the forecast rain and although annoyed the driver wasn’t already there to meet us we enjoyed standing outside soaking up the warmth. He eventually arrived about half an hour late and took us to the apartment (thank goodness we won’t have to be in the traffic much….tge driving hasn’t improved since last time I was here!) and Salvatore was here to meet us and show us around. Compact but has everything we need and he was very helpful.
Quick change and left our bags then headed off to explore…about 11.30am by then. We were just excited to be here, soaking up everything from the sounds of the car horns, the chatter in Italian (Duolingo proving no help other than spotting the odd word), the sight of occasional ancient columns of churches squashed in between more modern apartment blocks and shops, the cobbles (so much smoother and laid in a different design to Edinburgh) and the sweeping views down wide streets of domes and statues in the distance. We were loving it. Glimpsed the Coliseum just around the corner from where we’re staying but that’s for tomorrow, so walked on through part of the forum and wiggled around back streets on our way to the Pantheon looking for somewhere to eat. Ended up in (rather too touristy) a little trattoria for some pasta lunch just because we were getting a bit desperate. It was ok but not the best, but that always happens on the first day somewhere and we’d enjoyed the lager, the sit down and watching the world go by our table. It was almost warm, there was blue sky….good enough!
Of course just by the Pantheon was one of the iconic sandwich shops which we should have waited for, but we can do that another day. I don’t know what it is about the Pantheon but it was one of my strongest memories from last time we came and once again I loved it….incredible structure and immense scale. Spotted a crucifix to send a photo of to VickyG and in the wee shops nearby some icons and statues of Mary to send to K, and even found the shops selling socks in liturgical colours that I remembered seeing last time (didn’t find the ones selling nuns’ underwear though!).
The clouds were gathering a bit by now but we just pushed on, walking up through Piazza Navona and across the river to see the Castel Sant’Angelo and then along to St Peter’s Sq. We were in the middle of the square trying to see where you stand to see all the columns in line with each other when there was a sudden rain shower (extra)and, given there was still lots of blue sky, a rainbow over the city. Very beautiful!
Our navigation went a little awry for a while as we tried to cut through a park down to Trastevere, and we found ourselves walking up quite a steep road with no pavement, but given we’re both having connection problems with our phones we were having to work off a tourist paper map and a downloaded offline phone one so no wonder!
Found a lovely little gelateria with (mercifully!) some seats outside and shared a scoop of strawberry and coconut gelato…delicious!…then walked on to find a bar. We explored a few found on TikTok but I suspect they’re better later at night as they didn’t look very inviting so ended up in one we passed that had tables by some lime trees and on a pretty lane with a luthier’s shop, sunshine on the pink house walls across from us and an impressive board of cichetti to accompany our drinks (extra).
After that we decided we didn’t really want dinner so just set off home, again soaking up the sights along all the little streets, and another rainbow above the river (extra) as the rain came again but this time more persistently. We bought some milk and other bits at a little shop then collapsed at home with a cup of tea and Wi-Fi, thinking about where to go tomorrow and following up on where we’d walked today….11miles and 24,000 steps!
We were in bed by 8.30pm and straight to sleep!