I woke at 07:00 to #1 sleeping perpendicular to me – as eleven year olds do. I tried to sleep for a while longer, but after tossing and turning for an hour, with my back becoming stiffer and stiffer, I gave it up as a bad job. I’ve been up a half an hour now researching tickets for the Colosseum. It’s the one thing my husband wants to see while we’re here. Of course I want to see it too, but it’s ‘his thing’. So I’ve found what seems to be the only thing available for today’s dates, well out of the twenty I checked. I have my limits people. It’s €241 for the five of us. Beggars can’t be choosers. It starts at noon. Just over three hours. I’ll have to get the lazy feckers out of bed! Well I booked it anyway. I got my husband out of bed, who went to grab some things for breakfast and we feasted on yogurts, fruit, bread, and cereal.
Our tour was supposed to start at noon. We figured we’d leave around 10:30 and grab an Uber for ease. I had a phone call just before we left advising us that the tour would start at 12:30. We decided to leave anyway. The Uber said the fare was x1.6 which I thought was odd, but whatever. We didn’t realize until our tour started, that there was a huge bicycle race through the heart of Roma. Most of the streets were blocked off. It was difficult to get anywhere. The tour itself was detoured all over the place. I found it very hard going. My knees and hips are bad at the best of times. Rome – certainly near the colosseum – is extremely hilly. All the streets go up and down. Most of the streets are made of cobble stones, either small uneven ones, or huge ones, with massive pitts between them. There are numerous steps up and down all over the place. Inside the colosseum itself, the steps are very steep. I found it excruciating at times today.
The colosseum was very impressive as was the forum. The tour itself was great. Our youngest, #3, who’s nearly six, did great for the most part. She held hands with the tour guide for the first half of the tour. She was really well behaved. It was tiring for the adults, let alone the kids. I was wrecked at the end. It was well worth though. It was a fabulous day – sunburn and all.
Despite everyone being tired, I was on a mission from God (my psychiatrist). He wanted me to see a particular sculpture, Mosè di Michelangelo, in the Basilica di San Pietro in Vincoli. I have no idea why he wanted me do to this. He told me to bring him back a photo, and he’d tell me then why he wanted me to. Who am I to ask?
We grabbed dinner around the corner from the Basilica. The kids were wrecked tired, and starving. We fed them and watered them. We managed to get a cab home. Uber were charging €67 because if the race. It’s normally €25 to\from our house. The detours and the surcharge caused the sky-high price. We finally found a cab that said he wouldn’t take us, because we were five people not four. He tried to mime that he would be imprisoned if he was caught. He took us anyway, and it was €20 – much nicer that €67. A win all around.
So we just got home. #3 just informed me she saw nineteen penises today. I presume she means on statues. Otherwise Roma has a serious flasher problem. Bless her little heart. I was so proud.
Running Half Empty 