Days 1 & 2 Tues & Wed, October 20 & 21

Anticipation can be such a joy and such a pain. A kid waiting for Christmas waits with happy anticipation. A death row inmate waits with dreaded anticipation. I lie in bed this morning somewhere in between, but definitely closer to the Christmas kid than the inmate. Spending six weeks walking from Lucca to Rome sounds amazing and I can’t wait to get started. But, nagging in the back of my mind is that daunting uncertainty-will we be able to find a room, how will my body hold up, will we get drenched with rain, are my clothes adequate for the conditions we will meet and on and on. Still, if I can quiet the voices of doubt and remember that with our preparation the universe will take care of us, then moving forward with confidence becomes our mode of travel. 

We have been packing for a couple weeks, making clothing choices, toiling over what toothbrush to bring, how many pieces of KT tape, what items are in the first aid kit, in the repair kit and more. We have to remember that everything we bring I have to carry for six weeks.  Being light is key. 

This year we dropped from two sleeping bags to one. In a pinch it will serve for the night, but mostly we use it as a down blanket to augment a scantily covered bed in a cool albergue. This opened up much room in the pack, something we sorely needed last year when we hiked from Assisi to Rome. 

I carried a long sleeved, collared shirt last year, but after reviewing photos a few days ago I found I never had it on with my fleece pullover and puffy coat. I had a nagging remembrance that I didn’t really need it, so it stayed home this year. More room and less weight in the pack. 

Sally also trimmed down her supplies, leaving at home a dress she took last year, among other items.  

The wonderful Caldwells drove us to the airport in Portland this morning, picking us up at 8:00am and arriving at the airport at 9:30. TSA precheck got us through security without a line and by 10:00 we were seated at our gate awaiting our flight. 

We met a young woman with her first child, a baby girl, traveling to Minneapolis to visit for 10 days while her husband was on a hunting trip. 

The flight to Minneapolis was uneventful. A three hour layover afforded us time to stretch our legs by walking the concourses. 

Boarded the flight to Rome at 7:45 and were airborne by 8:20. We were in a middle row of three seats with one seat empty. Not enough to stretch out and sleep, but the extra room is nice to sprawl out our junk.  I’m still amazed that something as huge as these planes holds together and gets off the ground and then flys halfway around the world without refueling or breaking down. Stunning. 

We landed at 12:10pm in Rome, Rome time. Getting into the EU through customs was photo identification and a passport scan, never talked to a soul. We bought bus tickets and rode to Termini Station. The weather was sunny with occasional clouds. We stopped into a WindTre mobile phone shop to buy a SIM card for Sally’s phone. They were having a sale, one eSIM and one physical SIM, each with 200 Gb of data and unlimited calling for $41.00, for both. It took about half an hour to complete the deal and get the SIMs switched on. They only last 30 of our 44 days. We will have to figure out what to do at the end of 30 days. I have unlimited data for the entire trip through Holafly, but Sally’s phone will go dark. 

Having sat for the past 16 hours we decided to walk the 1.3 miles across town to our lodgings, the Queen Palace Suites. As is typical of Rome the streets were busy with continuous streams of pedestrians and vehicles. We worked our way through them, stopping once to retrieve our umbrellas from the pack when a two minute rain shower found us. 

Sally was certain we were at a hotel with a 24 hour front desk. When we arrived at our destination according to our phones we couldn’t find a hotel front. We started to walk around to the back, but met with a local woman who said we should look for the address on the building, 21, as it was probably behind a single door front on the street. She was right. We soon found #21 and stepped off the street an into the building with that address. A sign on the interior wall said the Suites were on the 3rd floor. We took the elevator up and found the suites, but no one was there to let us in through the locked door. We activated our new SIM cards ( we were hoping to do this from the quiet and comfort of our new home) and called and emailed the number in booking.com. The proprietor had us text a photo of Sally’s passport, then texted she would arrive in 10 minutes. She did, let us in and showed us to our room. I was fine.  

