Our First Week in Roma...

Well, first things first we have received our bags!!! Such a relief, especially after 4 days of waiting and worrying about what we might have lost...

Anyway, we've been having a lovely time in Italy so far. The first week has had us doing a lot of walking and finding our way around the city of Rome itself. There are so many wonderful things to see! So far we have been to the Pantheon (2000 years old and still an amazing and awe-inspiring piece of architecture), the Spanish Steps,



the Trevi Fountain, Piazza Navona, Campo de Fiori (see our happy beer and pizza photo), and many, many churches - each more spectacular than the last.







For those interested in poets and poetry, we stumbled across the Keats (and Shelley, Byron et al) museum, which was a pleasant surprise.

We have also been lucky enough to get out of Rome and stay for a night in a hillside town in Tuscany called Montepulciano. It was so picturesque - exactly what a Tuscan hillside town is cracked up to be.



Cam and I accompanied his sister Tanya and family for a weekend, wandered the streets, bought Cam some Italian shoes (apparently that's what Italian women notice on men first - we had to get Cam up to par), drank a 15 year old wine on the balcony of our hotel room, enjoyed a delicious Italian meal...did you know that Italians have 2 courses and a side dish before thinking about dessert? So the pasta dish is often first course. Something that would have been nice to know one night when I asked for seconds of pasta, and then had to eat another two courses (to be polite of course). Also using a spoon to eat spaghetti is just not done, and cappucino (or any other milky coffee) after dinner is purely embarrasing.

Anyway, we also went to a carnivale in Montepulciano after dinner. You'll be glad to know that the rides are the same, and the colours as garish as in Australia. Cam was pleasantly surprised to see that there were still shooting games though (unlike Australia), and he and his nephew bonded over this.



Cam has even tried his hand at negotiating the streets of Rome on Peter's (his brother in law) Motorino. He is still in one piece, which is relieving, and despite getting very lost, seems to have enjoyed himself. We all thought he cut a very dashing picture, and looked mostly Italian.



It's so strange walking down the streets of Rome and then coming across ruins, or an amazing church tucked away. We are convinced that you could spend years here and still not see everything. But we are going to do our best over the next couple of weeks. Tomorrow we are going to the zoo and a museum, and are in the process of organising trips to Venice, Florence and Assissi. Whew!