5:30 am came really early this morning. We each only had 4.5 hours of sleep, but we knew (1) we would get an afternoon nap and (2) we had 4 lazy days on the island of Elba coming up, our vacation from our vacation. We popped out of bed, showered, ate and were out at the bus stop at 6:50. Just as we approached the bus stop our bus, number 492 pulled away. We stood dejected at the stop for a few minutes, trying to devine when the next bus would come. Yesterday, we bought 24 hour bus passes and used them for the first time at 7:06 am. If we were to maximize our passes, we needed to board some kind of public transportation in the next 16 minutes. Rome's busses are notorious for being on no schedule at all, so rather than watch our precious minutes bleed away, we hot footed it for the subway station about 10 minutes away. We inserted our passes into the turnstiles at exactly 7:01am and headed for the train. By now, we are getting very familiar with Spagna Station at the Spanish Stairs and the route from there to Trevi Fountain. What would we find at Trevi? Hundreds of people from the night before, crowds still milling about or a peaceful and quiet street devoid of humanity? We could hear the rushing water as we approached, yet no crowd sounds. We found only 10-15 people milling about. Perfect. It was 7:30 am.
We took some pictures of ourselves at the fountain, then noticed a bride to be and her future husband with a chalkboard sign saying "Save the Date" with a date in Roman numerals looking nervously about. Talking to them, I found their photographer was late. I offered to take photos of them in case he did not show. They looked thankful, but were quite certain he would come. Sally and I sat and enjoyed the fountain for another 10 minutes. Glancing back, we saw the photographer just arriving. Now we had two shows to enjoy, a beautiful fountain, and the antics of a lovely bride and her husband posing, leaping and hamming it up for the camera.
Our next stop was the Pantheon. It opens at 8:30 am and we wanted to get in and enjoy it before the crowds began arriving. We got to the piazza in front of it at 8:15 am. Sitting on the steps of the fountain in the center of the square, we got to talking with 3 ladies from Pittsburgh.
The doors opened at 8:30 am, so in we went, ear buds in ears and you know who giving us a guided tour. We enjoyed the basilica for about an hour before exiting against the crush of humanity that was now awake and entering the wide open space.
Sally had shopping on her mind, so we navigated by GPS and map to the main road through town, Via del Corso, and walked SE toward the Victor Emanuel monument. After eyeing it, we reversed course and walked the length of Via del Corso to the Spanish Steps, peering in windows and entering the occasional store along the way. From the tunnel under the Spanish Steps that leads to the Metro, we took a side tunnel that leads to the Borghese Park. A series of 4 underground escalators carries you up hill and quite a distance until you pop out above ground in a super big park, reminiscent of New York's Central Park. We walked to the Borghese Gallery to check on unused tickets. Finding none, we stepped back outside for lunch of baguette and cheese on a shady park bench before wandering through the park more. Satiated, we descended the escalators and rode the Metro back to our stop, walked back to our B&B and took a nap. It was now about 1:30 pm.
Up at 4:00 pm, we made a quick trip to the grocery for supplies for Elba, then again approached the bus stop to wait for bus 492. 25 minutes later, after 5 other busses had passed by, we finally got on our bus. Not knowing exactly where the bus went, I tracked our progress on my phone. We finally jumped off next to the Victor Emanuel monument. We then climbed up the back side of it to an overlook of the Forum. We had picked a wine bar that served dinner in this area. About 15 minutes of walking brought us to its location. While eating a wide variety of salads and meats we struck up a conversation with the ladies at the next table. One was from Tennessee, a community college professor who brings art students to Italy each summer. With her was her friend, also originally from Tennessee, but now living full time in Rome, making a living as a street artist. They were a lot of fun.
Dinner was $3 a plate! Wine was $6 a glass. Our excellent meal was $12. After dinner, we had a gelato from a local vendor, then began walking back to our B&B. Our route took us by Trevi Fountain, a madhouse of people and street vendor - its Friday night. I decided to take a slightly different route back so we could see some new territory. As the streets wound their way around, we kept moving. Suddenly, I noticed I was going in the exact opposite direction of our B&B! Keeping a wary eye on the GPS, I corrected my mistake and worked our way back across town, finally finding the bridge crossing at St. Angelo's fortress. It was amazing to once again walk random streets all across Rome and find everyone of them filled with people. The streets are totally safe. There are so many people-families, couples, groups, gun toting army personnel, etc out on the well lit streets along with mid to lower 70º temperatures that it is a very comfortable place to be.
We made it home about 10 o'clock. Showers, a load of laundry and packing got us ready for our train ride to Piombino on the coast where we will catch a ferry to Elba.
About 11:00 pm, peals of thunder began booming and the rain started falling in sheets. As I write this at 12:10, the storm is still raging on, 5-10 lightning flashes a minute and torrential rains. It is glorious.
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