Sally showered and I napped for an hour, then about 5:45 we started walking to Piazza Navona where we were to meet Franny, Jonathan, Nicki, Tom and Susan. We were early so we strolled the piazza until we spotted Jonathan and Franny. Soon the 7 of us were seated at an outside table talking about there just completed walk on the Francigena and our upcoming one. Dinner lasted over three hours as we swapped tales and caught up on each others lives. I was begging to fade. It was now 9:30. We had been awake for about 30 hours, not counting any tiny bit of sleep we might have picked up on the flight. Although everyone was delightful, I could feel the pains associated with lack of sleep creeping in on me. We walked back to our room, stopping to buy half a dozen eggs and two yogurts for breakfast. We were in bed by 10:00 hoping for restful sleep. We are meeting them at the church of Santa Maria Maggiore at 9:30 tomorrow morning, about a 20 minute walk from our room, then off to a guided tour of St. Pete’s with Nicki as Tom and Susan head to the airport to fly to Morocco for another 3 or 4 days of walking. 

Sally on Rome’s narrow sidewalks, walking to our room. 

In Navona square as the sun sets

Tuesday, December 2, 2025 - “Transition Day” Colosseum, Emmanuel Monument, Fiumicino , - 0 miles (ptp), 7.5 miles total - 0’+ 0’-

Sally liked to say this was the day she got to sleep in.  And we did, until 7:00am. We did move slowly this morning. By the time we got all packed up, ate breakfast and was ready to go see a bit more of Rome it was 9:45am. Our hosts said we could leave the pack in the kitchen area for the day after we had checked out and that is what we did.

We walked to Termini station and took the subway a couple stops to the Colosseum station. Here we walked around the base of this colossus and read Rick Steves history and description while seated on a bench.  It had rained last night, we heard it on the roof of our top floor apartment, making it hard to find a dry place to sit, but someone before us had soaked up all the water off this bench, leaving it dry for us.

We didn’t really need nor want to pay to get into either the Colosseum or the Forum, we were happy to just stroll around the outside and take in what we could. The rain had filled in all the spaces between the large round rocks that the pavement here was made of making it a challenge to hop from rock to rock without getting wet feet by stepping in-between.

We wandered up Via Die Fori Imperiali past the Forum to the Monumento a Vittorio Emanuele II, that massive marble monument to the unification of Italy back in 1861. We had walked past it many times in the past, but never climbed its marble steps. We entered past the man guarding the gate and climbed to the top level. We enjoyed the view and stopped at the cafe for a coke before heading back down.

We decided to walk back to our apartment, the walking distance to it only slightly longer than back to the subway and from Termini home. Strangely, we found ourselves walking the same route we had the past two days, up the Via Quattro Novembre. Is this the only road in Rome that leads to our apartment? We detoured off onto the Via Nationale instead of the Via Panisperna as in the last two walks. This route had more people and shops, a better alternative.

Back at the apartment we asked the cleaning lady if we could use the restroom, then I grabbed my pack and the other bag and we walked back to Termini to catch the bus to the airport. As we were walking along the side of Termini station toward the line of buses that ferry people to and from the airport we saw a Donar Kebab shop across the street. We darted across and ordered to Panini Kebab’s to go, one for dinner tonight and one to eat between flights tomorrow in Munich. 

On the way to the airport it started to rain hard. We grabbed the pack out of the storage under the bus and hustled into Terminal 3 where we texted our hotel. They drove up in their car and gave us a ride to the hotel, just 10 minutes away.  I had mapped the route a month ago and saw that we could walk the 3.5 miles in less than two hours, but was super thankful we had hired the car now that the rain was thundering down.

We had to get up at 3:00am for our 7:00am flight to Munich. We ate our Donar Kebab dinner. This is the first night in a month that we aren’t planning the day after tomorrow’s lodging or bus rides or hiking route or where to get food. The only thing we have to do tomorrow is get up, ride to the airport in the hotel provided car, get on a couple planes, get in the Caldwell’s car and ride home. With the spare mental time Sally Christmas shopped on the web. I watched the first episode of Stanger Things Season 5 and a little bit of the Godfather. We crawled into bed about 7:00pm and were both quickly asleep. A mellow last day to our trip.

Monday, December 1, 2025 - “The Sistine Chapel All To Ourselves” - Sistine Chapel, Vatican Museum, St. Peter’s - 0 miles (ptp), 7.5 miles total - 0’+ 0’-

We planned this day over a month ago. Drawing on our past experience visiting the Sistine Chapel, we were hoping to avoid the shoulder to shoulder crowds in the chapel floor and the docents shouting “SILENCIO” every few minutes. How do you avoid a crowd in what is arguably the most popular tourist attraction in Europe?  The Sistine chapel is at the end of the Vatican Museum, sort of like the last exhibit. To tour the museum you have to sign up for a timed entry. Our plan called for us to schedule our entry to the Vatican Museum for the first available time slot, 8:00am. We booked this way back at the end of October. Our hope was to get in first, run the length of the museum to the Sistine Chapel and get there long before the rest of the crowd worked their way through the exhibits, at least an hour, and have the chapel to ourselves. Today was the day we would find out if our evil plan would bear fruit. 

