BonJourno from Rome

Joe and I in front of the Trevie Fountain
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Today we left Paris for Rome via a one hour taxi ride, a one hour queue wait for checkin and a one hour forty minutes flight on a budget airline. We caught a shuttle bus from the airport to the central bus terminal. We caught a taxi from the bus terminal to the hotel, and we are shore now that the Taxi driver basically drove us round two blocks giving us some narration on some local sites. Ah... when in Rome.. get ripped off by the taxi drivers!! Check-in went smoothly and we had a fantastic room. We are hoping when the bus tour starts tomorrow that all our rooms will be the same calibre as this one!

One of many monuments in Rome..
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We head out straight away walking the streets to find somewhere to have dinner. We fine a nice Trattoria and have lovely pasta and lumbrusco for dinner. The Tiramisu was to die for and the service very friendly. We decided to head back to the hotel and turn in.

The tour begins....

The next day we have a free day to ourselves until 6pm when our tour starts with a provided dinner. We decided to have a bit of a sleep in and meet Paula for breakky at about 9:30. After this we wander the streets, finding the famous Trevie Fountain (along with just about everyone else in Rome I think), the Pantheon and the Piazza Navona. We did the stopped at many and varied sourvenier shops along the way, an tracked down the "finest gelato in Rome" as stated in my travel guide. These treats were indeed delicious and hit the spot. It was nearly a 3klm walk out to Navona so on the way back when our feet needed a brief break we stopped for small pizza's and coffee. By the time we got back to the hotel we only had about 45mins before meeting up for the tour.

There is 44 people in all on our tour bus, a mixture of US and Aussie people - though we are heavily outnumbered. We loaded on the bus and went off to a "local restaurant" for a five course typical italian meal. Melon with brushetta and proscuitto, creamy mushroom pasta, canelloni, veal with spicy potatoes and cabbage with a side salad and strawberry gelato with fresh strawberries for dessert. We had a duet entertaining us with music and singing which gave a good atmosphere to the meal. We rolled out of the restaurant and back on the bus to the hotel, but not before being told in no uncertain terms to have our bags packed and outside our room by 6:30am and ready to go after the provided breakfast by 7:20am. aarrrghh...