We were up at 5:45am this morning and on our way to the metro line by 6:50am. We walked from the Ottaviano station to the Viale Vaticano and walked up to the entrance, arriving about 7:20am. We were about 20th in line. About 7:50am they starting checking passports and we advanced to the entrance doors (the Vatican is its own country, hence the need for a passport). Inside we went through security.  They told us we had to check our umbrellas, couldn’t carry them through the museum. Bummer. How many people would get in front of us while we waited in line to check our umbrellas? There was no line and checking the umbrellas was quick. We hurried up the stairs and over to the entrance booth where they scan your tickets. There are about 6 scanners side by side to accommodate the crush of people, each with an employee to watch the operation. I held my phone to the screen, the gate opened and I was in!  I scrolled to Sally’s ticket and reached back over the screen to the scanner . . . nothing happened. ????  My competitive side looked over at the other aisles expecting to see the masses flowing in, yet they were all stopped too. All the scanners had lost their internet connection and had gone offline. If we had gotten here two seconds earlier, Sally would have made it through the turnstile and we would be racing to the Sistine chapel while everyone else was stopped by the cranky gates. Instead, we were trapped. The minutes ticked by and our hopes of seeing the Sistine sans crowds started to fade. 

After what seemed an eternity, probably 90 seconds, they came back on line.  I scanned my phone and the machine balked. People started streaming through the other turnstiles while ours languished. The attendant went and got an electronic device that cleared us through and we were off. 

We walked as fast as was politely possible down the length of the museum past the busts, the tapestries, the maps, through the Raphael rooms and finally to the last exhibit before the stairs up to the Sistine Chapel. During this whole sprint/walk we traversed room after room of exquisite art without another person in the gallery with us nor behind us, except one couple that had the same idea we did. 

At the last exhibit before the chapel we were held up by a docent that told us the chapel would not be open for another 10 minutes. As we impatiently waited a small group of about 12 of us piled up at the doorway. Finally, it was 8:30 and he let us go. Up the stairs we rushed and into the chapel, first and only ones there. For the next hour, Sally and I, plus maybe 20 other people that straggled in had the magnificence of Michelangelo’s masterpiece to ourselves. We listened to Rick Steve’s excellent history and description of the roof as we gawked open mouthed upwards. We pointed, shared things we noticed, snuck a few photos, got yelled at but not once heard “SILENCIO” yelled. Truly a gift. 

Satiated, we continued the museum tour which wound back to the beginning and with permission of a docent ducked a rope and started the tour again, this time to see the rest of the museum. Again we employed Rick Steves excellent audio tour and thorough enjoyed what we saw. The contrast between the empty galleries we had speed walked through and the mass of humanity that now filled the spaces was startling. We again entered the Sistine Chapel, now thick with people. We worked our way through like negotiating a tight box canyon in a Utah desert, finally exiting the museum about 11:30am. 

We had reservations to enter St. Peter’s through the holy doors at noon, but we were too far away to make it on time. We headed that way and arrived at the pilgrim office about 12:45, got our leaflet with our instructions on what to say when and took a seat on a nearby pillar base to wait for our group to form. 

About ten minutes later a lime green jacketed woman came over with a big wooden cross with the painted emblem of the 2025 Jubilee year on it,  handed it to one of the eager people in our group, opened the gate and we began our long trek to the holy doors. Of course, we had passed through them last Thursday, but this time it was more official. 

It took about ten minutes to reach St. Peter’s square where we had to detour to the right to go through the metal detectors before continuing on up the stairs and through the now open doors. It appears they hold all others passing through the doors to allow us sanctioned pilgrims through without the general rabble. 

Once inside we put in our headphones and listened to Rick Steves yet again, this time he described the cathedral, its history and what we were now seeing. We passed out of St Pete’s and began searching for a Kebab place for lunch. We found one right across the river and stopped in for Kebab sandwiches. 

We had been looking for Christmas presents and found a shop sporting what we were looking for on their website. Navigation in hand, we started for it. We soon discovered we were walking the exact same streets we had walked last night, only this time we were walking them in the light.  We found our shop and were delighted to find the articles we were seeking. Gifts in hand, we walked the final 200 yards to our place. It was only about 4:30pm, but I felt exhausted. I flopped into the bed and lay there with a full body ache, one of completely spent fuel. I wrote a bit, but mostly just zoned. Were the previous 29 days catching up with me?

About 6:30 I roused myself to start cooking dinner, stir fry vegetables and spinach tortellini.  Dinner was delicious and we ate everything we had bought the night before. 

At this point in the trip we had only one more connection to make, one more plan to implement. We had reserved a room near the airport as our first reservation for the trip back in October. It was three miles from the airport. Now we just had to make sure we had transportation from there to the airport Wednesday morning. I had searched and found a bus that would take us from the airport to our hotel, Porto Di Claudio or at least within a quarter mile, but no bus went early enough in the morning to get us to the airport two hours before our 7:00am departure. We knew the 7:00am departure was going to be a pain to work with when we booked it, but the flight price was excellent and the total travel time with layovers was the best we had found. 

Sally got on WhatsApp and communicated with the hotel and found they would transport us to the airport at 4:00am for €25, beating a taxi or Uber by about half. With our last connection cemented, we called it a night. I felt bad. Here we were in Rome, 7:30pm at night, the whole city out there and I was too tired to go explore. I guess there are limits, although I hate to admit it. 

Something you never see, the galleries of the Vatican Museum free of crowds. Sally and I race to the Sistine Chapel to have it alone. 

Something you never see, the galleries of the Vatican Museum free of crowds

Something you never see, the galleries of the Vatican Museum free of crowds

What it looked a few hours later on our second pass through 

Our plan worked. We are nearly the only ones in the Sistine Chapel

I snuck a photo of the ceiling. Being the only ones there and 10 docents watching, I got caught and yelled at. I professed to be adjusting my audio tour. 

 

Back around to the beginning, we viewed the art this time through 

Gotta love the old Greek statues the Romans found

One of my favorite of Raphael 

Statues and statues 

Beginning our trek to the holy doors on this Jubilee year

Approaching St. Pete’s 

Through the holy doors

Sally pauses to touch the holy doors

Our room in Rome

Our room in Rome

Our room in Rome

Sunday, November 30, 2025 - “Travel Day-Bus-Bus-Metro-Feet” - Amalfi to Rome - 0 miles (ptp), 6.9 miles total - 0’+ 0’-

What a glorious morning!!  The sun is shining brightly, low on the horizon having just appeared on this crisp last day of November. We are down on the waterfront/bus depot early, hoping to get a prime seat on the bus that will ply the Amalfi Coast road back to Salerno. There are a number of buses parked at the station. It is 7:30am, 30 minutes before the scheduled departure time. We notice a couple drivers hanging out in a bus talking. They open the door as we approach. Upon inquiry they tell us the bus we want will be parked right in front of them in a few minutes. True to form, it arrives in about ten minutes. In the meantime we mill around the square admiring the morning, the position of the town, the cool air, the rocky mountains above and contemplate how to capture the morning with our cameras. The morning sun casts a golden glow across everything, the faces of the buildings, the cliffs, the statues in the square. It is that magical time of the morning. After a few feeble attempts we give up. There is no way to capture this moment in time, bottle it and take it with us. We will just have to trust our aging brains to remember the look, taste, sound and feel of the morning. 

We board the bus while our driver is still back conversing with his friends on the bus behind. We scan our tickets and sit in our preferred position, front row, passengers side with a good view forward and out to sea. About eight other people also board. A few minutes before eight our driver returns and we leave the lot precisely at eight. 

The ride does not disappoint. The sun is glinting off the Mediterranean Sea as we twist and turn our way along this improbable coastal road. We pick up passengers often and the bus fills up although we don’t exceed capacity and everyone has a seat. From the lack of suitcases it is obvious we are surrounded by locals. 

We arrive in Salerno about 9:30am, 3 hours before our scheduled bus back to Rome. This will give us time to explore this city a bit, something we didn’t have time for on our way through last time. First stop, a pastry shop with cushy chairs to spend some time researching our next moves in Rome and which sites to visit that we have not visited on previous trips. Second stop, a survey of the bathroom at the train station. Has it changed since we were here three days ago?  Is it still a euro? Still clean and tidy?

We walk the car free main street of town, marveling at how many people are out this early on a Sunday morning. Sally likes to window shop. We make many stops to gawk at merchandise. I stay outside most shops, my oversized backpack makes me a liability in a shop, plus I have little interest in shopping. 

At the far end of the car free zone I direct us to the waterfront and we begin to stroll back toward our starting point. There is a wide walking path and it is loaded with strollers this morning, people of every sort, young, old, in strollers, in wheelchairs, joggers, couples, groups of men. At one point we sit on a bench and just watch the parade or in Italian, the passiggiate.

About noon we make our way to the bus stop. Not seeing a FlixBus parked there we move 50 yards to a waterfront bench, review our financial record keeping for the trip for ten minutes and then back to the bus stop where a Flexbus is parked and waiting. After a ten minutes wait the driver scans the tickets on our phone and we board. We ask the driver if she can unlock the bathroom and she angrily snaps at us in broken Italian/English to wait until we are underway. We don’t dare to ask why. About 30 minutes into the trip we try to use the restroom again, but the door won’t open. Sally walks to the front of the bus to ask if she will unlock the door. The angry woman behind the wheel spews some venom, yet the door still won’t budge. Another passenger, a guy in his 20’s tries the door with no success. He yells at the driver, in Italian, that the door won’t open. I decide maybe the door is stuck, not locked, brace myself and yank quite vigorously.  It doesn’t break, but it doesn’t open either. I reposition and try again, this time with little effort, it opens. Is she just messing with us?

The ride to Rome is uneventful, with only a few honks of the horn. We make a stop in Naples as we did before, then off to Tiburtina in Rome. Once there we stop at a kiosk and buy 8 metro tickets, figuring that will cover us while in Rome.

We ride the Metro to Termini station. From here we gps our way to our new apartment for the next few days at Via Agostino Depretis 65. We arrive on the correct street but it takes us a few minutes to find number 65, the addresses are high up on the building and hard to see, partially obscured by the weathering of the rock building. Once there, we have no way of entering. We WhatsApp the landlord and he buzzes us in, explains he will arrive in 10 minutes and tells us to go to the 6th floor in the elevator where he buzzes us into the apartment. 

This spacious apartment/home has been completely remodeled into 5 rental bedrooms with a large kitchen/dining/common room. We wait for his arrival at the kitchen table. We hear him open the lock on the front door and he appears in the kitchen.  He spends a few minutes explaining the operation of the place. He finds it surprising that we want to use the kitchen and says it is only available to a group that rents the whole floor. But, he decides to make an exception for us since we based renting the place on the fact that it did have a kitchen. 

Our apartment is spacious, with two bedrooms, one with a queen bed and one with two singles. It also has a large bathroom. It has all been beautifully redone. We asked about it before he left. It was his wife’s grandfathers place, handed down to her. They ripped out the interior, exposed the timber supported ceiling and brick walls and then carefully crafted an aesthetically pleasing space highlighting the timbers and brick with light. Very comfortable, too. 

We chilled for an hour, Sally taking a shower and washing her hair. Now it was time to go shop for food and find dinner out. We were both in the mood for Chinese food and searching we found one just a block away. We bought vegetables for tomorrow night’s dinner at the grocery just down the street, brought them back to the apartment, then navigated to the restaurant. We knew we were in a good place as soon as we walked in the door; every table but one was fully occupied and all with people of Asian decent. 

We had a nice meal for only €20, then plotted out the rest of our evening. We hadn’t been to the Spanish Steps yet. We mapped out our route and headed off. It was only a mile away in a straight line on the street our apartment was on. 

It is wonderful to walk the streets of Rome after dark. For the most part they are well lit, every shop is open (even on a Sunday night in November) and there are people everywhere. The only frustration is we can’t walk side by side because there are so many people and the sidewalks at times are quite narrow or are partially covered with cars parked up on the curb. 

Once at the Spanish Steps, and feeling energetic, we decided to walk to Trevi Fountain. It was somewhat in the direction back to our apartment, the final leg would complete an isosceles triangle, the base, somewhat shorter than the two legs, leading back to our room. 

We enjoyed the relaxed mood of the waters at Trevi and then started back to our lodgings. I used Apple Maps to plot our course home, but I think I didn’t select a walking route and instead plotted a driving route. Predictable, it was much longer and convoluted as it negotiated one way streets. About halfway along the route we were remarking at how long it was. The base of our triangle looked like a swollen, pregnant belly, adding quite a bit of distance. I replotted our route, selecting a walking route. The belly shrank in size, but the distance was still farther than expected. What should have been about 0.8 miles from Trevi to our room was still 0.9 miles away, even after walking for the previous 20 minutes. I scrutinized the route and found it was indeed the shortest route home. Where had the previous iteration taken us?

Another half an hour, sometimes on deserted or sparsely populated streets saw us home at last. We had not taped Sally’s feet before leaving on our “short” walk  she was fearful some blisters were forming. But, it was a fun walk and a great reintroduction to this amazing city. Plus, after all day on buses and subways it was nice to get some distance under our feet. 

Salerno’s harbor side walk

Sally in the led elevator to our Sixth floor apartment 

https://youtu.be/bvoYATzWHWY?si=-D0BcZNofI7qiqzQ

Driving the Amalfi Coast road

Saturday, November 29, 2025 - “Tourist Day” - Amalfi - 0 miles (ptp), 6.81 miles total - 0’+ 0’-

A day to sleep in!  . . .  Well, maybe not. There is a whole town and coastline to explore just outside our door and we only have this morning and tonight. We head back to Rome tomorrow morning on the 8:00am bus and today we head to Positano to explore it. No time to sleep. We can sleep when we get home. 

We were up and had breakfast of muesli in yogurt and tea. Out onto the street by 7:30am this beautiful, blue bird day. My thought was to travel inland on the main road of the town to its end, however far up the valley that might be. 

We progressed up marveling at the number of motor scooters we’re parked on the street. The river that runs down this valley is completely under the streets. Every once in a while you can hear it rushing below when you step over the iron grates that periodically dot the road. 

The town used to produce paper as an industry, starting like 1300 years ago. They used the exact same process from back then up until 1969 when they modernized their equipment. 🤪. Just above the paper museum we found a group of musicians gathering. They all wore the same clothing so we could tell it was an organized band. We continued up the road another few hundred yards to its end, then turned around to return. The band had collected all its members and was warming up. 

We stopped at a pastry shop to eat a croissant and have a drink. As we sat enjoying the morning and listening to the Italian being spoken around us we heard the band playing and marching down the street. They were good!

They finished their song in front of us and then milled around. We took the opportunity to head down toward the main square. Soon they were playing again and heading down right behind us. We ducked into a doorway and let them pass. 

Is this an every Saturday occurrence or is there something special happening today?  We learned from a conversation with a high school girl enjoying a treat at the cafe that this was the weekend they celebrate Saint Andrew’s birthday, the patron saint of the town. 

The ban played all the way to the town square, finished their song and then disappeared into a cafe for a pastry and coffee. It was fun to see the town’s people on their balconies watching and listening to the music. We returned to our room and prepared for our boat ride up the coast. 

Once down at the docks, we purchased two way tickets and then lazed in the sun waiting for our sailing time. Once on board, we sat up front on the rooftop seating where we would have a magnificent view of the coastline. In front of us we met Case and Sara from Winnipeg and had a lively talk with them as we glided up the coast. 

Positano was somewhat of a disappointment. Not sure what I expected, but it was smaller than Amalfi and composed entirely of tourists shops. The people of Positano have discovered the utility and beauty of paint. The stucco walls of their homes are freshly painted, giving the town a vibrant and fresh fell. Amalfi could take a lesson. Although Amalfi is bigger and more diverse, Positano wins for looks. Our return tickets were set for 3:30pm, but we boarded the 1:30 boat for Amalfi. This time the boat was loaded. We had two bus tours from Rome on board. 

Sally and I stopped to eat out near the beach, our second “meal” at a restaurant. Good, but not worth the price. 

We returned to our room for a nap, hoping to have the energy to enjoy the town this evening. When we came back out, the town square was full of locals, 99% of the tourists having left on their buses. 

We were just in time to see a parade down the Main Street of a crowd carrying a statue of the Virgin Mary and baby Jesus and then up the stairs into the church. We tried to FaceTime Andy so he could enjoy this tribute to his namesake, but he didn’t pick up so we shared the event with Jeff and Jackie. We got ahold of Andy immediately afterward and shared the Town square and stories with him. 

We wandered east on the highway to see what the vendors had for sale, then back to our room about 8:00pm. We watched a video on the history of Rome and then conked out. A very fun and enlightening day surrounded by amazing scenery on a grand scale 

We were awakened by fireworks a couple times during the night. At midnight and one, then at five and six this morning. They must really admire Saint Andrew!!

https://youtu.be/fPtEwQMdfSE?si=8Mcy9khj7Vndsapo

Amalfi Band plays during St Andrews celebration 

https://youtu.be/WQBQvkly9GA?si=e3x9vQZSsiiJBezz

Band marches into main square playing.